World Adventures- Africa, the UK and South America

Argentina 3

redcherry — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 08:20:00 GMT

31.03.10

Work up to intense rain, which was not great, as I had to put the tent down by myself. As it took twice as long as it normally should the tent filled with water. I was wearing jeans and was completely soaked from the effort.

Crossed the border into Argentina

Spent the rest of the day driving to Bariloche, arriving very late afternoon. It was still raining when we arrived and we were all keen to upgrade into a dorm. Fortunately there was space available, and I again managed to score a bottom bunk in a 12 bed dorm.

01.04.10

The camp site is known as ‘Petunia’, and has everything that one needs of a camp site. In the morning the truck left for town to get repairs, and I hitched a ride and was dropped off. I wandered around the most part of the morning with members of the group, but as usual their interests and my own did not run parallel, so I ended up walking around by myself. Bariloche is a very nice little tourist town on a lake, and they make amazing chocolate. After buying some chocolate and visiting various shops, I walked to the chocolate museum on the outskirts of town on the way back to the camp site. It was about 1.45pm when I got there, and I was told there would not be an english speaking tour until 3pm. Since I was on my own I decided to skip it, had a quick look around the shop, and then started the 15km walk back to the camp site. Most of the group caught the local bus back to the camp, but as I really had nothing else to do for the day, and the road wound in and out around the lake, I decided to use the time walking. It was a plesant walk, and I got some great photos of bees on thistles, the lake, and views across the lake back towards town. Not long after the half way mark, Dan had seen me walking and got off the bus he was on to join me. I was glad that he did, because although I remembered most of what we had passed on the way into town, I did not actually remember the name of the camp site or its precise location.

We stopped at a brewery on the way back, and Dan bought some local beer, including strawberry beer- which I tried and did not like. We then stopped in at a chocolate shop to get some more chocolate, but the taster we were provided with was no where near as good as in town, so we skipped it. We then passed a movie hire store, and hired Twilight and New Moon to watch later in the evening, as the whole truck has been reading the books.

Dinner that night was home made burgers from cook group- they were very good. I checked my emails briefly, and then we watched the dvds. I remember why I did not even finish watching Twilight the first time I saw it, it is just a blink of the book, thats the best way to describe it. I honestly don’t think the film makes much sense unless you have read the books, its just fragments in a time line. I was able to appreciate the movie much more this time, but I still would not recommend it for others to watch. New Moon, the second of the series, I had not seen at all, and it was better than Twilight in that it did not cut that much out, and I felt that you could at least watch that as a stand alone movie. Got to bed around 3am I think.

02.04.10

Today I was planning on doing a hike with a number of member of the group, but as the weather had cleared up so much, they all decided to go up the cable cart instead. Garath was still planning to do the hike, and was annoyed that he was now the only one, so I decided that I would go with him so that he was not hiking alone (since I know from repeated experience what its like). We caught the bus about 20km up the road, further to the camp site, and got off at the start of the hike. There was a french girl and a sweedish girl that also got of to being the hike with us, so we spent the day with them. We would have done the trail much faster had we been alone, but I was happy for the company of the girls, it was nice to talk to someone new, and both of them very lively and happy people.

It was quite a steep walk, and took about 3hours to get to our destination, which was a refuge right near the top of the mountain range. It was a very nice walk despite the effort required, as we were rewarded with stunning views of the area, known as ‘The Lake District’. I got some great photos, which I will upload onto the blog, but they are also on facebook. It didnt take that long to come down the mountain, and we had to wait 1.5hrs at the bus stop to get back to camp. The bus stop was in the shade, and it was absolutely freezing. I think I spent the whole time wearing all of my layers, shivering. By the time we got back to camp all I wanted to do was have a hot shower and warm up. The shower did not help that much, and I ended up going to bed relatively early that night in a hope that I would regain control of my body temperature. I did spend some time upstairs with the other Oasis truck, catching up with them before bed, which was great- because I much prefer the individuals on that truck.

03.04.10

Chile 2

redcherry — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 08:19:00 GMT

28.03.10

Border Crossing, again bags off the truck but this time manually searched by immigration. The one sniffer dog at the border was very young and didnt climb onto the back of the truck as directed, instead enjoying lots of pats and attention from us.

Drove until 5pm today, arriving at Quelat National Park where there is a ‘hanging glacier’. Nice quite camp next to a loud river flowing off the glacier and lake upstream. Had a fire at dinner and roasted marshmallows. Also walked to the close view point of the glacier to have a look, but it was too dark to take photos. The glacier is not really hanging anymore, as it has receded quite a lot, but its in a beautiful setting and is still impressive to see.

29.03.10

Woke up early and did the 3hr hike to the main hanging glacier view point, the walk only took about 1.5hrs in total. Also walked out to the view point from the lake and took some nice photos, very picturesque place.

Afternoon drive to Futalefeu, my tent buddy upgraded into a cabin so I had the tent to myself. I was on cook group and we made apricot chicken, it went down well, but we had to debone the chicken ourselves- or rather it was left for me to do. Not a very pleasant evening, lots of bickering between Dan and Chelsea in my cook group, lots of negative energy. Not the first time that Chelsea was being a bitch, but defiantly the worst of it to date. Its not fun being in my cook group, the two members that I have with me have no practical cooking experience, and frankly just don’t get along. It means that I feel like I have to lead the group, which would normally be fine, except that Chelsea has a fairly negative attitude the whole time, and its hard to get feed back on any of my suggestions as neither of them have much of a clue as to how to cook.

30.03.10

Breakfast from my cook group was yoghurt and granola, it worked well and meant little for us to clean up, especially since I was booked to go white water rafting.

The white water rafting in Futalefeu is the 3rd best in the world, and I throughly enjoyed every second of it. The rafting guide gave a very good saftey briefing, and gave us a good opportunity to practice actioning his calls before we attempted any of the rapids. Then before the approach to any of the rapids he would define the course through them that we wound need to take, explaining all of the dangers. We flipped on the 2nd rapid we went through, but it was intentional on his behalf, to ensure that we could get back into the raft should we come out somewhere more dangerous. I nearly fell on Bernie when we flipped, and the current of the water was far stronger than I expected. I had very little difficulty holding onto my paddle when I came out white water rafting in Vic Falls, but here it was a bit of a struggle. I managed to get hauled onto the saftey raft and jump back across to our raft before the next set of rapids, and although the water was freezing, the adrenaline made it great fun. There were a few very dangerous points along the river, like a wall with a half cave under it, that if you came out on that certain rapid, and went into the cave, the whole force of the river would be pushing you down and hard against the rock, and you would struggle to get oxygen. Overall the river was not as technical as Vic Falls, it only lasted four hours, and only had one grade five rapid, but I enjoyed it 10 times more. On the 3rd last rapid, the only grade five rapid, our guide explained that we would need to go around a giant rock in the center of the river, and also explained about the various whirlpools either side of the rock. As we approached the rapid, for what ever reason, we lost our original line, and banged head on with the giant rock. In the process of doing this, the impact caused our guide in the back seat to crash forward into the back of me, and then bounce out the back of the raft. Bernie and I both looked at each other in horror as it appeared that we had completely lost the guide, and we were only at the start of the rapid. Fortunately, the guide had managed to grab the rope on the edge of the raft, and was only in the water for about 10seconds before he climbed back in and started yelling directions at us. We made it though the rapid, and were a little disappointed that there were no other big challenges to come before we departed the raft.

As I was camping, I had to use a wood fulled boiler to heat the water of the camping shower. Fortunately, due to the fact that I was on cook group the night before, Simon, one of the 5 other people camping, had kept the fire stoked for me, so I managed to have a boiling hot shower. I was therefore worried that I would be freezing the whole time that I was rafting, and would further freeze when I got back to camp and had to start the fire, and wait 30mins for the water to heat enough to be warmish. Luckily I had asked our tour leader if she could please ask someone to start the boiler around lunch time, so that those of us camping and rafting (which was only myself), could jump straight into a hot shower to warm up, as the weather was only about 14 degrees, and the water was freezing. Thankfully someone had started the boiler, and it was luck warm- but much warmer than my own body temperature, so I had a very quick shower and then got dressed into my fleece.

Dinner that night was a curry, it was hot and made me feel really sick, I just cant eat curry. I ended up going to be about 45mins after dinner with cramps in my stomach and feeling like I wanted to throw up. I hate curry!!!

Argentina 2

redcherry — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 08:17:00 GMT

23.03.10

Crossed the border from Chile into Argentina, had to take all our gear off the truck to be x-rayed. Very tight border control, all fresh dairy and veggie had to be thrown out. Spent about 2hours at the border.

Drove to El Calafate arriving about 4 in the afternoon. Got our gear off the truck and into the dorm. I was in the 9 bed dorm on the top floor. It was a very nice hostel with heated floors, and I was glad to snag a bottom bunk. Dan asked if I was keen to check out the town, so we walked down the road to information, got a map, and then walked the length of the main street. Nice tourist town, lots of chocolate shops and outdoors shops, chocolate not as good as in Ushuaia tho. Went to the supermarket and bought veggies to make a stir-fry for dinner at the hostel.

24.03.10

Booked onto the Perito Moreno Glacier day trip, was picked up from the hostel at 8am and drove the back streets to get there. Stopped along the way to watch some condors and eagles flying and hunting. Stopped at a small farm on the way and some people got to feed a baby lama milk from a bottle, beautiful spot with the opportunity to buy coffee but I don’t think anyone did. Got into the national park and jumped onto a boat to get up close to the glacier. Spotted some chunks of the glacier breaking off and falling into the lake, also got some amazing photos of the ice and the various colours within it. Walked the length of the board walk, which is still under construction in parts to extend it, and took heaps of photos of the Glacier. Its hard to actually judge the size from the photos, it was huge, however I did manage to get at least one picture with the double decker boat in the pick dwarfed by the glacier in front of it.

Got back from the glacier late in the afternoon and ended up going out for dinner in town, and taking advantage of the WiFi in the restaurant.

25.03.10

Drive morning to El Chalten, arrived about 1pm. Slack day, relaxed at the hostel. Walked around town, went to the waffle shop across the road and got lunch and a very RICH hot chocolate.

It was the birthday of one of the boys on the truck and many members of the group got drunk. Eilish and Chelse spent the entire night hassling me about Dan, going on about how much he likes me, repeating many coments that he had made to them. People had been asking me for over a month if I was interested in him, and my answer was always the same, no, no I am not, no more than as a friend. I think it’s the fact that there are so many couples on the trip- they all seem to take delight in the idea of me and dan getting together, regardless of how many times I said that im not interested. This particular evening it got to the point that Chelse was sitting between Dan and myself asking me to hook up with him because he ‘really really likes you’. It was completely embarassing, it felt like being back in year 8 at high school, it also meant that I was forced to have a conversation with Dan to the effect that I am not interested in him in that manner, that im happy to hang out with him as a mate- but nothing further is ever going to come from it. The whole episode ruined my evening, and I went to bed instead of going out with the group.

26.03.10

I booked onto a half day ice trekking trip and was picked up at 8am. We took a boat out onto the glacier, spent 10mins walking over the rocks, and then reached a point where we could attach our crampons and walk along the ice. The main guide had very good english, and spent a lot of time explaining about the size and decline of the glacier, as well as other relevant environmental factors. We had about 1.5hrs on the ice walking about in total, and it was a lot of fun, but disappointing that they limited our movements to the edge of the glacier while other groups went for an actual ‘hike’, as suggested at the time of booking. If I had to describe what we actually did, it would be more of an ice wander. Despite the disappointment in lack of activity on the ice, it was amazing to get up close and personal with the glacier, see all the blues in the ice, the 20m drops between broken fragments of glacier, and actually use a set of crampons. We had lunch on the rocks just before the boat came back to collect us, and then were returned to the hostel.

When I got back to the hostel I decided to do the Fitz Roy hike, which was meant to be a 3 hr round trip to the first view point. There was no one to hike with, again, so I set off alone, letting the people chilling at the hostel know that I had gone for a hike. It was a beautiful walk, in fact I would say it’s the most beautiful hike that I have ever done, I throughly enjoyed every single second of it !! It was somewhat steep, no more than the 1000 steps, and it exposed a beautiful valley with a river running through it for the first half, and the amazing mountain range known as fitz roy in the second half. The sun was out for most of the hike, and there was lots of shade from the trees along the way, I would say it was the highlight of my day, especially given how annoyed I was the previous evening, this walk completely elevated my mood.

That evening was a BBQ at the hostel, it was not cheap, but was talked up by our tour leader so we all booked for it. It was probably one of the worst BBQ’s that I have been too, there just was not enough food for everyone, and the people sitting next to me made comments about the fact that I had taken two pieces of lamb (one nice piece and one that had so much fat I didnt get any meat out of it). It was another downer of an evening as the negative comments I kept feeling were directed directly at me from one of the girls, a girl that frankly I don’t think that much of- almost impossible to hold a conversation with, and only interested in the company of her fiancee. I have never seen someone so self involved in public with their other half.

27.03.10

Dive day all day, approx 12 hours, camped in a quarry on the side of the road.

Chile 1

redcherry — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 08:15:00 GMT

18.03.10

Crossed the border into Chile, stopped in a small town for lunch and had an amazing burger bigger than the size of my palm, was only able to eat half of it.

Crossed a ferry and set up camp at the side of a restaurant, had a 3 course meal in the restaurant. Was meant to camp in a ghost town, very late night and very COLD night. Shower and toilet disgusting.

19.03.10

Torres

Arrived mid afternoon and had to wait for the 6pm ferry to get across to the camp site. Clear view of the mountains driving in. Started to get very windy and drizzled slightly as we arrived at our camp for the next two nights.

20.03.10

Hiked Frenches Valley with Chris and Dan. Not very nice weather and incredible windy, so windy that I did not enjoy the day at all, was in a foul mood after being blown off my feet various times on the way back to camp. It was a 9hr hike, and the view at the top of the hike was not work any of the effort due to the weather.

21.03.10

Hiked Greys Glacier alone, 5hr hike. The people from my group doing the hike left before I was awake, I was not keen to hike alone, but also wanted to see the glacier, it was a beautiful walk and I passed many hikers on the route, similar to the day before, so I was not too concerned. Had a great day, much more beautiful than Frenches Valley, and much less windy, also had various wild flowers growing on route.

Had to be back at camp with the tent down before 6.30pm to catch the ferry back across the lake to go to the next camp.

22.03.10
Did not do the final hike as many people of the Tucan truck said that it was not worth it unless you got to the top, and I was not in the mood to hike at all. Managed to instead steal the 4th book in the Twilight series of the other Oasis truck for the day, and spent the day reading in my tent. Great day, very relaxing after soo much hiking and very entertaining reading that book, best book in the series, LOVED it!!

Argentina 1

redcherry — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 08:10:00 GMT

03.03.10

Camped on the Argie side of Iguazu Falls at a camp site called ‘Camping Americano’. The camp site was located a bus ride out from the falls and from town, a little annoying, but had everything that you needed.

Went to see the falls from this side, after seeing the Brazilian falls the day before.    The falls are much more spectacular on the Argie side, with much more to do. I paid for a boat ride and was taken under the spray of the falls themselves. The amount of spray was intense, and the volume of water difficult to comprehend. It is a beautiful place, as reflected in my photos. Following the falls I went to ‘Bird Park’, which was great. There were huge aviaries that you could walk through, and consequently get very close to the wild life. Michelle, one of the girls off my truck, was stalked and comically attacked by one of the Toucans that for what ever reason took a dislike to her, it was all very amusing.

04.03.10

Bush Camp and drive day.

05.03.10

After a drive we arrived in Buenos Aires at about 5pm, and got dropped off with our belongings outside our hotel for the week, Hotel Santo. Spent the afternoon in the Hotel, which is more of a hostel that a hotel. I was in a dorm of 8 beds, with the top bunk in front of the door. Went out to another local hostel for the evening to dance and drink. Various members of the group were very intoxicated, which made for some very amusing dancing antics.

06.03.10

Spent the day shopping for a dress to wear out to the booked tango show for the evening. Walked around town for the first half of the day with the group, then separated to find a dress, heals and bikini to go under the dress. Lots of leather shops everywhere, tho not as cheap as in Bali.

Tango show was very good, had a 3 course meal which was nothing special. See video uploaded on facebook for examples of the show. Very creative and well put together.

07.03.10

Went to La Boca and the Sunday antique market, which was a walk from town. The markets were great, would have liked more time to explore, but was with members of the group and didnt fancy ending up there by myself. Bought a $5 bracelet from one of the stalls.

Went out for dinner to have a Argentinian steak, which are meant to be the best in the world. The steak was nothing special, and took for ever to come out. After dinner everyone went to the bar across the road for a few drinks, and then got into cabs to either go out or to go back to the hostel. I ended up by myself in a cab back to the hostel and had to ask the tour guide to speak to the driver to get me there. I was really annoyed, it really sucks to travel with so many couples- they take cabs in pairs and you just end up the odd one out all the time!!

Got back to the hostel in a bit of a bad mood and decided to avoid the people in my room, so stayed down in the lounge near reception. Got chatting to one guys there and went out with him to a local salsa club. It was awesome, had a GREAT time, there were no gringos (whites) in the club, and everyone danced soo well it put what I could remember of my dance lessons to shame!! After the club shut I then went to an African club with Wes, which was also good fun, ended up being a late but very good night out on the town.

08.03.10

Chill day after last night, woke up late, spent time on the internet and went out for hot chocolate and cake with Dan.

09.03.10

Spent the day exploring BA on foot with Dan. Walked approx 1.5hrs to get to the cemetery and explored around there- it was amazing to see the size of the crypts and the detail in the stained glass windows. Looking into the broken doors of the crypts you could see quite a way into the depths of the crypt and smell the stench of death, as well as see at least 8 coffins piled on top of one another. We found the crypt for Evita, and then headed out to see the Japanese gardens. The gardens were in the middle of the city and far from relaxing, the most exciting thing that they had to offer was a strange rodent like creature that came up to me and nibbled on my shoe lace. I took a few photos and will upload them under Argentina.

Following the cultural exploration we grabbed a cab and went to the shopping district. Dan needed to find a jumper and some jeans for when we head south to the colder regions. After buying what he needed we decided to go to the cinema and saw Alice in Wonderland. The movie was in English with Spanish subtitles, and I was not impressed. It was nothing like the story line I remember from the cartoon version when I was a kid, it was some wack parallel of it, and a complete waste of time and money if you ask me.

Went out for chinese food with Wes and then out on the town again with him and his mates. Another late night but it was good fun, especially since I got to practice some of my swahili again.

10.03.10

Left BA early and drove all day down towards Ushuaia, 5 members of the group temporarily left the truck to fly the distance. Witnessed a truck fall over onto its side in an accident directly in front of the truck, didnt shop as there were other trucks about that had already pulled over, but we did have to swerve out of the way. Good driving on Oasis’s part!

11.03.10

Drive day into P.Madryn and camped at camping ACA. Arrived late afternoon, went for a walk along the beach. Was on cook group, made a stir fry for 25 people.

12.03.10

Another drive day on the way to Ushuaia, camped on the beach in front of a cliff face. Very cold and very windy night.

13.03.10

Another full drive day, approx 10hrs, set up camp in a Quarry. Started reading twilight, very addictive and very east to read (tho not a bright book, easy to pass the time with).

14.03.10

Reached Ushuaia around 4.30pm and got set up in the hostel (Los Cormoranes) with a talk about available activities. I finished reading twilight, walked around town and posted my first lot of post cards home.

15.03.10

Walked up to the Glacier with about 7 people from the group, nice walk through snow but could not see the glacier from any point on the mountain. After coming down we stopped in a coffee shop and I ordered a fantastic slice of Apple cake !!

At 6pm I was collected to go for the beaver tour that I booked, three of us went, it was an ok night but well overpriced for what it was. Got given an amusing picture of one of the beavers, but mostly found that I was just too cold standing around in the cold, wearing gumboots, in the swampy back paddock of the property.

16.03.10

Started eating chocolate again after taking a month off due to over indulgence. Bought some AMAZING chocolate in one of the hand made chocolate stores, best chocolate ever!!

Spent most of the day wandering around the town by myself, walked along the harbour and through the side streets. The other Oasis truck arrived and I was albe to steal the 2nd book in the Twilight series to read.

Bush camp for the night in a very cold but picturesque site just outside town, could see snow on the mountains, and next to a stream.

17.03.10

Bush camp.

Photos: Brazil

redcherry — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 21:38:00 GMT

Brazil

redcherry — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 21:02:00 GMT

13.02.2010

I arrived in San Paolo at about 7am with the expectation that I could arrange a cab to my hotel and spend the day looking around town, what I did not realise however, is that Rio De Janeiro is over a 10hr drive from San Paolo. I learnt this from the lady working behind the taxi desk when I showed her the address that I wanted to be taken to. She typed the address into her computer system and showed me the price of the trip in Real, which equated to more than £350. I then went to the bus booking center at the airport to enquire about catching a bus into Rio, but no one there could speak a word of English. I showed the lady the address that I was trying to get to, and I managed to understand from her that I would need to catch a bus from the airport to another location when I could then arrange a bus to Rio. Had I not been traveling alone with more gear than I could reasonably carry I may have considered this option. But given that it was Carnival- Brazil’s busiest time of the year, and that it is rare to find someone that can speak English to help me with the bookings, I decided to arrange a flight if there was one available. I could only find one flight booking center at the airport, and it was for a specific airline, so I went into there and with the help of goggle translate managed to get a flight booked for that afternoon, costing about £340. There was a Brazilian guy in the booking center when I was booking the flight, who turned out to be my Knight in shining armor. His English was limited, but he understood most of what I was saying if I spoke slowly. He managed to explain to me that I would need to buy a bus ticket to another airport in order to catch my plane, as no one flew from the airport that I was at into Rio. He then helped me with my gear down stairs to the bus booking lounge and not only helped me book the bus I needed, but when I could only hand over a $R100 note, he actually gave the booking clerk some coins to help with change, paying for part of my ticket. Following this he helped me find my way to the bus bay, and waited with me until I was safely on the bus. He was so lovely to me, I really wish that I had given him my email address so that I could one day return the favor if he makes it to Australia.

At the airport I had about a 2hour wait before I could check in, and then the flight was delayed another hour, so I spent a lot of my day in the airport. The flight was ok, I scored a window seat and was able to get a fantastic view flying from San Paolo into Rio. It was great to be able to appreciate the landscape from the air, we flew over a lot of rivers and dense forrest, and then over the city, with a view of the famous Christ Statue and Sugar Loaf Mountain. I was surprised at how small the Christ Statue was compared to my expectations, I imagined it to rival the tv towers on Mt. Dandenong- on a massive mountain towering over Rio. I also thought that you had the option of hiking to the top of the mountain or catching a cable cart, but you are driven to a point where you can either get the elevator to the top or walk 220 steps to the top.

My tour company advised me to prepay for a Taxi from inside the airport, saying this was the safest way to get to the hotel and avoid being ripped off. So after landing I collected my luggage and went to the taxi desk. Here there was no problem speaking English, and they explained that I could not pre-pay for a taxi as advised, but would need to just get one from outside the airport. So I joined the que waiting for a taxi, the address of the hotel in my hand. When I got to the front of the que and the lady sorting people into taxis asked where I was going I showed her and she gave my luggage to a driver and spoke to him in Portugese. He was clearly not very happy at all by what she said, and she showed him the address that I had in my hands. I get the impression that it was swear words that followed, but since I have never even heard Portugese before im not positive. Anyway, his body langue spoke volumes of ‘NOT HAPPY JAN’, and I was a little unsure if I should actually get in the cab with him. He put my pack in the boot and ushered me into the cab, and then started driving.

The driving style in Brazil seems to be that of a mentality where everyone thinks they are a race car driver, speeding off as quickly as the car allows, and breaking for red lights at the very last possible moment. It is not a smooth ride at all ! Anyway, turns out that the taxi driver could speak English, so he explained that the area that he was going to be driving me into was partially closed off due to street parades, and it was difficult to get to. He then explained that he would be taking back streets to get there. I made some small chit chat with him, but mostly I was looking out the window at all the people passed out on the streets, or walking round half naked trying to hail a cab. The taxi driver locked the doors and im glad that he did, because every time we stopped we would be approached by about 10 people wanting to get inside the cab, until they finally noticed me in the back and he told them he was occupied.

I got to the hotel and checked in without any dramas, got my bags up into my room and relaxed for a few hours before venturing out to get some water and food. The water was not too much of a problem, but when I went to order some food everything was written in Spanish- and it all felt like too much effort at that point in time. I then went back to the hotel and ordered some room service- which was not expensive when compared to food back home- but more than it was worth locally. It did the trick, and I had a fairly early night, being in bed by about 8.30pm.

All throughout the night street parades passed outside the bedroom window- loud music, dancing and lots of cheering at appropriate times with the songs. If I had of had more energy I would have dressed and gone down to street level to watch the action, but as it was I struggled to stay awake for 5mins at the bedroom window looking down at the street.

14.02.2010

Eilish, my room/ tent mate, arrived at about 10.30am today. She is from northern London, and has quite a thick accent. Its not a problem to understand her, but some of the terms she uses I am not familiar with, i.e. Gimel / snicket to refer to an alleyway.

Although Eilish had just got off a flight, she was happy to venture outside the hotel with me and have a good wander around town. The hotel where we were staying was in Lapa- which is really not the best part of town, according to a number of web sites that I had read prior to the trip. It was good to get outside- but the temperature was a shock after being in London for the last 11 weeks. It was hot- not a cloud in the sky, and a little more humid than I am used to. We stumbled across a street parade while out and about- and decided to watch it from the second floor of McDonald, as that was the best place to stay out of the crowd and fully appreciate the costumes that people were wearing. There were a number of men dressed as female characters- like little red ridding hood, and a number of people in elaborate feathered hats. My favorite costume from this parade however, was a guy in his 20s wearing nothing but a sign front and back saying ‘censored’.... it made me laugh.

I bought some McDonald for lunch- hoping to get some chicken nuggets,. But they don’t seem to do them in South America, so a burger and fries it was. Its funny what you will eat overseas but not at home, I never choose to eat McDonald back home when there is another option at hand.
After getting back from our walk we spent some time up at the pool and meet some other people booked with Oasis, both finishing and beginning their trip. Then it was time to get ready for an all nighter for the ‘Sambadrome’, which is the biggest carnival parade in South America- one might say ‘The Parade’. This is because over two nights the best Samba schools in the country put the show they have been working on for the past year- which includes dancing, elaborate costumes and floats, all to a specific theme. Each school spends a phenomenal amount of money in both float and costume construction, all for their 1hr performance down the sambadrome strip.

We all meet in the lobby to head off to sambadrom at 6pm, with people both finishing and beginning their Oasis trip in the group. In total there would have been 50+ people altogether. Along the way we passed people selling cushions to sit on, and I should have bought one- as our seats were nothing more than a concrete stand. We got there at about 6.30pm, and the first parade did not start until after 9pm. Due to the location of our seats, being right near the finish of the parade, and quite set back in the stand, we had to wait 45mins of a performance before we saw our first performer, and then had about 15mins of viewing as they slowly made their way to the end. If I am ever in Rio again for Carnival I will spend the money on better tickets. From our seats we could see that there were people in costume in the parade but we could not appreciate the detail of the costume- and that is one thing that I am disappointed about.

The parade went until 6am, with 6 dance schools preforming. I stayed for the first 4 dance schools, with the 1st and 3rd being the best- with the 3rd being my hands down favorite. Im not sure the name of the dance school, but their theme was magic. Each float was carefully planned- the first being a magic act where the dancers changed their dresses 4 times during different illusions, it was so quickly done that it just looked amazing. They also had a float with Michael Jackson appearing out of an alien pod- doing a dance and then returning to his alien craft- it was very cleaver and funny. I have photos of a few of these floats, and this dance troop was the overall winner of all the schools preforming. It was about 4.30am by the time we got back to the hotel, and I was well and truly falling asleep.

16.02.2010

Today I booked onto some local tours- covering the statue of Christ, Sugar Loaf Mountain, the Cathedral and going inside one of the Favellas (slums).    The statue of Christ was much smaller than I expected, and I was also under the impression that there was a hike to get to the base of it. Instead you get dropped off at a point where you need to buy your ticket, and then another car takes you up to the base of 220 steps that lead to the statue. When you get to the base it is absolutely packed with tourists, in fact I don’t think it would ever be possible to get a photo of just you and the statue alone. I think that I prefer my idea of what the statue would be like to the reality of what we saw.

Sugar Loaf mountain was beautiful, again very touristy though. You catch a cable cart across three different rocks to the end point, and it provides you with an excellent view of the bay and surrounding mountains.

The journey into the Favella was intense, as I had to get onto the back of a motor bike for a 15min ride uphill. I don’t feel comfortable on the back of a bike since nearly having an accident when I was on the back on my uncles bike in Perth a number of years ago. Fortunately, I was able to just hang on, grit my teeth and bare it. I think if I had known it was required previously I would have reconsidered doing the activity. My driver undertook trucks going around sharp bends, and drove on the wrong side of the road going around blind corners, it was very scarey, scariest thing that I have done in a very long time in fact. The tour itself

13.02.2010

I arrived in San Paolo at about 7am with the expectation that I could arrange a cab to my hotel and spend the day looking around town, what I did not realise however, is that Rio De Janeiro is over a 10hr drive from San Paolo. I learnt this from the lady working behind the taxi desk when I showed her the address that I wanted to be taken to. She typed the address into her computer system and showed me the price of the trip in Real, which equated to more than £350. I then went to the bus booking center at the airport to enquire about catching a bus into Rio, but no one there could speak a word of English. I showed the lady the address that I was trying to get to, and I managed to understand from her that I would need to catch a bus from the airport to another location when I could then arrange a bus to Rio. Had I not been traveling alone with more gear than I could reasonably carry I may have considered this option. But given that it was Carnival- Brazil’s busiest time of the year, and that it is rare to find someone that can speak English to help me with the bookings, I decided to arrange a flight if there was one available. I could only find one flight booking center at the airport, and it was for a specific airline, so I went into there and with the help of goggle translate managed to get a flight booked for that afternoon, costing about £340. There was a Brazilian guy in the booking center when I was booking the flight, who turned out to be my knight in shining armor. His English was limited, but he understood most of what I was saying if I spoke slowly. He managed to explain to me that I would need to buy a bus ticket to another airport in order to catch my plane, as no one flew from the airport that I was at into Rio. He then helped me with my gear down stairs to the bus booking lounge and not only helped me book the bus I needed, but when I could only hand over a $R100 note, he actually gave the booking clerk some coins to help with change, paying for part of my ticket. Following this he helped me find my way to the bus bay, and waited with me until I was safely on the bus. He was so lovely to me, I really wish that I had given him my email address so that I could one day return the favor if he makes it to Australia.

At the airport I had about a 2hour wait before I could check in, and then the flight was delayed another hour, so I spent a lot of my day in the airport. The flight was ok, I scored a window seat and was able to get a fantastic view flying from San Paolo into Rio. It was great to be able to appreciate the landscape from the air, we flew over a lot of rivers and dense forrest, and then over the city, with a view of the famous Christ Statue and Sugar Loaf Mountain. I was surprised at how small the Christ Statue was compared to my expectations, I imagined it to rival the tv towers on Mt. Dandenong- on a massive mountain towering over Rio. I also thought that you had the option of hiking to the top of the mountain or catching a cable cart, but you are driven to a point where you can either get the elevator to the top or walk 220 steps to the top.

My tour company advised me to prepay for a Taxi from inside the airport, saying this was the safest way to get to the hotel and avoid being ripped off. So after landing I collected my luggage and went to the taxi desk. Here there was no problem speaking English, and they explained that I could not pre-pay for a taxi as advised, but would need to just get one from outside the airport. So I joined the que waiting for a taxi, the address of the hotel in my hand. When I got to the front of the que and the lady sorting people into taxis asked where I was going I showed her and she gave my luggage to a driver and spoke to him in Portugese. He was clearly not very happy at all by what she said, and she showed him the address that I had in my hands. I get the impression that it was swear words that followed, but since I have never even heard portugese before im not positive. Anyway, his body langue spoke volumes of ‘NOT HAPPY JAN’, and I was a little unsure if I should actually get in the cab with him. He put my pack in the boot and ushered me into the cab, and then started driving.

The driving style in Brazil seems to be that of a mentality where everyone thinks they are a race car driver, speeding off as quickly as the car allows, and breaking for red lights at the very last possible moment. It is not a smooth ride at all ! Anyway, turns out that the taxi driver could speak English, so he explained that the area that he was going to be driving me into was partially closed off due to street parades, and it was difficult to get to. He then explained that he would be taking back streets to get there. I made some small chit chat with him, but mostly I was looking out the window at all the people passed out on the streets, or walking round half naked trying to hail a cab. The taxi driver locked the doors and im glad that he did, because every time we stopped we would be approached by about 10 people wanting to get inside the cab, until they finally noticed me in the back and he told them he was occupied.

I got to the hotel and checked in without any dramas, got my bags up into my room and relaxed for a few hours before venturing out to get some water and food. The water was not too much of a problem, but when I went to order some food everything was written in Portugese- and it all felt like too much effort at that point in time. I then went back to the hotel and ordered some room service- which was not expensive when compared to food back home- but more than it was worth locally. It did the trick, and I had a fairly early night, being in bed by about 8.30pm.

All throughout the night street parades passed outside the bedroom window- loud music, dancing and lots of cheering at appropriate times with the songs. If I had of had more energy I would have dressed and gone down to street level to watch the action, but as it was I struggled to stay awake for 5mins at the bedroom window looking down at the street.

14.02.2010

Eilish, my room/ tent mate, arrived at about 10.30am today. She is from northern London, and has quite a thick accent. Its not a problem to understand her, but some of the terms she uses I am not familiar with, i.e. Gimel / snicket to refer to an alleyway.

Although Eilish had just got off a flight, she was happy to venture outside the hotel with me and have a good wander around town. The hotel where we were staying was in Lapa- which is really not the best part of town, according to a number of web sites that I had read prior to the trip. It was good to get outside- but the temperature was a shock after being in London for the last 11 weeks. It was hot- not a cloud in the sky, and a little more humid than I am used to. We stumbled across a street parade while out and about- and decided to watch it from the second floor of McDonald, as that was the best place to stay out of the crowd and fully appreciate the costumes that people were wearing. There were a number of men dressed as female characters- like little red ridding hood, and a number of people in elaborate feathered hats. My favorite costume from this parade however, was a guy in his 20s wearing nothing but a sign front and back saying ‘censored’.... it made me laugh.

I bought some McDonald for lunch- hoping to get some chicken nuggets, but they don’t seem to do them in South America, so a burger and fries it was. Its funny what you will eat overseas but not at home, I never choose to eat McDonald back home when there is another option at hand.
After getting back from our walk we spent some time up at the pool and meet some other people booked with Oasis, both finishing and beginning their trip. Then it was time to get ready for an all nighter for the ‘Sambadrome’, which is the biggest carnival parade in South America- one might say ‘The Parade’. This is because over two nights the best Samba schools in the country put the show they have been working on for the past year- which includes dancing, elaborate costumes and floats, all to a specific theme. Each school spends a phenomenal amount of money in both float and costume construction, all for their 1hr performance down the sambadrome strip.

We all meet in the loby to head off to sambadrom at 6pm, with people both finishing and beginning their Oasis trip in the group. In total there would have been 50+ people altogether. Along the way we passed people selling cushions to sit on, and I should have bought one- as our seats were nothig more than a concerete stand. We got there at about 6.30pm, and the first parade did not start until after 9pm. Due to the location of our seats, being right near the finish of the parade, and quite set back in the stand, we had to wait 45mins of a preformance before we saw our first performer, and then had about 15mins of viewing as they slowly made their way to the end. If I am ever in Rio again for Carnival I will spend the money on better tickets. From our seats we could see that there were people in costume in the parade but we could not appreciate the detail of the costume- and that is one thing that I am disappointed about.

The parade went until 6am, with 6 dance schools preforming. I stayed for the first 4 dance schools, with the 1st and 3rd being the best- with the 3rd being my hands down favoutite. Im not sure the name of the dance school, but their theme was magic. Each float was carefully planned- the first being a magic act where the dancers changed their dresses 4 times during different illusions, it was so quickly done that it just looked amazing. They also had a flot with Michael Jackson appearing out of an alien pod- doing a dance and then returning to his alien craft- it was very cleaver and funny. I have photos of a few of these floats, and this dance troop was the overall winner of all the schools preforming. It was about 4.30am by the time we got back to the hotel, and I was well and truly falling asleep.

16th Feb 2010

Today was a tourist day for tourist things. I booked two activities for the day. The first was a Favella Tour- which is basically a tour of a slum. If you have seen the movie 'City of God', that gives a very good impression of what it is like- since it was filmed within a Rio favella. Our guide picked us up from the hotel at 9am, and then after collecting a dozen or so others we made out way to the base of the largest Favella in all of South America (or so the guide said, I think he may have just meant in all of Rio)- known as Rocinha and controlled by the 'The Friends of Friends' drug lords.

The quickest way to get to the top of the Favella is on motorbike, and I really wish someone had told me that I would need to sit on the back of a bike before we left. I have quite a fear of being on the back of a bike after almost causing my uncle to crash when he gave me a ride around Perth. I have a complete inability to lean into corners, and end up upsetting the drivers balance. Anyway- so when it came to my turn I jumped on and held onto the driver around the waist- possibly a bit to close from his point of view given how hot it was and the fact that he had no doubt been running trips up and down the mountain for the last 4hours in full sun.

The next 10mins or so were the scariest of my life for a very long time, not only was I paranoid that I would make us come off around a corner, but I had a kamikaze driver who decided it would be fine to undertake trucks around hair pin turns, overtake cars around blind corners into oncoming buses, and generally drive to fast for my sense of well being. When I got to the top and jumped off the bike, the others in the group were all discussing their own brushes with death as we waited for the guide to come up on the last bike.

We were briefed that we can not take photos willynilly in case we capture the wrong person and to stay in a single file when walking through the passages as there is only room for two people shoulder width and we need to able to let the locals pass us.

Our first stop was the roof of a 3 floor home to get a view of the Favella from the top, which was absolutely amazing- so many houses all crammed ontop of one another, in such a steep area. See the photos I took overlooking the area. The guide said that a number of people are killed each year due to mud slides and building collapse, but they have no where else to go or build, so they just keep rebuilding in the same places, or trying even more unstable ground.

The next stop was a gallery with some local art, which was great, but too expensive for my backpacking budget. This was then followed by a bakery, where I bought a piece of passion fruit cake- dry but nice, and a long walk back to the entrance point on the street below where we first got on the bikes.

The order within the Favella is maintained by the dominant drug dealers, and there is next to no daily crime due to their rules. There were police cars stationed near the entrance when we arrived, but this looks like a standard daily practice, and im told they try to catch people with drugs outside the favella based on information they receive from informants. Our guide told us that for the police to go inside, which happens every 3months or so, they arrive in head to toe bullet proof attire, bullet proof helicopter flying overtop, in no less than 6000 strong. Apparently 5 drug lords were shot dead in the last raid and a HUGE amount of dope was confiscated.

Kites were once used within the favella to signal different things (I was at the back of the group and missed exactly what he said about them), and fire works are set off to signal the arrival of the police.

In all if you come to Rio I would defiantly recommend doing this tour, its very interesting, and provides some income to the poorest of poor in Rio.

The second tour was the city tour- covering the statue of Christ, Sugar Loaf Mountain, and the Cathedral.    The statue of Christ was much smaller than I expected, and I was also under the impression that there was a hike to get to the base of it. Instead you get dropped off at a point where you need to buy your ticket, and then another car takes you up to the base of 220 steps that lead to the statue. When you get to the base it is absolutely packed with tourists, in fact I don’t think it would ever be possible to get a photo of just you and the statue alone. I think that I prefer my idea of what the statue would be like to the reality of what we saw.

Sugar Loaf mountain was beautiful, again very touristy though. You catch a cable cart across three different rocks to the end point, and it provides you with an excellent view of the bay and surrounding mountains.

17th Feb

Today I went to Copacabanna and ipanemia beach- both fairly busy. I was dressed in my bathers but really did not intent to go for a swim, however it was quite warm and one of the girls talked me into a quick dip. The water at copacabanna was greenish and not that clear, in fact there was a bit of trash floating on the top. Ignoring this, the water was very cold, and there was a lot of power behind the surf. I did enjoy the swim, it was nice to cool down. On the beach you can rent beach umbrellas, seats and various other things. I bought a sarong with the Brazilian flag as its print to sit on under one of the umbrellas. We left the beach to go for a wander through the shopping district, and then stopped for lunch at a buffet- where you pay for you food by the weight of the plate. Its an interesting idea, the more you eat the more you pay- i guess it works well for light eaters.

At about 4pm after wandering around with Eilish, we were headed back to the hotel, no more than a block away, when I noticed a young guy seated with his mates, stand up and walk across the street towards us. He put his hand up under his t-shirt and started to walk and then run across to us. He then proceeded to put on his best ‘mean mugger face’ and demand our money and bags. I think he was about 14 yrs old, but Eilish thinks 12, anyway, as Eilish puts it, I countered the situation with some ‘ginger rage’. I took about 3 steeps forward and screamed at the top of my lungs to ‘f**k off and try it on someone else’, and also gave my best impression of a ‘im going to f**k you up if you get in my way for a moment longer’ body stance. Well- my reaction did the trick, cas this kid jumped a mile, and then ran off back to his mates, who were all wetting themselves laughing. I think I took Eilish a bit by surprise at the time too, as she was dead quite until we got to the next intersection.

The evening was taken up with a Soccer game, which was an amazing experience. It was a semi final, with the champion team for the last 3 years playing another club. I have never felt that sort of atmosphere before, it was electric. Fans had HUGE flags, larger than the size of a mini van, that they had on huge pieces of bamboo- flying high over their heads. There was also a number of flares released each time a goal was scored. Unfortunately the winning team for the last few years lost the match, and there were tears all around us and fans clearly heart broken. Im really glad that I got to experience it.

18th Feb join the OASIS trip
Today we got our gear loaded on the truck, its similar but different to the African truck. The largest difference is that there is not a ‘beach’ at the front of the truck to lie down on and fall asleep on during the long drive days. I was a big fan of the beach in Africa- and managed to get a lot of sleep up there when we had 5am starts. It was also a great place to sit to get photos and to play games. This truck, known as ‘Felicity Love handles’, has a lot more quirks. The windows at the front are tinted- which means that if you have the window open, to see outside next to you you have to really turn your neck- its very uncomfortable. There is also a broken seat at the back of the truck- which causes you to sink a little further into the storage area under the cover.

This first day was a drive to a place called Paraty, and our first night camping. The tents are exactly the same as in Africa- but they have to be rolled differently to fit inside the locker in the truck. It appears that there is a lot less storage space on this truck compared to the African truck.

Paraty is a cute little tourist town, cobble stone streets, lots of tourist shops with brightly colored merchandise in the windows. The town is only a brief walk from where we camp, with the camp grounds themselves overlooking the ocean.

19.02.2010

Boat ride today- to see all the different beaches around Paraty. Went swimming with the fish, saw a turtle, and had a very nice lunch of fish off the boat. The weather turned cold and the rain moved in after our second stop, we only ended up visiting 4 of the 5 beach stops but this was enough given the weather.

20 - 21 Feb

Two nights bush camping on the way to the Pantanal. We stopped at Servo stations, which was great because they had showers and toilet facilities. Its bizarre here, you don’t flush your toilet paper anywhere in South America, instead you place it in the bin next to the toilet. Apparently the sewerage system just can not handle it.

At the first camp there was a tree with over a 1000 birds in it, I actually thought there was running water somewhere because they were so loud. It was amazing, I have never seen anything like it. They were the size of a finch, and every so often would swarm into the sky and then back onto the tree.

The next servo stop had a hotel next to it, and so a number of couples from the truck upgraded themselves into a bed for the evening.

22-24 Feb

The Pantanal is like a giant river system with small bits of land dispersed within it. It is full of wildlife, and utilized for farming by the locals in the higher areas. We stayed on a farm and went horse ridding, piranha fishing, tubing, boat wildlife watching, and for a wildlife walk/ night drive.

It was a really lovely farm and I really enjoyed our time there. The mozzies were crazy, and lots of people were eaten alive, especially the people that got stupid drunk and passed out on the grass overnight.

26th Feb.... Bonito

I booked onto the snorkeling trip and it was absolutely amazing!! It was a natural river system filled with 1000's of fish. We were provided with wet suits and told that we could not wear sun screen or insect repellant as it would pollute the river. It was not a very sunny day fortunately, but I still wore cotton pants over the wet suit to protect my legs from the sun.

The fish were not afraid of us, and the smaller ones kept nibbling on my lips. It was very off putting having them that close to my face, and I did not like how it felt having them nibble on me. It was amazing to see the variety of fish in the river, small to massive. The water was just so clear, and there were fresh water geysers coming up from the river bed causing strange bubbling’s in the sand.

At one point the guide stopped us, and we watched as a camen (like a croc) sit on the edge of the river bank, no more than 2 meters from us, trying to catch a monkey playing in the trees above. It was a surreal experience, and I really wish that I had an underwater camera to capture the beauty of what I experienced.

27.02.2010

Today has been somewhat of a disappointing day, with nothing going right. First there was my laptop, which I knew was low in battery and got out to charge, only for me to turn it on and it to read ‘fatal system error......reload windows’. As I did not have a windows cd with me (my notebook does not even have a dvd drive), I had to reset it to factory settings to get it working.
Now this did not concern me too much as 3 days prior- I had backed up all my photos and data on my WD passport external hard drive. Unfortunately, for what ever reason, the photos from South America and all the video footage I have to date has not backed up- meaning the only evidence I have of seeing the things I have seen, and doing the things I have done in the past 2 weeks, is in reduced quality on facebook- or lost forever.

The second thing from today is the 72m absail into a cave with snorkeling in the river at the bottom, that was booked but did not eventuate. It had been a massive drama the evening before just to get a space on the tour, with Dan and I waiting over 2hours at the training venue to find out if we could do the pre trip assessment. Finally, after a few other people were told that they could not do the trip after failing the assessment, Dan and I got the opportunity to try out, and we both passed. We then had to sign some forms, and were told that we would be collected from the hostel at 10.50am. Dan and I waited outside reception for 25mins before we decided to ask the hostel to call them and find out where they were. The hostel then told us that there was no car coming for us, but for $R100 we could get a cab there and back, and we would be going through the cave system after the groups. This is not what Dan had in mind when he booked, so he said that he was no longer going to go, and he thought the taxi was too expensive when we should have been picked up with the group for $R20. Since I could not afford the taxi fair alone, I told reception I would have to cancel- to which they said we would have to pay anyway due to the waiting list. This I was not happy about, especially since I was one of the names on the waiting list and no one else on that list had waited 2hrs at the pre-assessment point to find out if they could go. After much discussion to and fro the hostel reception cancelled the tour with no cost to us, and we walked away at least with our cash.

The rest of the group was meant to be out snorkeling, but due to heavy rains the night before it was cancelled. So instead of wasting the day they rebooked onto a tour of the local waterfalls. I was one of the few that did not do this, instead went into town alone to find the post office and look around the shops. The downfall of the group im traveling with is that there are only 4 independent travelers (myself included) out of 23 people. This means that people make plans with their partners and go off and do things independently- meaning that basically im left to do things on my own- which is exactly why I wanted to book on a group tour in the first place, so I WOULD have someone to do these things with.

1st March.. Foz

Igazu Falls & a Dance Show

2nd March

The Hydro Dam & Paraguay for electrical shopping

Photos: London

redcherry — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 05:47:00 GMT

London

Gallery: Cape Town

redcherry — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 18:39:00 GMT

Cape Town

Gallery: Tanzania

redcherry — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:54:00 GMT

Tanzania

Gallery: Zanzibar

redcherry — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:51:00 GMT

Zanzibar

Gallery: Malawi

redcherry — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:50:00 GMT

Malawi

Gallery: Uganda

redcherry — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:49:00 GMT

Uganda

Gallery: Rwanda

redcherry — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:49:00 GMT

Rwanda

Kenya & Tanzania

redcherry — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:25:00 GMT

10.10.2009

·Went back to Karen Camp, where the tour initially started from, and the “Gorilla Loop” officially finishes. Five people from the truck left us at this point and we collected another 5. Michael, the manager at Ujaama hostel where Anoop and I did our volunteer work, came to Nairobi for a weeks holiday. He meet us (although in the end Anoop did not come) at Karen Camp and we went into Nairobi, or Nai-robbery as some people call it. There are a lot of signs up in Karen camp warning what areas are not safe because of muggings, so it was good to go into town with Michael because I did not have to worry about safety. Nairobi is somewhat unremarkable, its busy like any city, and the one park that I saw was not that great. We did go into the museum of independence tho, which Michael had not done before, and he was able to fill me in on the history of the country as we walked around reading signs and viewing photos.

· I decided to jump off the truck for two days and made my way back to Arusha with Michael, which meant that we had more time to look around Nairobi, and did not have to get up at 6am. The bus ride was interesting because the locals up the back were drunk and having their own private party. This meant that there were a number of toilet stops along the way, and it was not a quiet ride. The bus between Nairobi and Arusha holds 14 people, so everyone could hear what everyone else was saying, and the only words I recognised from the drunks was swear English words. There were two young children on the bus, and the man that had put them on there did not accompany them or give them the correct papers for them to cross the border. So when we went to leave Kenya and enter Tanzania the poor little things were left at the border, and no one knew how to contact their guardians. I felt awful leaving them there, and a number of the drunks were very vocal about making sure they get back to Nairobi safely.

· Meet the truck at Snake Park, 20km outside Arusha and watched the snakes being feed live chickens.

· Went into the Ngorongoro Crater, it was raining and the roads were incredibly slippery. There was also a heavy mist covering everything. Unfortunately we could not see anything on the crater rim due to the weather conditions, but when we went down into the crater it was a wide open space and there was quite a bit of wild life. We saw a pair of mating lions, buffalo, zebra, warthog, ostrich, impala, dick-dick, elephant, monkeys, and a variety of birds. Anoop, Ryan and I did not go into the Serengeti because it was an extra $250 for half a day, and I have decided that I want to come back and see the wildebeest migration through there sometime in the future. We left the rest of the group in the Crater and headed back to Arusha. I spent the following day hanging out with Michael and Gasper (the hostel owner), which is always heaps of fun. We went into areas of Arusha that I did not see when I was staying there, and Gasper bought me lunch- which was literally half a chicken, chips and salad, at one of the local restaurants.

· Said good bye to Michael and headed off to Zanzibar via a bush camp in Sigera and an overnight beach camp in Dar. The bush camp was the worst one that we have had on the trip, there was a toilet block, but the toilets did not work, there was no shower, and there was more bugs than I have ever seen in my entire life. You could not move without being swarmed, it was really horrible, especially around any light, including my head torch. The camp in Dar was beautiful, white sand beach, very quiet, but there was signs everywhere saying that it was not safe to leave the boundaries of the camp.

· We caught the ferry across to Zanzibar, and I spent the majority of the time intently focused on the movie, the fugitive, so that I would not throw up. The seas were quite big and I don’t do well with a great deal of motion out on the water. We reached stone town, handed over our passports for the entry stamp, yes we had to get another stamp to enter Zanzibar even though it is part of Tanzania, and headed up to the north of the island. Anoop and I decided to catch the local transport to get there, which was 3000Tsh compared to $8usd, and got us there about the same time. I did not realise how Islamic Zanzibar is and I was wearing shorts when we arrived. When we were seated in the dalah-dalah (which in Zanzibar is like the back of a tip truck with a roof for shade, and bench seats along the sides) we were near the cabin down the back. There was room for two people to sit next to me, and we stopped to pick up some locals, both Islamic men. It is not considered polite or decent for women to show their knees here, and because my knees were exposed both men refused to sit next to me. I felt very embarrassed, and I was rather annoyed that our tour leader did not think it appropriate to tell me about the dress code- given that he had lived there for 3 years. My shorts are fine when I stand, they cover my knees, but when sitting they ride up, if I had know better I would have worn pants.

· Anoop and I stayed at Kendwa Rocks, while the rest of the group stayed at Sun Set Bungalows, there was a price difference of $10 usd a night, which we were happy to save. The difference in the rooms was that Anoop and I did not have an ensuite- and given that we thought we wouldn’t spend much time in the room we didn’t really care. The two places were next door, and as it turned out, Anoop slept each night in the hammocks on the beach so I got the room to myself except when it rained.

· It turned out that we only had 3 days and the afternoon of our arrival on Zanzibar, so I decided to explore the island instead of doing the dive course. Eight of the group undertook the dive course, which meant they did not get to see Stone town or any of the island. I went snorkelling, which was great fun, and I have never seen so many fish in the one place. It was amazing- I saw more fish there than I have on the great barrier reef, except the coral is not that interesting. It was also great to see a giant sea cucumber feeding and sea eels. I also went to the turtle park, which was great because we got to handle the baby turtles. Exploring Stone town was amazing, because I felt like I was in the middle east somewhere, the streets are incredibly narrow and cars can not enter. We arrived in stone town after undertaking a spice tour, which takes you around a local farm explaining to you how spices are grown and showing you the various plants. I had no idea that nutmeg came from a seed within a peach like fruit, or that cinnamon came from the bark of a tree. It was really interesting and I’m glad that I went. In addition to the spice tour we visited an old slave market, which was incredible. The trade was controlled by the Arabs, and African people were stolen from their villages all over to become slaves. They were then bought to Zanzibar and placed in a tiny cramped room- 90 people to the space, and kept in the dark without food or water for 3 days. At the end of this they were taken to the market and whipped on a post, and if they were considered strong, people would buy them. If they failed to show strength when being whipped they were thrown back in the holding cell for a further 3 days without food and water. Many people were effectively murdered this way.

· The lead singer of Queen was born on Zanzibar, and we went to the restaurant of his name. It was great food, in stone town, on the beach right where the ferries come and go.

· Leaving Zanzibar it was raining very heavily, so the officials that stamped our passports on the way in did not check or stamp them on the way out, which is fortunate, because they often charge you again for entering Tanzania- even tho you have never left. It was a horrible ferry ride back, we ferry got air a number of times in the sea, and a number of the people from the tour and locals on the ferry, were up on deck vomiting. Fortunately I managed to suppress the urge, but it was a difficult task, I think it was because I did not want to have to climb over the Islamic gentleman next to me, since I had taken off my kanga and only had it draped over my legs since it was sooo wet (I only had board shorts on underneath).

· We spent a morning in Dar, which was not that great except for the fact that it was the first place that I have seen a fast food chain- subway, which had a limited menu and no cookies, but provided a very good lunch.

Malawi & Mozambique

redcherry — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:23:00 GMT

We crossed into Malawi and spent two nights in Chitimba and three nights at Kande Beach.

Ross held my hand and I instantly felt a surge of passion go right through me. I gazed into his eyes and saw deep into his soul. It was right then I knew how amazing he was…I was awake all that night thinking about him.

RIGHT- note to self, do not leave the computer unattended to get food as people will make up stories in my blog!!!!

Ignoring what Ross has just typed- wishful thinking on his part, a group of us signed up for a massive walk to the mission of Dr. Livingstone from Chitimba. We were meant to leave at 6am, but a few people were slow to get their stuff together, and we did not realise the guide was waiting outside the gate. Anyways, we left for the walk at about 6.45am, and did not get to the top of the mountain and stone house until 11.30ish. It was the hottest walk I have ever done, it was not overly challenging- but the sun was HOT and it was very warm, and I have NEVER sweated soo much in my entire life!! The boys finished their water in the first hour, and I had a very NASTY head cold- so much so that I nearly did not go on the walk. They wanted to use some of my water since I took my 3L bladder, but apart from the fact that I would use it myself, I told them I had a cold and managed to get out of it. Fortunately there was a place on route that they could buy soft drinks- which I did not buy, but in hindsight I really could have used the sugar. The museum was rather unremarkable, but I went on the walk for the walk, sitting on the truck for two days solid driving was making me feel lazy!! The main thing that happened in Malawi was the Halloween party- we stopped at a second hand clothes market on the way to Kande Beach and were given a budget of 500 kwacha to buy an outfit for a name we pulled out of a lucky dip. The rules were that you could not buy something that you would not wear yourself, I got Andrea and bought her a hideous silky spotted shirt and baby blue silk pants- and a truckers flaming hat. Ross got my name and bought the skimpiest clothing I have ever seen. I had heard all the girls say that they hoped that they didn’t have Ross, and when it came time to exchange costumes I understood why. He bought me a tiny red and black skirt that did not cover my bum if I bent over, and had a ragged hem, making it look like something a cave woman would wear. The top he purchased was equally as skimpy, it just covered my bust, and had another hideous print, black and white somewhat like an animal print. Together they covered next to nothing, Ross said that he was going for a cave woman look. If it had been anyone else I would have made them wear it and taken the outfit bought for them, but Ross is rather sensitive and I know he would have been very upset and not enjoyed the evening- so I just put the two pieces over what I was already wearing… which was my Kanga and a t-shirt. Everyone kept asking me where my costume was, so I pointed to the skimpy skirt and pulled at the skimpy top…. the response to that was generally “arh” and a look of understanding. Some of the outfits purchased for the boys were hilarious! Anoop scored some lingerie, there were lots of dresses, a skin tight marathon leotard/shorts, a strong man leotard/full legs, a body suit, a clown outfit, a cape and many other hideous items of gold. It was a very entertaining evening, as my photos will demonstrate. The next day was “pig day”, where two pigs were killed and put on a spit and roasted all day. I tell you it put me off eating that meat seeing the pigs spread on the bars and roasting all day, it felt cruel. Most people, including myself, spent the day reading, sleeping, swimming or chatting by the spit on the straw mats off the truck. There were many shenanigans as people drank for three straight days, most notably the tents all being moved about and covers and sleeping mats being hidden. From Kande Beach we headed into Lilongwe where we only got to spend the afternoon. Normally the truck has a day and a half here, but we needed to leave early for repairs in Harare. I spent 3hours with Hayley helping her cover the chess table she purchased in Chitimba with cardboard to post to Australia. In the end I decided to post a bag home, but because there was only 25mins before the post office shut this was a rushed affair. I ran to the supermarket where we got the boxes to wrap hayley’s table, and I asked for a box. Unfortunately the box was rather big, and I did not have anything sharp to cut it down, so I just placed my bag of souvineers within the big box, and hopefully it will reach Australia without breaking everything inside. I don’t hold much hope for my gorilla trekking certificate, I think it will be very battered by the time it gets to Melbourne. Gavin if your reading this I have put my hard drive inside the box within a zebra wallet- can you have a look and see if you can get all my photos off it please. I think when I dropped it I broke the mechanism that reads the drive, it still powers up but you just cant access the information on it, or that is I don’t know how too. There was a really good pool at the camp site in Lilongwe, and we spent a few hours in it playing ‘keeping’s off’, trying not to drown in the deep end, which must have been about 2.5-3m deep. We left at 6am to head into Mozambique, saying goodbye to Hayley, my tent buddy. It was to be two solid days of driving to get into Zimbabwe. We reached the border within 2hours, and exited Malawi without any hassles, entering Mozambique was to be another story. We reached the entrance at about 8.30am and Andy took all of our passports into the office, 1.30pm we were still waiting to get them back. Andy went to enquire how the process was going a number of times, and each time he was told to go away, that they were being processed. It was a very hot day, and we were all sitting on the truck heating up. Candice was sitting on the beach- which is a bed on the front of the truck, behind the cab, that has two man holes that open up above. I was sitting under one side with the man hole closed, she was on the other side in the sun. It took 6hours to get our passports back, and Candice suffered a strong stomach ache while we were waiting. It got so bad that I suggested that maybe she should go to the toilet, and I walked with her back to the Malawi side to use the office toilet. On the way Candice lost her vision, and basically passed out, both from the pain in her gut and dehydration. Anoop and I had to carry her back to the truck because she was so weak. One of the nurses on the trip had a look at her when we got back and was concerned about the lower right flank pain she was reporting…. (where the appendix is) . Andy managed to spot a vehicle at the border that was for doctors without borders (written in Portuguese, the national language in Mozambique), and we followed the vehicle to the local hospital, 30mins within the border. I went inside with her, and the guy at the desk inside the door did not speak a word of English. Fortunately a Brazilian doctor soon appeared that could speak English, and he preformed an examination. Candice had very low blood pressure, fortunately not appendicitis, and he decided that she needed fluids. We spent another 3 hours at the hospital for the fluids, and Candice was also given a number of pills to take to ensure she did not have any parasites that could be causing the stomach pain. Leaving the hospital on the way to our bush camp for the evening, we passed a group of people on the side of the road in traditional ceremonial dress- full feather head pieces and painted faces, it was cool to see. There is not much else to report on Mozambique, we only drove through it to reach Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe

redcherry — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:02:00 GMT

The first stop of the tour in Zimbabwe was the Kuimba Shiri Bird Park, formally known as the Admirals Cabin. This has to be my favorite camp site on the tour to date. The dorm rooms were not that great as they were infested with spiders, and when you had a shower you had to be careful not to be electrocuted on the taps, but there was heaps to do. I went out on the lake for a speed boat ride and came very close to 3 rhino grazing on the banks of the shore- it was fantastic. I also witnessed a black and white kingfisher diving for its dinner, giraffe, impala, ostrich and a variety of birds. The thing I liked the most was the birds within the bird park that you could interact with. I helped to feed the baby birds, and spent a lot of time with “Dox”, an infant owl. I also liked the fact that you could order great strawberry milkshakes from the bar, and buy decent chocolate from the shop for $1 usd.

Since I was here in Zim last year the Zimbabwe dollar has been abolished, and all trade is conducted in foreign currency. The most common currency accepted is the USD, this is followed by the Rand, and some places accept the Pound. This means that the cheapest thing that you can buy costs $1 usd, so if you go into the shop and buy something for $1.50, they will make up the change with lollies to the cost of 50 cents.

I hitched a ride with Anoop, Josh and Anissa into Harare from the bird park. The good thing about being white here is that if anyone white sees you walking they stop to offer you a lift. We were picked up by a 60 year old south African born, white, Zimbabwean woman. She was quite interesting to talk to as she works in aged health care, and is owed a great deal of money from the elderly that she takes care of- mostly due to the political situation and the huge loss of bank funds stolen by the government. It is interesting being here, because everything that you see before you is paid for in cash, there is no credit. If you want a house you save up and buy it out right in cash, same thing with a car. Additionally I find it hard to get my head around the idea of not keeping any money in the bank. At home I rarely carry cash, I put everything on my debit card- I can not imagine having to hide my entire wealth within my house because it is not safe in the bank.

Harare was ok, we went into the white area to the main shopping area. Internet there was $1 usd for 40mins, and the connection was a decent speed. Anoop and I spent some time on line checking emails and then went to the market. We then caught a minibus back into the city centre and jumped on a bus back out to the bird park. When we went to the bus stand a fight broke out between one of the minibus drivers and another man. I had not realised, but we had asked the driver if he went to bird park, and he said yes for $20 usd…. I laughed and said “no it only costs $1 usd each, we are not paying any more than that”. He said ok, get in. What I did not see was the que of locals on the other side of the van, waiting to get on. It seems the driver thought that he could make a bit of extra cash out of us cas we are white, and was going to ignore all the locals waiting to get onboard. Seeing this one of the men waiting came around to the driver and started shoving him hard and yelling at him in the local tongue. Three of us were already on board, and we dodged the fight to jump out, heading to the back of the bus rank to find another ride.

We left the bird park to head for Great Zimbabwe, which is where Zimbabwe attained its new name, after the change from Rhodesia. It cost $18 usd for a guided tour of the ruins, and it was very interesting. The kingdom was built on a hill, and made entirely from stone, with the remaining walls still being impressive today. We spent 3 hours exploring the ruins, and listening to the life style of the day. I think the most interesting thing is that the King had 200 wifes, and that no human remains have ever been found of the inhabitants of the kingdom. Anoop and I got up at 4.30am to watch the sun rise from the ruins, as we were camping at the bottom of the hill. I have never seen a more amazing sun rise, the colour of the sun was brilliant, and well worth the climb back up the ruins (similar to doing the 1000 steps).

We left Great Zimbabwe for Antelope Park, which is where we are currently camped. It is the most boring camp site to date. It is 10km from town- with a 6km driveway, and there is absolutely nothing to do unless you are booked on an activity. The others in the group are going on lion walks, lion feeds, elephant rides and horse rides. I did a lion walk last year at Victoria falls, and I don’t see the point in paying money to see lions eat a piece of meat within their cage- you can see that at a Zoo or on TV. The only activity that I have booked is the night time lion encounter- which is in a 4x4 and involves following the lions while they hunt for their prey- apparently you have a 1 in 4 chance of seeing a kill- which I have never seen. As for the elephant activities- I don’t feel right about sitting on an elephant while it is told to do things, they are incredibly intelligent, and I would prefer to see them free rather than tools for our entertainment. We are here for 4 days, and my activity is not until the last night.

Ok so i am now in an internet cafe, just walked 16km from camp to get here. Much better to be in town than that camp for another day, hopefully i can hitch ride back, i don't fancy another 2.5hrs of walking in the sun!! Otherwise all is well, I will be uploading photos- check them out

Gallery: Zimbabwe

redcherry — Sat, 7 Nov 2009 21:44:00 GMT

travels in Zim

Overland Adventures -Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda

redcherry — Fri, 2 Oct 2009 05:51:00 GMT

Overland Truck Adventures – Oasis ‘Apes & Lakes’ Africa

27.09.09

Left Arusha at 8am on a small shuttle bus from the Impala Hotel after a late night out on the town. Saturday night I could not convince anyone from Ujamaa Hostel to come out, very disappointing considering it was Anoop and I’s last night. Anna however was back from hiking Mt. Kilimanjaro and was up for a good night out, so through a series of text messages we arranged for Michael and myself to collect her from the Outpost Hotel where she was staying, on the way to the popular ‘Massi Camp’.

When we arrived we discovered that it was a special fundraising night, and there would be performances from the circus that was in town. I had really wanted to go to the circus, and they put on a great show- which was only really a preview of what we could get if we went to the full show. Anna, Michael and myself found Gasper inside, bought some drinks, enjoyed the evening, and it was 5am when we finally decided to get a cab back to the hostel.

After saying good night and good bye to Michael, I managed to achieve about one hours sleep before Anoop’s alarm went off and it was time to finish packing, eat breakfast, and get ourselves to the Impala Hotel. Everyone that had come from Nairobi warned me to a) not be hung over for the bus ride (never going to be an issue with me, although Gasper is a bad influence with shots), and to b) wear a sports bra because the road is soo bumpy. Well, I got onto the bus, and the next thing I remember is waking up just before we reached the Kenyan border. Anoop later told me that he was extremely surprised that I was able to sleep through the drive, I guess I was just that tired.

The shuttle dropped us off at Silver Springs Hotel, and we got a taxi over to Karen Camp. The exchange rate in Kenya is not as good for traveling, $1usd equals 72ksh, where as in Tanzania is was $1usd to 1020tsh. With 1000tsh vs 90ksh buying a chocolate bar.

After finding our dorm room, we joined our tour leader and driver at the bar. Our tour leader, Andy, is British, and our driver Benny, is Australian, from Brisbane. They seem like nice guys, and im sure that we will have a good trip with them.

Day one of the trip required us to wake up at 6am to get our gear onto the truck, and meet the 9 other people that had stayed at Karen Camp for the night. Andy gave us a quick run down of the basics of where everything is and where to store our gear, and then we drove to Silver Springs to collect the rest of the guests. There is a total of 24 of us doing the Gorilla Loop, equal parts Aussie, Kiwi, Irish and Scott. Its funny, I chose to use Oasis because it is not advertised in Australia, so I thought that we would be traveling with Europeans, but it seems its all the Aussie expats that book this type of trip while in London. Anoop and I are the only Australians on the trip that have come from Australia and currently reside there.

After paying the local payment, filling in forms and checking the internet at a ridiculous rate, we headed out to the Giraffe park. This was not far from Karen Camp, and we had the opportunity to both feed the Giraffes and get a kiss from them. We were also given a short presentation on the life of a giraffe and the different types within Kenya (Reticulated, Rothschild, and Massi).

Following this we headed off to Lake Naivasha for the evenings camp, and were given a run down of the available activities for the following day. Following this we were given the run down of the location of everything in the truck, and a demonstration of how to erect and dismantle the tents. My tent buddy goes by the name of Hayley, and she is a Kiwi oncology nurse looking at getting a job at Peter Mac in Melbourne….. it’s a very small world indeed.

Day 2- I elected to go to the crater lake and high tea at Elsamere, with the crater lake being a waste of money. The sun was beating down, it was hot, and I did not see anything that I have not seen before- or that I found interesting. The crater lake itself was not beautiful, there were only a few flamingos, and frankly $38usd was very steep for the experience. Elsamere on the other hand I found worth the $10usd for the ‘high tea’, even tho I do not drink tea. It was interesting to learn about the homestead that we were sitting in, and also the history that woman had with animals- and husbands too.

Four of us walked back to the campsite along the main road after visiting Elsamere, and it was interesting to see how the others reacted to being in Africa. I guess after being in Tanzania for 5 weeks there are certain things that I have got use to, like the kids getting so excited to see a ‘muzungu’, running towards us and waving like crazy. The matatu’s (Kenya’s version of the dalah-dalah) here are also hilarious- each of them has been pimped up to the max, with mag wheels and a tv inside- not to mention the speaker system. After getting back to camp Anoop showed a few of us to the local internet café, and just after leaving I dropped my portable hard drive onto the ground. I was hoping that it would be ok because I had in inside a pouch- but later that evening when I went to check I could not get it to load any data. The computer reads that it is connected- but cannot read any other information. I'm really disappointed, because all my photos are on there, music, and that’s also where I was writing and saving my blog to so that I would not need to type everything while sitting in an internet café. I’m hoping that I may be able to find another one in the mean time for a reasonable price, and that I may be able to store some photos onto my mp3 player.

Day 3 – Today was a driving day, leaving Lake Naivasha, driving though Nukuru (where Michael was born) and into a bush camp site 3 hours drive south from the border of Uganda. We spent approximately two hours in Nukuru to buy groceries, souvenirs, petrol and check our emails. I think a few of the others on the truck were a bit jack of all the people trying to sell them things buy the end of it, but I was happy just to practice my Swahili, and made it clear that I was not going to buy anything at all. That made for some interesting conversations, ‘why don’t you ask your boyfriend for the money?’, ‘talking and looking are free, how much will you offer’ etc.

After crossing the equator and getting to the camping spot for the evening it began to rain quite heavily- and again I was reminded how much I needed my stolen gortex pants. Im soo pissed off, and I know that I will need them when we have to bush bash to see the Gorillias. It’s not like I can simply go and buy another pair- there is nothing like them here in any of the shops we have been to, in fact I have not seen any type of water proof pant full stop!! NOT HAPPY JAN !!

06.10.2009

Ok so I'm a bit slack in updating my blog. We have been in Rwanda for 3days now. On the day that we crossed the border we went into the Genocide Museum, and boy was that not fun. In fact it was rather horrible, as I expected that it would be. They had real time footage of people being butchered in the streets with Machetes, and heaps of video and photos of the dead lying, often dismembered, in the street. In addition there were videos playing of people who had survived, and the stories they had to share of living through the experience. A lot of it made me feel physically ill, and a great deal caused me to cry. There are mass graves at the site of the museum, and hundreds and hundreds of photos of the dead hanging up inside. Its so sad to see these photos of happy smiling people, and know how they were butchered. Additionally when you finish the main exhibit there is an entire area devoted to murdered children- it really is horrific. I have no idea how the western world let this happen- there is no excuse, none what so ever.

Its been 15 years since the genocide and you can see the effects on the people here. The survivors are scared and physically deformed. I passed a man yesterday with a huge machete scar across his face, a half of a leg missing- I can only imagine what trauma he went through to survive his attack. It really upsets me, it breaks my heart, and it makes me feel angry that nothing was done to stop it. The movie "Sometimes in April" is a good representation of what happened here, and if you have not seen it then you certainly should get hold of a copy.

On a happier note yesterday was Gorilla day. We were picked up at 6.15am from the camping grounds and taken to the briefing point. Following this 'DJ Kev' gave us a ride to the starting point of the hike into the mountains. Our driver, 'DJ Kev', informed us on the journey there that he has the number one single playing on the radio at the moment, and that everyone knows him and loves him. He then preceded to break into song, and also played us a cd of his songs- which was not bad, given that we had no idea what he was actually singing about. He was a very interesting guy- spoke 8 languages and for some reason developed a crush on me. He invited me out after the trek to his house to come and see his recording studio, but because no one would actually come with me I never went.

We spent about 1.5hrs struggling through stinging nettle and dense jungle vine to reach the Gorillas, and it was an amazing experience. The highlight of the experience- or at least the major talking point from it, would be that the dominant male silverback, "Charlie", charged at us while we were less than 2 meters from him. I swear to god that was scary, he weighs over 200kg, and has the nastiest looking teeth, he is just one big ball of strength. Apparently the family that we were viewing was relatively recently formed, Charlie had managed to convince some of the ladies to join him, and bang- a new gorilla family was born. For that reason he was the only silverback of our group, but we did have a few black backs and many females with infants. The baby gorillas are gorgeous- they have a crazy head of hair and just stare at you. Unfortunately all the babies we saw were very young and did not stray far from mum, one of the other groups was fortunate to see their young gorillas playing. Lol, one girl was even hit by a stick from the gorillas playing in her group.

When you have the briefing they inform you that you need to maintain a distance of 7meters from the Gorillas at all times, that it is not a problem to make eye contact, and that you should not run or make loud noises. Well, we were never more than 3 meters from the members of our family- and this was at the guides instance. They kept pushing us towards the gorillas to get our photos, and would take our cameras if we were not using them ourselves. Its amusing tho, not one of the photos the guides took on any of our cameras actually worked- they were all very much out of focus! As we approached the end of our one hour we got some great last minute pics of a mother and her baby- and then it began to rain. By the time we got back the parts of us that were not under rain gear were absolutely saturated.

When we got back to the hostel there was an amusing story circulating about one of the women in our group. Her name is Anne-Marie and she is in her late 40's early 50's, danish, and a very odd character. To describe her physically it would be polite to say that she is the opposite of skinny, in fact she would possibly be two of me- and the largest member on board the tour. Apparently- as the story goes, she slipped over on their walk to the gorillas and cut her leg and ripped her pants. The others in her group, being polite, told her that she could use the showers first to clean herself up. Well, she went into her doom room and took off her pants, but did not have another pair with her to change into- she needed to go to the truck. But it was not logical for her to put her torn pants back on, since they were filthy, so she just walked our of the dorm, down the open walkway past the other dorms, around the outside of the building past all the kitchen and laundry staff, and onto the truck- in only her underwear and and t-shirt. Andy, our tour guide apparently saw her coming and discretely went the other way, the rest of the group that saw her were just in disbelief. The incident has been a constant source of amusement for the group, especially since she can not see that she has done anything comment worthy.

Gallery: Mt Kilimanjaro

redcherry — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:12:00 GMT

Mt. Kilimanjaro