ange in africa...again

The Homecoming Queen

angeline — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 03:43:00 GMT

Well I can't quite remember where I left off last but I've been in Kenya for the last 8 days and it has indeed been a homecoming in many ways. The first few days were spent in Nakuru, visting the lake I'd already been to but Mich hadn't. There's definitely less flamingos than last time I was there but not sure if thats a seasonal thing. Aparently Kenya has been gripped by a sever drought until recently and the animals in the national parks have been literally dropping dead from lack of water.

From there we briefly returned to Nairobi before boarding the train to Mombasa. Again I've caught this train before but Mich hadn't but it was very much the same as my last experiences. Long, jerky and very delayed. We were scheduled to leave Nairobi at 7pm. We didn't pull out of the station until 3:30am, I shit you not. Apparently there was a derailment up ahead but when you're on a very tight schedule that doesn't matter and its a complete pain in the arse. Should've just paid the extra 1000KSH and flown. Mombasa is much the same as I left it, there's a few new shops but otherwise the same and I loved that. That really felt like coming home. We were welcomed with open arms by Patrick and Emily, my homestay family from last time. They have a new addition, 14 month old Natasha, who was very weary at first, having never seen mzungus before. She warmed up pretty quickly though and I swear she made me so clucky I could've put her in my bag and brought her home with me! So after a few days in the old stomping ground and a very tearful farewell later, we headed back to Nairobi (on a plane this time thank god!!) to be greeted by the rest of the family. Words really can't describe what its like to be reunited with people who have completely and unconditionally accepted you into their family. Kenyan hospitality has no end. I'm their adopted fair skinned daughter, seriously thats what its like. Its truly amazing and I'm counting my blessings at having two wonderful families. Didn't really do much in Nairboi bar hang out at home and head into town for shopping. I really love Nairobi hey and I don't get why it has such a bad reputation. The place is alive and vibrant, with a beating heart you can hear on every street corner. I love it.

So now I find myself sitting in the airport after yet another tearful farewell, thinking of ways I can return to this awesome country. Honestly if I wasn't due back at work on Monday I would've postponed my flight for as long as possible. I will return, I will be back, this continent has my heart and soul. Australia will always be home but Kenya and Africa will continue to pull me back like the tide to the shore. Love, happiness xo

You call it a massage, I call it being doused in oil and pummelled

angeline — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 22:04:00 GMT

Zanzibar = Paradise. The island is nothing but white sand, crystal clear water and this laid back way of life that's very easy to get used to. The first 4 nights were spent at Jambiani, a very chilled little village where we did a snorkelling trip and a spice tour. The snorkelling trip brought back all the trauma of the rafting incident, I basically sat there with my eyes closed and my head between my knees, praying for Jesus to get me through it alive. When we got to the island though, it was magic. We ate freshly caught seafood for lunch, and yes I actually ate some seafood! I ate lobster which was delicious, and fish and octopus and calamari, but of the last 2 I had one bite and went yeah not for me sorry. The snorkelling was pretty cool but it has nothing on the GBR. The spice tour was also pretty cool, basically got shown a bunch of plants, of which I was able to guess only 1, cloves, then had an awesome meal and bought a bunch of spices from the farm. I also managed to have the worst massage of my life while there, hence the title of this post. I'm covered in bruises from the rafting and I swear this woman went hmm bruise, i think I'll focus on that area with excessive force. I was laying on this grass weave day bed thing and she was pushing down so hard on me I thought I was going to go straight through it. Not in any way pleasant.

We also spent a night at Nungwi beach which I would definitely recommend over Jamobiani. Nungwi is party party party! And heaps more beautiful that Jambiani, you can swim right off the beach, no coral or rocks or sea urchins, so awesome. The only negative to Zanzibar is the blatant corruption that is everywhere you go. To get from Stone Town to the beach which is about 1 hours drive, there are 4 police check points and when they see white folk in the car, they'll find any excuse to get a bribe out of the driver. Apparently the police have quotas from the cheifs of how much they need to get in bribes each day. The staff at the Jambiani hotel we stayed at also told a number of horror stories eg. There was no electricity in all of Zanzibar because the council forgot to pay the bill to the mainland, so most hotels went out of business even though they'd paid their individula bills. Or the international development company that was prepared to invest $7 million in a sanitation/sewerage project, however the local council demanded $100 000 in "paperwork fees" before the project could be started, causing the company to pull out and the people of Zanzibar to continue to have no sewerage. The place is nuts.

And now I find myself in Arusha, after a 15 hour journey on a ferry, 2 busses and 2 cabs and one very sore back later. Tomorrow we head to Ngorongoro Crater for a bit of safari action, maybe get a bit lion king, sing a few songs etc. Although the place we're staying is delightful, I can't wait to get the hell out of Arusha. The touts are relentless and you can't go one step without someone trying to sell you something. I guess we all gotta make a living though!

Rafting down the river, the Zambezi that is!

angeline — Tue, 6 Jul 2010 01:38:00 GMT

Botswana is done and dusted, it was a sea of calm in the storm I've come to accept Africa is. The elephant incident aside that is! So from Maun we made our way to Zambia. 2 local busses, a ferry border crossing and an expensive as hell taxi ride later. We arrived in Livingstone, Zambia feeling pretty exhausted having watched the football the night before, getting 3 hours sleep then our mammoth journey. Livingstone is actually apretty cool place, totally livable. The mighty Victoria Falls was truly spectacular, thats theonly work I could think of to describe it and that doesn't even come close. We viewed the falls from the walks within the national park and got ridiculously saturated walking across a rickety bridge to view from a different area. I also almost entered Zimbabwe, there's a bridge between the 2 countries that you can walk across to the view the falls and as long as you don't actually enter Zim, you don't have to pay the $50 USD visa fee. Cos quite frankly, Mugabe has enough money. We also did a helicopter flight around the falls which was enjoyable despite my crazy hangover. Think 12 hours with my head over the toilet and somehow I managed to pull myself together for the flight. Straight after, the head was back over the toilet though I'm afraid.

Then came the rafting. I'm still not sure what possessed me to do it. I'm the biggest fraidy cat in the world. Because the water's so high we couldn't do the whole day of rafting which was just as well. Its a 45 minute hike down a cliff face just to get to the river. Needless to say my quads are destroyed. So we get into the boat and as part of the safety demo we all have to jump in the river to each practice a rescue. The water's freezing. We then start going down the river and on the first, yes thats right the first rapid our raft capsizes. The 8 of us are in the drink in the middle of the rapid. I felt like I was drowning cos I had water up my nose, in the throat and I couldn't catch my breathe. Wemade it back in the raft but not after I had bruised my hand, arm, both legs and bum. Not a happy chappy. Luckily we didn't flip again but we did lose a few people on the way, but goodthing the spotters in canoes are good at their jobs and got them back on the raft in a reasonable amount of time. I found out after that a few people die every year doing what i did. Thank f-u-c-k I didn't hear that before or I would've stayed on the bank. But I survived, I'd never do it again but I did it and it was actually pretty cool, flipping and almost drowning aside.

So now I sit on Zanzibar island, off the coast of Tanzania, truly paradise. The sand is powder white, the water is crystal clear and the beer is icy cold. After all the cold weather in southern Africa, its awesome to be somewhere thats a bit more like home. The sunshine is delicious! Well my dinner just arrived, Zanzibar beef curry, so I'd best be off to eat. Love, Love, Love!

Relaxation and Anxiety in the most peaceful country in Africa

angeline — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 18:39:00 GMT

Well so much has happened I guess I'll start where I left off last. Had a great time in Cape Town, went on a wine tour and got crazy boozy. Basically we visited 4 wineries, had multiple wines in each place and then went to watch the Bafana game with all the people from the tour. It was a massive messy night and we pretty much drank for 19 hours straight and didn't get in until 4am. The photos are hilarious. We also made it to Robben Island which was awesome cos I missed that last time. This is the prsion where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated and its now heritage listed. We got shown around by an ex political prisoner, a very humbling place.

From Cape Town we went to Rustenburg and the Nelspruit for the second and third games and well we all know how that turned out. But I have to say that these games were much more enjoyable than the first, the stadiums were smaller so you could actually see the match. I'm becoming a bit of a soccer convert actually, singing all the chants like a true hooligan. And even though we didn't make it through the fact that the one game we did win was against Serbia was so so sweet. I'm gonna give Dusko so much shit when I get back!!

After the last game we said our goodbyes to Michelle's family and hopped on the bus again, Botswana bound. I saw in a doco in South Africa that Bots has been named the most peaceful nation in Africa and I have to say that compared to South Africa, the place is sooooooo much more chilled out. It also seems a lot more economically balanced than SA. Like there's still poverty but its not the in your face shanty towns of SA and there's not the exorbitant wealth, mulit million dollar mansions of SA, just a lot more average middle class homes that could be seen in any suburb of Aus. Right now I'm in Maun, in the north of the country, having just retrned from a mokoro (dug out canoe) trip up to the Okavango Delta. The scenery is absolutely breath taking, just gliding along, not a care in the world, just you and the bush. That all changed when night fell however. We slept in a tent, there's no fences around the camp and there's no guns to scare off over curious animals. Of which there were many. Elephants about 10 metres away. Hippos coming out of the water and stampeding right past my tent. Various other grunts and weird animal noises. Anyone who knows me will understand how traumatic this was for me, as even at home in Gladdy I'm borderline schizophrenic when it comes to noises at night when I'm trying to sleep. Needless to say I basically lost my shit in the middle of the African bush. But the next day, rationality restored I came good and managed to go for a walk around with my guide, again completely unprotected, observing elephants and other wild life and it was pretty cool. So I have learnt about myself that I don't like camping in the bush in Africa and when I'm scared and I can't run away coz there's nowhere safe to run to, then I will lose my shit in a very big way. Good things to know about one's self!

There's nothing as sad, lonely or drear than to be in the World Cup Stadium with no beer!

angeline — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 02:16:00 GMT

Well I finally made it, in one peice, and game one down. The journey was about as good as any 27 hour journey can be be.. long, uncomfortable and sleep deprived. Then when we got to Durban, the shock of all horrors hits, what the... South Africa actually has a customs service now??? And they want to look in my bag??? It was all a bit surreal cos last time I just got my passport stamped and waltzed on in. My how things have changed.

So game one was Sunday night and what a travesty it was, for a multitude of reasons. 1. I realised how very little I know about soccer. Trying to follow what was happening was impossible and I realised that some die hard soccer fan had missed out on a seat because my ignorant arse just had to go the the World Cup. 2. But what I lack in knowledge I certainly make up for in enthusiasm. However the fact that we lost 4-0 was a bit of a sore point. Like seriously how embarassing. South African people seem to take so much joy in watching Aussies suffer too. 3. What I'm about to say will be shocking and devastating but hence the title of this post, the stadium ran out of beer at half time!!! I am not even shitting people. So needless to say I spent most of the second half with a bunch of other drunk Aussies running from bar to bar trying to find beer. Not happy Jan. And when I did finally find beer it was hot, then I got lost on the way back to my seat and then when I got back I found that Germany had scored twice more. All of this made for one drunk and unhappy Ange.

But I do have to say, all this aside, the vibe in Saffa at the moment is electric and I am loving it. Just arrived in Cape Town today which is awesome but bullshit cold. Seriously I never thought I'd utter these words but today I saw snow capped mountains in South Africa. Someone said it got down to -5C last night. I am literally walking around huddled like Mr Burns, teeth chattering trying not to freeze. But all good, going wine touring tomorrow so no doubt that will breathe warmth into my cold bones. Take care peeps xo

home again, home again, jiggety jig

angeline — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 00:56:00 GMT

i'm leavin' on a jet plane, don't know when i'll be back again!!! so here i am sitting at oliver tambo international airport in joburg with a mere 1 hour and 15 minutes until i board the plane to sunny oz, my island home, the land down under. sorry i'm felling a bit musical toady, hence all the song lines!! i'm super super super pumped about going home, its starting to actually feel real now that i'm at the airport! the last few days have felt a bit wierd being back in joburg, where it all began 7 months ago, it almost feels like i've come full circle. well not completely full circle cos i've done a lot and learnt a lot since i was last here.

so i guess i should explain myself a bit, in my last post i said i was staying in cape town and looking for work, planning on staying a few months. long story short i had a massive reality check, my bank is almost empty, my credit card is almost maxed so its time to come home i think! so after only a week of working at the backpackers i had o say, yep, sorry, i'm actually gonna go back to oz. they were really cool about it but i felt like an absolute arse cos another person left the week i did. so i spent the last few days in joburg, fairly quiet and its been raining so i wasn't able to do much. although i felt thewarmth of south african hospitality when a friend of a uni friend who lives here in joburg invited me to stay at her place last night, took me out to dinner, then today showed me around joburg, took me to lunch and then dropped me at the airport! needless to say, i'm very very grateful and will be opening up my door (wherever the hell that may be!) whenever she comes to oz!

so its the end of an era, the end of my african sebatical, the most amazing experience of my life to date..its still a bit wierd but it feels good to be going home. i know i'll be back, maybe in a few months or if not definately 2010, gotta watch the socceroos lose! i could sit here and write about all the things i've experienced, the things i've learnt about myself, about life, about the world and my place in it, about all the amazing people i've met, things i've seen, tasted, smelt and wished i hadn't, but i'll wait until i get home and i can do it in person with a cold beer in one hand, a vegemite sanga in the other, and a big fat smile on my face...till friday..take care..love to all...ange

life in the mother city

angeline — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 00:16:00 GMT

reverse culture shock in cape town, actually in south africa in general, but especially here. its like being in brisbane or melbourne, its got a real indie but super stylish feel to it. its a bit bizarre though, after so many months in east africa. but its grown on me after only one week and i've decided to stay here for a few months at least. there's so much to do in cape town and the last week has been action packed, chilled out, hot and cold, all rolled into one.

last friday i hiked up table mountain. well actually, i started hiking up table mountain but then 15 minutes in i went f%@k this, its way too hot and its was like hiking up my parent's driveway, only thats its all rocky and goes on for like a kilometre. and it was about 35 degrees so i just took the easy option and went with the cable car which was really mad. a little bit scary at first but such an awesome view. on top of the mountain you have panoramic views of all of cape town, very very beautiful. then on saturday i did a tour of the wine region just a few k's out of cape town and again on another 35 degree day, it really took it out of me. we visited 4 winery's and after the first one i was feeling a little bit pissy, and i was thinking shit there's 3 more to visit!! but its was all good, i managed to make it through the day with my dignity intact, tried many nice wines, some amazing cheese and had many a laugh along the way. don't know if they have them in aus but some awesome wines to look out for are fairview, simonsig and spiers. all very good but only a small fraction of the around 200 wine famrs in this area.

so the last few days have been spent exploring cape town, and there's a lot to explore, the waterfront, many cool leafy suburbs, the city centre, the markets, the beaches and in between madly looking for a job so i can stay a bit longer. have found a 'sort of' job where in exchange for accomodation i do a few shifts a week in a backpackers. not too bad cos i'll still be able to do something else on the side and its a chilled out job with very little stress. so anytime anyone wants to come and visit me, you're all more than welcome, cos who knows when i'll be comin home!

worth my weight in livestock

angeline — Tue, 5 Feb 2008 23:43:00 GMT

still in port st johns, still loving it, still having a great time with lots of great people. yesterday i went horse riding for the first time in 17 years and i had totally forgotten how painful it is! i couldn't even finish the ride cos my bum was so sore, plus my knees for some reason are also caning. but the scenery was absolutely spectacular, beautiful beaches and rolling green hills, the stuff dreams are made of. we rode into a small village where we had lunch overlooking the ocean, i wish i had a camera so y'all could see how magical this place is. i'm in love.

then this morning i went and covered myself in mud with healing powers, cleansing myself of all nasties. its a big sulphur spring and giant mud cave, and the smell reminded me of rotorua in new zealand (a bit like rotten egg farts), and the water in the spring tastes exactly the same if you can imagine it! driving back into town in the back of a ute was a bit of a trip, everyone was looking and cracking up laughing at the mzungus all painted like zombies. but it must be some strong stuff cos after i washed the mud off, my skin felt softer than it ever has before, it was mad!

so let me explain the title...labola is the price a guy must pay a girls' family when he wants to marry her. a bit like a dowry. so just out of curiosity i asked the guy that i've been seeing what my labola would be if we were to get married. and here it is. 15 cows, 5 horses, 2 goats, 1 sheep and a gift for both my mother and father. i was like what!!?? thats heaps, are you sure i'm worth that much!! but yes, apparently i am. so mum and keith, there could possibly be a whole shitload of livestock coming your way!! definately a better deal than marrying an aussie i reckon! take care..peace love and light..

pondo fever at jungle monkey

angeline — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 01:30:00 GMT

pondo fever...an illness which affects travellers to port st johns and the entire wild coast area of south africa. sypmtoms include not knowing what day it is, extreme relaxation, prolonging your departure and in extreme cases, even forgetting where home is! i've come down with a mild case in this awesome chilled little beach town. it has a bit of a byron bay feel to it only minus the pretensiouness! i came last tuesday and was meant to stay 2 nights and here it is the following monday and i have no intentions of leaving for at least another week. its really really beautiful, unlike any other place i've seen before. the nature is magnificent, the people are so friendly and you can be as active or as lazy as you want to be. i'm not so bummed about the other places i won't get to because i've stayed here for longer than planned, i know i'll be back in south africa for the world cup so it can all wait until then. right now i'm having too much damn fun! even forgetting about my homesickness which has been plaguing me since before christmas, to be replaced with pondo fever! sorry for the ramblings but am slightly hungover and in a natural state of happiness and leisure, life's great! mwuh!

prawn lovers paradise

angeline — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 19:55:00 GMT

once again ola from mozambique. have had a great couple of days checking out the southern end of this country. spent a few nights at a place called tofo, actually pronounced tofu, which was just beautiful. really nice beaches and the most chilled out vibes, the kind of place you could easily get stuck in for weeks. luckily it started raining or i´d still be there! sitting on the beach a variety of people come up to you selling a variety of different things, necklaces, bracelets, fresh fish and the biggest prawns you´ve ever seen in your life, at the lowest prices you´ve ever seen in your life. perfect if you like prawns, which i don´t! i just started saying to them sorry i´m allergic to seafood! and cos it was right after new years, the place was full of vacationing south africans, i think there were more south africans in tofo that week than there were in south africa!

from there i headed a bit further north to a place called vilanculos, a sleepy little fishing village thats the gateway to the bazaruto islands. the weather was still pretty bad but i decided to brave it and do a boat trip out to the islands. turned out pretty good, beautiful white sand, lots of amazing colourful fish, i even saw 2 lion fish! as in the highly poisonous type. luckily i wasn´t in the water at the time, i was just walking along the water´s edge but the 2 german guys who did the trip with me were in the water. i was like oh wow check it out there´s 2 lion fish over here, actually maybe you guys should stay over where you are, a nice safe distance from the higly dangerous and potentially lethal lion fish! aside from being cut short because of the cyclonic weather, it was an awesome day, with an amazing lunch of fresh fish, curry and rice cooked right on the coals, its amazing what you can do with a pot and a heap of wood!

so now i´m back in maputo, but what a mission it was to get here. i was supposed to get a lift with some other people from the hostel to the bus station at 2am. why so early you ask? because for some crazy reason the buses leave from around 3am and there´s no reservation system so its first come, first serve. so i got up at 2am, went with my stuff out in the rain looking for these people, only to be told they´d already left! curse them!!!!! so i basically decided to go back to bed and take my chances at a more reasonable hour and possibly do the journey in stages. so i got a matatu at 7am that would take me to a town part of the way, and i planned to stay there for the night. so we´re driving along, i´m in the front seat next to the driver and we´re about half an hour down the road when we start veering off the road. i look across at the driver and the biatch has fallen asleep!! we´re going like 70kms and ploughing down the side of the road, so i start slapping him silly and after about 6 or 7 slaps he finally wakes up and steers us back on the road. meanwhile though i´ve simultaneously had a heart attack and shit my pants, and then everyone else on the matatu is having a good old laugh about it! easy for those guys who were in the back and couldn´t see our death coming!!!! so we finally made it to the next town safe, sound and most improtantly alive, and there was a bus going all the way to maputo. by this time it was around 11am and i didn´t put much thought into the fact that its another 10hours to maputo from this point anbd that would mean i´d be arriving at the dodgy bus station at 9pm, well after the safe time for lone white female tourists to be hanging around. luckily i spoke to the driver in very broken english and he agreed to drop me right near at the hostel. but its not all happily ever after, i got to the hostel thinking i had a booking, which i didn´t and the hostel is full. just lovely. but the friendly manager called another place and then gave me a lift there cos i had no local currency left at this stage for a taxi, so like i´d been telling myself over and over all day, everything will work out ok in the end. and what do you know, it did!! i´m starting to think i´m the luckiest person on the planet cos with all the dodgy situations i´ve been in on this trip, it always seems to work out fine, no matter how bad it seems. anywho, i´m heading to durban in south africa tomorrow so will be back in a few days no doubt with some more crazy shenanigans. take care!!!

4 countries in 1 day

angeline — Sat, 5 Jan 2008 22:50:00 GMT

first of all merry christmas and happy new year to all!! hope your's was an amazing one. my was different, as would be expected, but i had an amazing time, partly because it was so different! kenyan elections were in the middle of it all, it was starting to get really tense when i was there but i left kenya on december 29 and it was after that that all the riots and church burning started. new years in kampala was a hoot, copious beers at an irish bar, dancing non stop all night, kissing random ugandan/englishmen, then nursing a mean hangover on new years day. becuase of the riots in kenya the borders with uganda closed so the idea of busing it through kenya to tanzania went out the window. i found another bus that could take me into tanzania, but as the kenyan violence continued, uganda started experiencing a fuel shortage (all the fuel comes through the port of mombasa), so if the bus was going to run, it'd be at 5 times the normal price. this left me in a dilly of pickle. so i basically decided that i'd bypass tanzania altogether and go straight to mozambique, which is where i am now! so yesterday i flew from uganda to kenya to south africa to mozambique, four countries in one day. and i was utterly wankered at the end of it! mozambique has a really different vibe to all the other countries i've visited, its a lot more party like and not as i guess uptight as some of the other places. maybe its the european influence, the place is entirely portugese speaking. so my 'ola' is getting a workout, one of the 2 things i know how to say! but i seem to be getting along ok, the people are nice, the capital maputo is nice, it actually has street lights, always a good sign. so i'll probably spend a week or so here then head back to south africa then back to oz in a few weeks time! it feels wierd to be approaching the end of my trip but just between you and me, i'm chompin at the bit to be back in aussie land, to hear a bit of aussie twang, to drink many aussie beers, to eat a bit of vegemite. good times. take good care. love and peace and ola!!!!!

at least its not ebola

angeline — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 19:08:00 GMT

well, that's yet to be confirmed anyway! after three weeks of delhi belly and ineffective antibiotics i went to the hospital yesterday where they took a poo sample to confirm whats actually wrong with me. i was putting it off and putting it off cos i was freaking out that i'd get there and they'd be like what, you've ben in uganda?! we've got a code red, get the gloves, disinfectant and masks, we're on ebola alert! but suprisingly the doctor wasn't that concerned at all, but i figure my belly issues have been going on for three weeks and if it was ebola i'd most certainly be dead by now, which is a comforting thought! so the doctor thinks its ameoba or something and the medication seems to be working cos today has been the most SOLID day of the last 3 weeks, if you get my drift.

the ebola stuff has been pretty crazy though, there's all these rumours going around and a lot of hearsay but no real true facts. before i left uganda i'd heard that the rwandan and kenyan borders were closed, they'd quarantined the worst effected areas of the country, people were beeing turned away from the nairobi airport, none of which was true. the newspapers don't really tell you anything either so there's just all this hearsay and me going oh my god, i'm gonna be trapped in uganda forever and then i'm gonna die of ebola!!! but i did get let into kenya, just had to fill out a questionnaire at the airport, have you had any of these symptoms in the last two weeks kind of thing. the scary thing was though i could tick yes to like 80% of the symptoms, but they were all because of other things. diarhea, yes but thats because i ate rotten tomatoes; abdominal pain, yes but thats because it was that time of the month; cough, yes but i've had that cough for the last 3 months before i even arrived in uganda; and so on and so forth.

so it looks like i'm spending my christmas in nairobi with the parents of my kenyan family and all the other relatives. its so crazy cos the mother of the people that i've been staying with is so excited to meet me! she's been calling saying when is angela coming, does she eat samosas, she can stay at my house, all this kind of stuff. its really flattering that this person who doesn't even know me could show me such kindness and concern. i guess thats kenyan hospitality for you, i've been made to feel so welcomed into the family. so even though i won't be with my real family for christmas i'll still get to share it with my new family, and to me thats what christmas is all about. peace and love:)

i found packet pastsa's!!!!!!!

angeline — Fri, 7 Dec 2007 19:36:00 GMT

i'm so excited, and i just can't hide it!!!! walking home from school the other day i popped in to the supermarket just near my house. casually browsing the aisles thinking hmmmm, wht will i have for dinner tonight, to my absolute shock and amazement and sheer delight, i came across packet pasta's!!!! genuine san remo, made in australia packet pasta's!!! i swear i started shedding tears of ecstacy! well not quite but i was pretty damn happy.

so aside from that beautiful moment, this week has mostly been spent on the toilet, had the worst case of dehli belly i think in my entire life. starting to get better now though which is good, just in time for school holidays! today's the last day and its only a half day, score!! have just been classroom hopping with another esl teacher, all the classes are having parties so we just went from room to room eating all the food!! so am very full now and only 1 hour till lunch, i don't think i'll be able to walk home if i eat much more! so thats all, eat, drink and be merry...ange

the daily grind

angeline — Sat, 1 Dec 2007 21:17:00 GMT

working 9-5 what a way to make a living! well actually i'm working 7-4 but you get the idea. so i've survived my first week back in the working world. it was pretty cool actually, the kids are all amazing, so keen to learn and practice their english. the staff are all good too, there's heaps of others who've only been here for a few months and are here on their own, so we're all kind of in the same boat. my accomodation is really good too, its only a one bedroom place but its huge!! when i arrived i was thinking, so how many others will i be sharing with, but its all mine! kinda sucks not having a tv though, i know this is sad, but i didn't realise how much of a big part of my life tv is until now i'm living without it! no music either which is the big bummer. lasst saturday in mombasa one of my bags was stolen which had my camera, ipod, clothes and heaps of cool stuff i've bought over the last few months.nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!! its the music i miss the most though. luckily i'd uploaded all of my photos onto a puter just afew days before though, if i had've lost all of them i'd be seriously devastated. but i guess it could've been a lot worse.

so now i only have one more week of work and then its four weeks off for christmas, its a hard life i know! but its so wierd to think that 2007 is nearly over, last years woodford only feels like a few months ago! not entirely sure what i'll be doing for chrsitmas, maybe heading back to kenya to spend it with my adpoted family, or possibly zanzibar with some people i've met along the way. i know i'd much rather be in oz sipping cold beer and eating copious amounts of food while trying not to die of heat exhaustion. but i'm slowly wamring to the idea of christmas and new year in africa, probably just won't be as drunk as i normally am, but its all good! anyway peeps miss you all, love love love:)

guhonda, my cousin, the biggest silverback in the world

angeline — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 18:41:00 GMT

the gorillas. wow. definately one of the most amazing experiences of my life to date. if you've seen the movie gorillas in the mist then you kinda know a bit of what rwanda looks like, but let me tell you when you get there and you see the volcanoes rising out of the land, its breath taking. so we hiked up into the mountain and the excitement's building and building, i felt like a kid on christmas morning! it took about an hour to find them, and then, holy wowza!!! we visited the sabinyo family of 8, guhonda, the big daddy silver back, a couple of his wives, an adolescent male and then a few babies. and they say guhonda is the biggest silver back in the world! and he's massive! his head is like the size of my entire upper body, his arms were like tree trunks and boy can he move! he spent most of the time just sittin there chillin out, but occassionally he'd make a run for it, and one lady copped a slapping from him cos she was in his way! thats one thing i really didn't expect, i thought cos they're so used to humans, they just carry on with their business and don't pay you any attention. yeah, no!! they charge at you, hit you, punch, bite and slap you. they try to grab you clothes off you. its hardcore, i was so scared cos they get really rough and i'm thinking, i can see my obituary now, angela bowen, tragically killed in rwanda by the biggest silverback in the world, last words, holy f@!k!!!!!!!!!! so most of my photos are blurry cos my hands were shaking uncontrollably, but most still look pretty cool. but it was cool cos one of the guides realised i was freakin out a bit and was like holding my hand the whole time saying don't worry, don't worry, so then i kinda calmed down a bit. its so exciting, exhilerating, its hard to even put it into words. but i can say this, if you do nothing else in your life, save the money and visit the mountain gorillas of rwanda or uganda, its the experience of a lifetime!

so while in kigali i also visited the kigali memorial centre, devoted to the genocide of 1994. its one of the saddest places i've ever been. you just walk in the front gate and feel the heaviness of the place, its strange. there's a room that has the bones of victims on display and at first i couldn't walk in cos its was too spooky. you just feel the presence of others in the room, i was the only living person in the room at the time but i know i definately wasn't alone in there. its just unbelieveable that something like that could happen, how does one human being do those terrible things to another human being? i'll never understand it. 1 million people massacred in 100 days. there are mass graves at the memorial centre as well, around 250 000 just at the memorial centre, graves streching on for hundres of metres. its really sad, moving, humbling. we are very lucky people being born in a land where we haven't had to deal with anything on that scale.

on that note pets i'm out, i'm back in mombasa at the mo, catching up with my kenyan family and having a bit of r&r before i have to head back to kampala do join the working world again! its gonna be strange, but i'm totally ready for it, i'm getting bored with all this doing nothing bar travelling and relaxing, i know i'm a freak, but i need to be busy and have mental stimulation and structure to my days. remind me of these words when i'm back in oz complaining about how much i hate the 9-5 rat race! peace love...ange

Gallery: gorillas in the mist

angeline — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 17:52:00 GMT

sabinyo family-rwandan mountain gorillas

finally in rwanda

angeline — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 02:06:00 GMT

oh my god what a mission! i have never experienced anything like the bus trip i just had, and i certainly hope i never have to experience anything like it ever again! so first of all we were an hour late leaving kampala. its not so bad, i say to myself, its only an 8 hour trip anyway, i'll still get to kigali at a reasonable hour. boy was i wrong. after driving for 2 hours we break down and spend the next 3 hours on the side of the road. in the meantime there's people on the side of the road cooking corn on a fire to keep our tummys happy then a carload of AK toting police arrive just to keep an eye on the proceedings. they then get the bus going again, it makes it 10 minutes down the road to a servo where we sit for another two hours. and thats basically how the trip goes for the next 12 hours, driving for 10-30 minutes then breaking down and parking on the side of the road for a few hours. we spent more time on the bloody side of the road than on it!!! but this tale of woe doesn't end there. we make it to a town thats one third of the way to kigali at 4am, so thats only 8 hours after we should've arrived at our final destination, and after sitting there till 7am, they decide the bus has reached the end of its line and pack us all into 2 matatus which, so they say, will take us to the border of uganda and rwanda where we will be met by another coach on the rwandan side of the border. so they pile about 20 of us into each matatu (they're only licensed to carry 14 passengers) and off we go. until we get about half an hour down the raod and there's a police check point. great. so the driver gets fined for carrying too many peeps, then after some harsh looks and words they let us go. so we finally arrive at the border and surprisingly, this is the easiest part of the trip and i'm thinking thank god i already got my visa before i left kampala cos there's no way i'd be able to handle that whole process on like 5 minutes sleep! so once everyone gets through immigration, we're all standing around going, right, where's this coach thats supposed to meet us? and it never came! so we pile back into the matatus, swearing and cursing the bus company, and preparing ourselves to rip it up them when we get to kigali and demand some of our money back! so after all this, i finally made it to kigali at 1pm, only 18 hours late, feeling very tired, hungry and with a mammoth headache from inhaling diesel fumes all day. and while i certainly wasn't laughing at the time, already i'm starting to see the funny side of it, but yeah at the time, i very nearly lost my shit!

so kigali seems like a nice place, its very clean and there seems to be an ounce of order to the place, unlike most other cities i've seen so far. i just went and booked my gorilla permit for thursday (sing hallelujah!) so i'm totally chompin at the bit to get out there and say g'day to good old magilla gorilla. till then my primate friends, take care, god i need some sleep but i'm happy and love and miss ya's!!

Gallery: murchison falls

angeline — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 18:35:00 GMT

uganda

ugandan wax torture

angeline — Wed, 7 Nov 2007 01:16:00 GMT

forget chinese water torture, i've found a new method to cause serious pain and make people talk, which i like to call ugandan wax torture. my god. the pain, the pain of it all. getting a brazillian is painful enough at the best of times but here, wow! it usully takes 10 minutes and it took over an hour, i was almost screamin in certain parts. thats all i'll say on the matter, ugandan wax torture.

so i'm now in fort portal, a sleepy little town at the foot of the rwenzori mountains. nice place, very green and shiteloads of tea farms! had an interesting bus ride here. e stopped in a small town and the street vendors came rnning up alongside the bus with kebabs, chicken, chapati, matoke and these wierd green things. i asked the lady net to me and she said they were grasshoppers and then she bought some and offered me one. i'm never one to offend so i tried one grasshopper. interesting, very crunchy, tasted kinda like chicken. she offered me more but i had to draw the line, just one had me feeling like dry reaching. T-I-A, this is africa!

and here comes my death.....

angeline — Thu, 1 Nov 2007 22:41:00 GMT

greetings from uganda!!!! today i'm in kampala, the pulsing capital of this great country. soooooooooooooo unbelievably different from kenya and sooooooooooooooo unbelievably similar as well!! so green and lush, so chilled and relaxed, still with the many 'mzungu, i love you' or 'marry me mzungu'! its wierd cos in kenya they have tuk tuks, but here only taxi cars and motorbike taxis. anyone who knows about my morbid fear of motorbikes will know that its a huuuuuuggggggeeee deal that i actually got on one! yes me, ange got on the back of a motorbike, for the first time since i was about 8 years young and fearless! and not just once either, 4 times!!! its was funny cos today on my way into town by matatu, i saw two separate crashes where a car ran into a motorbike taxi and just drove off! so after that i was like hell no, i'm not getting on one, thats gotta be some kind of omen! but i had to go to the rwandan embassy and it would've taken me like three hours to walk so with much fear and hesitation i took a motorbike taxi. and hence the title of this entry, and here comes my death, which is what i was thinking every time the idiot driver pulled out in front of oncoming cars, or failed to slow down at all at a speed bump, or took sharp corners at way too fast speeds!! its wierd how when you think you're about to die, you just close your eyes and try and find a happy place! but i didn't die, i'm sitting here typing this, so someone must be looking out for me.

so uganda, nice place, really diverse countryside. i spent two nights at lake victoria on the sesse islands which was really nice and chilled. not much to do there but did a boat trip around the islands, some nature walks and just general chillin and contemplating. all the guidebooks say lake victoria is notorious for bilharzia, some kind of worm that lives on the snails that live in the lake, that basically burrow into the skin and can eat away at your stomach or some such thing. but all the local people i asked were like no, no bilharzia here, even though there were litrally billions of the snails in the water, on the shore, pretty much everywhere on the islands! so i didn't swim, but it wasn't overly hot anyway.

ventured into one of the richer parts of kampala today where the rwandan embassy is, and had lunch in a cafe full of white people, which was really wierd. there were these ladies sitting near me, i'm guessing the wives of diplomats cos they were all 'high commission this' and 'high commission that', and i overheard them saying that aussies are uneducated!!! i really had to bite my tongue! how dare they! i'm here off my own merit, because i choose to be here and what about them, only here cos they're husbands forced them to be here! how very dare they!!!

so anyway thats my rant for the day. thanks for bearing with me. tomorrow i'm off to murchison falls, the source of the mighty nile river in the north of uganda. you can also track chimps in the jungles up there so that should be awesome, and then its only 2 weeks till i get to rwanda to see the gorillas yaaaaayyyy!!! i met a guy at the hostel i'm staying at who'd just tracked the rwandan gorillas the day before, and OH MY GOD, the pictures were so amazing! he said they got to within a couple of metres of them and the silverback was just chillin out having a snooze, munchin out on some bamboo, playing with the babies all that. i soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo can't wait!!! take care peeps, miss you all truckloads, peacee..