Well, I rushed through the last post on here, and this one might be a little hurried too, but we'll see. Shannon and I are at a hostel in Krakow, Poland right now, and while the internet is free, it seems today (or tomorrow maybe) is a Polish holiday, and it's starting to get a little packed and panicky as people wait for the computer. Meh, let 'em wait.
So after Turkey, we hauled off to Bulgaria for a 4 night stay to pretty much sit still for a few days in a quiet Bulgarian town and spend some time doing laundry and short hikes around the town. Quite a neat place, Bulgaria, with heaps of antique shops selling old WWII artifacts, and super cheap food and beer. We found a moderately old church too, which wasn't really much to look at, but the basement was open, and going inside we found what I'm pretty sure is some kind of human remains storage area. It was pretty old and damaged, but there were shelves of human skulls all with dates and what we thought were names on them, along with a few dozen boxes filled with human bones. Yes, I did indeed open as many as I could to check them all out, though I stopped short of actually handling the bones, since I didn't really want to be responsible for breaking anyone's skull open, whether they were still using it or not.
We caught the train from Bulgaria to Romania, which right away had a different feel to it. For starters, the 3 hours to the border cost us about $4 a person, but the 3 hours past the border into Romania cost us $20. Kinda strange. Romania also seems to have a much stronger presence of uni-brows - people (men and women) whose eyebrows fail to make any form of discernible gap between them across their forehead. Lots of facial warts too.
We went straight to Brasov, into the heart of Transylvania. We hadn't initially planned on it, but our Romanian trip quickly turned into a sort of Dracula-hunting expedition, as vehicle rentals were quite cheap, and we picked up a car for a few days. The story about Dracula, as far as I can understand it, begins with a Romanian ruler called Vlad Tepes, or Vlad the Impaler. This guy was pretty bad-ass, and had a nasty habit of a) impaling those he thought were conspiring against him onto stakes and b) assuming everyone around him was conspiring against him. He was quite a ruler too, conquering lots of land and doing well for Romania. Anyway, sometime later, Bram Stoker writes a book about vampires, calling the vampire Count Dracula, already another nick-name taken by the now deceased (I think) Vlad Tepes. (Dracula I think comes from Dracul, which means either dragon or devil, not sure which. I really should research this as I write it).
Well, all that history basically meant we spent 4 days cruising around to old castles and citadels either used by Vlad Tepes or used as a setting in the original Dracula book. Pretty cool.
After all that, we made our way to Poland, which we're staying at now. We're hanging around in Krakow, a wonderfully gorgeous city that I know very little about. Oh, except for the nutty legend about the dragon that used to live here, and the shoe-maker who killed it by stuffing a fake sheep full of sulphur, causing the dragon to explode. Lots of cobble-stone roads, old churches, fancy town squares, real nice place to be. Auschuwitz is also right nearby, which we went to see. That was quite an experience, though it was rather lessened in its intensity by the 5000 or so high school students that were also on a trip there that day. Still, despite the crowds and the youngin's acting like fools all around us, it was definitely worth the trip.
Probably time to bugger off the computer now. Next stop on the agenda is Prague, followed by Berlin, hopefully I'll have some fun things to type about then.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Fairy Chimneys and Eternal Flames
Ahhh Turkey - either the stupidest bird alive, or one of the more exciting countries you could hope to visit. Shannon and I just finished up 9 days in Turkey, and I don't think we'll find much in Europe that will be as unusual as it was. It might not even be that it was all that amazing, but just that I didn't really expect much to come out of it, thinking it was going to be just another European stop with a lot of churches, historical sites and people trying to sell you stuff at drastically inflated tourist prices, often with a gut-wrenching sob story thrown in for free. Well, I suppose it was all that, but the places we stopped at along the way certainly had a lot more.
Istanbul was the first stop, and it was OK, but nothing super special. If you're into mosques, kebabs, or moustaches, then this is the place for you. We only stayed one night though, and spent more time organizing our way out of town than doing anything in it. Well, we did check out one mosque, but that took all of 15 minutes. Rather short compared to the 2 hours watching a Julia Roberts/Clive Owen movie while waiting for our bus out of town.
We took off to Cappadocia (or Kappadokya, however you want to spell it). We weren't sure where we wanted to go to at first, so we based it largely on the posters placed all over the tour agency walls we walked by. The options seemed to be between mosques, beaches, some kind of pancake waterfall bathing town, and the mushroom rocks chalk-full of caves. We chose the caves, and didn't regret it. Cappadicia was apparently home to some pretty intense volcanic activity several million years ago, and as things settled down, it left these bizarre mushroom pillars of rock throughout the region. Plus, it's all this really soft limestone rock, so the troglodytes back in the day used to make all sorts of cave dwellings and even underground cities in the soft crumbly rock. We walked for hours through valleys where the walls would be lined for kilometers with holes, windows and caves people used to live in (and sometimes still do).
We sadly chose the wrong hostel when getting to Cappadocia, and I cannot say I spent the night in a cave, but most places there have built their hotels and guesthouses right into the cliff walls, so getting a "cave room" is generally an easy thing to do, and something I hope anyone who makes it there will do themselves. We did manage to see a Whirling Dervish dance though, which is a strange Turkish religious dance, involving spinning on your left foot, one hand up to heaven, one hand down to earth. It sounds a little silly, but the show they put on was, cliche as it sounds, hypnotic. They don't even serve alcohol during it, as it's taken quite seriously by the Turks.
Following Cappadocia, we went to Olympos. Don't confuse this with Olympus in Greece, because then you'd be in Greece, and not Turkey. Olympos is one of the more unusual ruin sites I've ever seen, since there's very little done to any of them - they've been literally left right in the bush just as they were found. A few dirt paths have been cleared, and some moderately informative signage has been put up, but otherwise it feels like you're the first person to stumble onto these old Roman ruins ever. There's small water systems they build, an amphitheatre, some housing, ir's all quite impressively intact, yet still mostly overgrown and left just sitting there on the side of the path. Anyway, if you get sick and tired of ruins, you can just keep on walking down the path till you hit the beach.
Oh, running out of time here, so I gotta run. One other cool thing about Olympos - the fire. There's a small mountain that spurts out fire from its cracks. Strange. Anyway, in Transylvania now, but whao, no time. Bye!
Istanbul was the first stop, and it was OK, but nothing super special. If you're into mosques, kebabs, or moustaches, then this is the place for you. We only stayed one night though, and spent more time organizing our way out of town than doing anything in it. Well, we did check out one mosque, but that took all of 15 minutes. Rather short compared to the 2 hours watching a Julia Roberts/Clive Owen movie while waiting for our bus out of town.
We took off to Cappadocia (or Kappadokya, however you want to spell it). We weren't sure where we wanted to go to at first, so we based it largely on the posters placed all over the tour agency walls we walked by. The options seemed to be between mosques, beaches, some kind of pancake waterfall bathing town, and the mushroom rocks chalk-full of caves. We chose the caves, and didn't regret it. Cappadicia was apparently home to some pretty intense volcanic activity several million years ago, and as things settled down, it left these bizarre mushroom pillars of rock throughout the region. Plus, it's all this really soft limestone rock, so the troglodytes back in the day used to make all sorts of cave dwellings and even underground cities in the soft crumbly rock. We walked for hours through valleys where the walls would be lined for kilometers with holes, windows and caves people used to live in (and sometimes still do).
We sadly chose the wrong hostel when getting to Cappadocia, and I cannot say I spent the night in a cave, but most places there have built their hotels and guesthouses right into the cliff walls, so getting a "cave room" is generally an easy thing to do, and something I hope anyone who makes it there will do themselves. We did manage to see a Whirling Dervish dance though, which is a strange Turkish religious dance, involving spinning on your left foot, one hand up to heaven, one hand down to earth. It sounds a little silly, but the show they put on was, cliche as it sounds, hypnotic. They don't even serve alcohol during it, as it's taken quite seriously by the Turks.
Following Cappadocia, we went to Olympos. Don't confuse this with Olympus in Greece, because then you'd be in Greece, and not Turkey. Olympos is one of the more unusual ruin sites I've ever seen, since there's very little done to any of them - they've been literally left right in the bush just as they were found. A few dirt paths have been cleared, and some moderately informative signage has been put up, but otherwise it feels like you're the first person to stumble onto these old Roman ruins ever. There's small water systems they build, an amphitheatre, some housing, ir's all quite impressively intact, yet still mostly overgrown and left just sitting there on the side of the path. Anyway, if you get sick and tired of ruins, you can just keep on walking down the path till you hit the beach.
Oh, running out of time here, so I gotta run. One other cool thing about Olympos - the fire. There's a small mountain that spurts out fire from its cracks. Strange. Anyway, in Transylvania now, but whao, no time. Bye!
Monday, April 6, 2009
Unforeseen Events
Things are rolling along nicely on the world trip. Shannon and I are back in Greece for a moment now, just waiting for our train to Istanbul. And so, with not much exciting on the traveling with which to update, I'll take a few lines here to talk about other strange happenings.
Packing for an 8 1/2 month trip was a tough thing to get through, but I think I did pretty well back in October. I even was careful enough to consider my slightly excessive sweating problem (hooray for hyperhydrosis!) and pack 8 or 9 t-shirts instead of a more idealistic 4 or 5. Still, seems 8 or 9 just wasn't close to enough, and now, despite picking up and extra 4 shirts along our travels, I've pretty much ruined, to the point of not being wearable, all the shirts in my bag. Yep, between 24 hour train rides, hostels with no usable shower, long hikes in the hills and my own nasty sweaty-ness, it's reached the point where I'm just going to have to bit the bullet and purge my bag from every shirt in it and start from scratch.
So, why's this worth mentioning? Well, purchasing a new upper-body wardrobe wasn't really on the budget agenda at the start of this trip, so if in my photos (that I will one day upload) you notice a sudden switch to rather tacky-touristy shirts that no self-respecting person would wear, well that's just me pinching pennies in an effort to smell a little better.
There was a big earthquake in Italy last night, happening just hours after Shannon and I left the country. Like the Mumbai attacks in India and the airport closure in Thailand, we were close to this incident and had somewhat planned to be traveling through the area, but I don't think realistically there was much of a chance of us being there when it all went down. Still, it's neat being so much closer to all these freaky big events as they're actually happening.
On our big trip here, Shannon's applied to do her Masters in Environmental Resource Management, which she just got accepted to the other day. Pretty good on her too, since she basically put the application package together while tinkering at internet cafes in various countries.
Hmmm, seems I've got time to kill now, rather than my usual rush-rush get-it-done kinda blogging. We're catching the night train to Istanbul, in a sleeping car too. A little more costly than the 2nd class one, but we've spent a few crappy nights on trains and boats, so it's time for a treat. Oh, but speaking of train tickets, I've got a little beef to rant on about here. We were traveling from Patras to Thessaloniki in Greece (check it out on a map http://www.greece-map.net/images/greece-map.gif) and the bus was rather expensive, 40 euro a ticket. So, I figure the train, while longer, will be a better deal. Turns out it is, only 20 euro a ticket, and so I try to book it, but I have to speak to a different lady to book, and she tells me there's no cheap seats available. This doesn't seem right though, as it was one of those times you just know you're being lied to. So I leave the train station and tell Shannon to go try, cause the lady's being horrible to me. Shannon heads to the train station, finds a nice lady to deal with, is about to have the tickets booked, when bitchy lady shows up again, and the nice lady and bitchy lady start bickering about things in Greek. Who knows what exactly was said, but now the nice lady has to apologize for the fact that there are no cheap tickets available for us. And so we bought the expensive bus tickets. I hate, hate, HATE losing money when people are being jerks to you. I don't mind getting ripped off sometimes, or splurging on a meal or dessert I want, but when someone just refuses to help you when you need to get something done (generally transportation), I lose my mind.
All right, I think I've had enough computeral diarrhea for a while now. Hope everyone out there's doing well!
Packing for an 8 1/2 month trip was a tough thing to get through, but I think I did pretty well back in October. I even was careful enough to consider my slightly excessive sweating problem (hooray for hyperhydrosis!) and pack 8 or 9 t-shirts instead of a more idealistic 4 or 5. Still, seems 8 or 9 just wasn't close to enough, and now, despite picking up and extra 4 shirts along our travels, I've pretty much ruined, to the point of not being wearable, all the shirts in my bag. Yep, between 24 hour train rides, hostels with no usable shower, long hikes in the hills and my own nasty sweaty-ness, it's reached the point where I'm just going to have to bit the bullet and purge my bag from every shirt in it and start from scratch.
So, why's this worth mentioning? Well, purchasing a new upper-body wardrobe wasn't really on the budget agenda at the start of this trip, so if in my photos (that I will one day upload) you notice a sudden switch to rather tacky-touristy shirts that no self-respecting person would wear, well that's just me pinching pennies in an effort to smell a little better.
There was a big earthquake in Italy last night, happening just hours after Shannon and I left the country. Like the Mumbai attacks in India and the airport closure in Thailand, we were close to this incident and had somewhat planned to be traveling through the area, but I don't think realistically there was much of a chance of us being there when it all went down. Still, it's neat being so much closer to all these freaky big events as they're actually happening.
On our big trip here, Shannon's applied to do her Masters in Environmental Resource Management, which she just got accepted to the other day. Pretty good on her too, since she basically put the application package together while tinkering at internet cafes in various countries.
Hmmm, seems I've got time to kill now, rather than my usual rush-rush get-it-done kinda blogging. We're catching the night train to Istanbul, in a sleeping car too. A little more costly than the 2nd class one, but we've spent a few crappy nights on trains and boats, so it's time for a treat. Oh, but speaking of train tickets, I've got a little beef to rant on about here. We were traveling from Patras to Thessaloniki in Greece (check it out on a map http://www.greece-map.net/images/greece-map.gif) and the bus was rather expensive, 40 euro a ticket. So, I figure the train, while longer, will be a better deal. Turns out it is, only 20 euro a ticket, and so I try to book it, but I have to speak to a different lady to book, and she tells me there's no cheap seats available. This doesn't seem right though, as it was one of those times you just know you're being lied to. So I leave the train station and tell Shannon to go try, cause the lady's being horrible to me. Shannon heads to the train station, finds a nice lady to deal with, is about to have the tickets booked, when bitchy lady shows up again, and the nice lady and bitchy lady start bickering about things in Greek. Who knows what exactly was said, but now the nice lady has to apologize for the fact that there are no cheap tickets available for us. And so we bought the expensive bus tickets. I hate, hate, HATE losing money when people are being jerks to you. I don't mind getting ripped off sometimes, or splurging on a meal or dessert I want, but when someone just refuses to help you when you need to get something done (generally transportation), I lose my mind.
All right, I think I've had enough computeral diarrhea for a while now. Hope everyone out there's doing well!
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Playing Catch-Up
Phew! I've fallen a little behind on things here. I spent all my time in Egypt writing about Africa I'm 3 countries behind. So, here's what's happening in mine and Shannon's traveling adventures:
We're in Italy now, but we've had plenty of stops before this. The first was Egypt, which was the first Arabic country either of us had ever been to. That place, wow was that different than I expected. For some reason I'd been led to believe Egypt was going to be this slum-like over-crowded India-esque country, where women were treated like 3rd class citezens, and religious dedication took on an eerie cult-like mentality inescapably pervasive in all parts of life. Well, it certainly had a little of all those parts, but at no time was it ever overwhelming or painful to deal with. In fact, most of the time people were quite charming with their unexpected idiosyncracities. Hmm, might have just made up that word. Anyway, thereàs something odd, not disconcerting yet not pleasing, about the religiousness of the place. Men often have anything from slight discolourations to massive bruises and welts on their foreheads from praying to often. Women generally cover their heads, yet other times you can't see an inch of skin anywhere on their bodies including their eyes. While there are heaps of people hounding you in the streets for money, they're usually more than balanced out by people trying to give you tea, help you find directions and show off what's happening in Egypt without asking for a single piasty.
And the sights, and the history, and the prodigious monuments, the place just went on and on with things to do and see. Which of course means that we saw so little and did such a small part of what there is to do, that whatever I have to say about it will only cover a smidgen of what there actually is there. We spent 5 days in Cairo, 2 days in Luxor, and 5 days in Siwa. Siwa was by far the best - a person can only take in so many temples and pyramids and museums for so long, and Siwa was quite the opposite. Situated 10 hours out of Cairo in the middle of the desert, Siwa is an oasis town, where water quite literally bubbles up from the ground in a smattering of cold and hot springs throught the sand dunes, with one giant patch of palm trees and smaller swaths of plant life surrounded on all sides by the empty desert. Just sitting around the town eating Siwan food and biking around the mountains and old forts was a great way to spend the days. We took a 4x4 trip out to the desert dunes as well, which was fan-flipping-tastic. Our guide took us sand-dune boarding on a board with no bindings (like riding a crazy carpet while standing up, very painful), then to an old fossil sea-bed. We were litterally walking on billion (or many million) year old ocean life, strew so thick along the ground, every step felt like another crushing blow to some poor museum curator's depressed heart.
It was tough leaving Egypt, especially knowing there was so much more to see, including traveling to Jordan, the Dead Sea, and even into Israel, but time waits for no traveler. We flew into Athens on the 20th of March, and started the European segment of the trip. After so long in Asian and African cities, Athens was like some kind of amusment park, with everything having such a pristine unused feel to it, it was as though the streets, buildings and even people were that faux-disneyland-molded kind of objects. Financial reality also came thundering down, as we went from paying $5-8 a night to as much as $20 a person. Yeuch!
Money aside though, Athens was pretty cool. The Acropolis is something might awesome to behold, though actually walking around it isn't nearly as cool as seeing it from below. plus most of it seems to have been replaced so as to better preseve it, meaning your not actually looking at it.
From there we went to Delphi, which is a sweet little town in the mountains that holds the old temple for Apollo and had a fairly important Oracle in the mountains around it. We spent most of the time hiking around, saving money and enjoying the cool ocean views.
From Delphi, we caught a bus to catch a boat to Italy. And so, 22 hours later, we arrived in Naples (pronounced Napoli if you're from there), home of pizza, mafia, and mafia related garbage issues. Oh, and Pompei is right next door, which we went and saw, after almost missing it due to not knowing it was so close by. Napoli was great, but our next stop, Nettuno, was far better. Right along the Amalfi coast, this little spot is tucked into these wild and steep sea cliffs, making for some great ocean and mountain walks, as well as some treacherous and exciting bus rides. It's low season there right now, so for less than what we're paying for a crappy dorm room in Rome, we got a tiny apartment all to ourselves. I really dug this place, and it's certainly going down on the list of places to try and get back to again (pretty low down on it, but it's there). Oh, and Pompei - totally forgot to write a bit about that. For those who don't know, Pompei is/was the city in ancient Rome that was destroyed by the Mt Vesuvius volcano explosion in 79 CE. What's cool is that the town was't actually destroyed, just everyone in it died, and the town was actually left to do it's own slow erosion-ing thing, until it was re-discovered and unburied. Now you can basically walk through a 2000 year old city, with all sorts of aspects of it and buildings well labelled so you can see what it is you're looking at.
We're in Rome now, where things are far too expensive for anyone's good, and while I like the place, I think it's very much time to leave for the cheaper eastern nations of Europe. I was here when I was 18, and it's neat seeing all the old sights I saw then again, and comparing my memories with what I'm seeing now, plus catching a few things I missed before. Anyway, next its the Vatican, then back through Greece and into Turkey for some, ummm, well whatever you do and eat in Turkey, that's what I'll be doing. And eating. Areviderchi!
We're in Italy now, but we've had plenty of stops before this. The first was Egypt, which was the first Arabic country either of us had ever been to. That place, wow was that different than I expected. For some reason I'd been led to believe Egypt was going to be this slum-like over-crowded India-esque country, where women were treated like 3rd class citezens, and religious dedication took on an eerie cult-like mentality inescapably pervasive in all parts of life. Well, it certainly had a little of all those parts, but at no time was it ever overwhelming or painful to deal with. In fact, most of the time people were quite charming with their unexpected idiosyncracities. Hmm, might have just made up that word. Anyway, thereàs something odd, not disconcerting yet not pleasing, about the religiousness of the place. Men often have anything from slight discolourations to massive bruises and welts on their foreheads from praying to often. Women generally cover their heads, yet other times you can't see an inch of skin anywhere on their bodies including their eyes. While there are heaps of people hounding you in the streets for money, they're usually more than balanced out by people trying to give you tea, help you find directions and show off what's happening in Egypt without asking for a single piasty.
And the sights, and the history, and the prodigious monuments, the place just went on and on with things to do and see. Which of course means that we saw so little and did such a small part of what there is to do, that whatever I have to say about it will only cover a smidgen of what there actually is there. We spent 5 days in Cairo, 2 days in Luxor, and 5 days in Siwa. Siwa was by far the best - a person can only take in so many temples and pyramids and museums for so long, and Siwa was quite the opposite. Situated 10 hours out of Cairo in the middle of the desert, Siwa is an oasis town, where water quite literally bubbles up from the ground in a smattering of cold and hot springs throught the sand dunes, with one giant patch of palm trees and smaller swaths of plant life surrounded on all sides by the empty desert. Just sitting around the town eating Siwan food and biking around the mountains and old forts was a great way to spend the days. We took a 4x4 trip out to the desert dunes as well, which was fan-flipping-tastic. Our guide took us sand-dune boarding on a board with no bindings (like riding a crazy carpet while standing up, very painful), then to an old fossil sea-bed. We were litterally walking on billion (or many million) year old ocean life, strew so thick along the ground, every step felt like another crushing blow to some poor museum curator's depressed heart.
It was tough leaving Egypt, especially knowing there was so much more to see, including traveling to Jordan, the Dead Sea, and even into Israel, but time waits for no traveler. We flew into Athens on the 20th of March, and started the European segment of the trip. After so long in Asian and African cities, Athens was like some kind of amusment park, with everything having such a pristine unused feel to it, it was as though the streets, buildings and even people were that faux-disneyland-molded kind of objects. Financial reality also came thundering down, as we went from paying $5-8 a night to as much as $20 a person. Yeuch!
Money aside though, Athens was pretty cool. The Acropolis is something might awesome to behold, though actually walking around it isn't nearly as cool as seeing it from below. plus most of it seems to have been replaced so as to better preseve it, meaning your not actually looking at it.
From there we went to Delphi, which is a sweet little town in the mountains that holds the old temple for Apollo and had a fairly important Oracle in the mountains around it. We spent most of the time hiking around, saving money and enjoying the cool ocean views.
From Delphi, we caught a bus to catch a boat to Italy. And so, 22 hours later, we arrived in Naples (pronounced Napoli if you're from there), home of pizza, mafia, and mafia related garbage issues. Oh, and Pompei is right next door, which we went and saw, after almost missing it due to not knowing it was so close by. Napoli was great, but our next stop, Nettuno, was far better. Right along the Amalfi coast, this little spot is tucked into these wild and steep sea cliffs, making for some great ocean and mountain walks, as well as some treacherous and exciting bus rides. It's low season there right now, so for less than what we're paying for a crappy dorm room in Rome, we got a tiny apartment all to ourselves. I really dug this place, and it's certainly going down on the list of places to try and get back to again (pretty low down on it, but it's there). Oh, and Pompei - totally forgot to write a bit about that. For those who don't know, Pompei is/was the city in ancient Rome that was destroyed by the Mt Vesuvius volcano explosion in 79 CE. What's cool is that the town was't actually destroyed, just everyone in it died, and the town was actually left to do it's own slow erosion-ing thing, until it was re-discovered and unburied. Now you can basically walk through a 2000 year old city, with all sorts of aspects of it and buildings well labelled so you can see what it is you're looking at.
We're in Rome now, where things are far too expensive for anyone's good, and while I like the place, I think it's very much time to leave for the cheaper eastern nations of Europe. I was here when I was 18, and it's neat seeing all the old sights I saw then again, and comparing my memories with what I'm seeing now, plus catching a few things I missed before. Anyway, next its the Vatican, then back through Greece and into Turkey for some, ummm, well whatever you do and eat in Turkey, that's what I'll be doing. And eating. Areviderchi!
Monday, March 16, 2009
Swahili, Massai, Muzungu
So where did I leave this African story off? I think we were just leaving Zanzibar, which was right about when the first and only case of malaria on our trip came about. From what I've heard from other people's stories, it seems most trips end up with a case of malaria on them (one of the guy's on our trip was recommended on the tour by a friend who went to Africa twice, and ended up with malaria both times). On our trip, it was our bus driver, Sean, who got ill. We all assumed it was just a bad hangover, or maybe alcohol withdrawl (aren't those the same thing?), cause he was acting squirrely as a rabid bat the day we left Zanzibar. He was sweating, trying to collect garbage from people for the rubbish bin, talking about fishing with strangers, basically being a lunatic for no good reason. Two days later he finally went to a clinic and found he did indeed have malaria. 2nd time for the guy too.
But what about Shannon's woes? I mentioned already she had something wrong, but it took a while to figure out what it was. After leaving lake Malawi, she had what she thought were mosquito bites on her feet. But the bites didn't go away, and soon they spread to take the shape of worms. She even marked where they were with pen, and found they were getting longer each day. We diagnosed her as having "geography worms" from a little "Diseases of Africa" book we found - worms that live in your skin for a few days to a week, traveling a bit, then die. But they were in no hurry to die, and by the time we got to Tanzania, they were driving her nuts. And so, outside of Arusha, we found a little medical clinic in a small village that checked them out. The doctor there was not really a doctor, more of a medical enthusiast with a doctor friend. And the nurse, well, she was really nice and had a sharp looking nurses outfit on, but she was lacking - confidence? training? expertise? I dunno what it was, but she started taking medical advice from an engineer in our group with zero doctoring skills. And so, they mis-diagnosed Shannon twice - at first they thought it was "jiggers" then they decided it was a "guinea worm" and took to cutting the worms out of her foot. This was unfortunately unsuccessful.
They then decided to dip her feet in potassium permanganate, thinking that would kill the worms and any bacteria that got in her now open wounds. This also didn't do the trick, though it's brightened Shannon's toe nails to a rich brown colour. And so, her feet kept getting itchier, until finally we made it to Nairobi and went to the rich Muzungu (foreigner) hospital. Even then, it took two nurses, a doctor, and finally the tropical disease specialist to properly diagnose her with hookworm - cutaneous larval migrans - and get her the proper medication. And now, a week later, she's almost 100%, though she likes talking about the "dead worms" still residing in her feet a little too much I think.
Other than the medical troubles, the last while in Africa was awesome. We went to the Serengeti and Ngorongoro crater for our last big adventure, which was absolutely mind-blowing. It was quite a drive to get in there, through miles of Massai land (the local nomad people who herd animals and live on a diet mostly of meat and animal blood), before coming to the widest flattest plain I've ever seen. From the hill driving down, it looked like the earth extended out almost infinitely, before suddenly cascading out of sight in a perfect line across the horizon. Driving down, we spent the next day and a half seeing every large animal you could hope to see, though wow, do most animals spend far too much time being lazy for my liking.
At night, we camped in the Serengeti, surrounded by the animals in their natural habitat. During the day they might have been to lazy for my liking, but at night they seemed a little too active - once dusk came, we could hear buffalo rummaging through the bushes only 100 metres away. Hyenas were wondering all around our camp through the night as well, and we found large footprints from some kind of predator animal all along the campground.
The second night we camped on the rim of the Ngorongoro crater, a massive caldera from a volcano that collapsed in on itself several thousand years ago. There wasn't such a wide array of animals up here, and though I slept soundly though the night there were plenty of stories of more buffalo and wild pigs tearing through the campsite at night.
The crater itself is probably the most awe-inspiring place I could imagine seeing. The animals are so dense inside it, it's hard not to feeled swamped and surrounded by them. After only an hour or two, I was rather tired of it all - There's a herd of zebra. There's some more wildebeast. Buffalo. Zebra. Warthog. Ostrich. Hippo. Buffalo. Wildebeast. And more, and more, and on and on. By the end I was so tired, I shut my eyes and refused to move for anything that wasn't killing, being killed or making babies.
Oh, and we learned a song in Swahili, the local language in Kenya and Tanzania. In case anyone from the truck comes on here, here's the lyrics:
Jambo, Jambo Bwana
Habari Ghani
Mizouri Sana
Muzungu Karibu Tanzania
Hakuna Mattata
Basically it says, Hi there, how are you? I'm good. Welcome to Tanzania foreigner, no worries.
And so, Africa came to an end. I'm hoping to make it back someday though. I'd like to see Nairobi (Cheetah park, sand dunes, "click" tribes), Uganda (gorillas) and climb Kilimanjaro. Next time right? I'm thinking another round the world trip might be in order in a few years.
But what about Shannon's woes? I mentioned already she had something wrong, but it took a while to figure out what it was. After leaving lake Malawi, she had what she thought were mosquito bites on her feet. But the bites didn't go away, and soon they spread to take the shape of worms. She even marked where they were with pen, and found they were getting longer each day. We diagnosed her as having "geography worms" from a little "Diseases of Africa" book we found - worms that live in your skin for a few days to a week, traveling a bit, then die. But they were in no hurry to die, and by the time we got to Tanzania, they were driving her nuts. And so, outside of Arusha, we found a little medical clinic in a small village that checked them out. The doctor there was not really a doctor, more of a medical enthusiast with a doctor friend. And the nurse, well, she was really nice and had a sharp looking nurses outfit on, but she was lacking - confidence? training? expertise? I dunno what it was, but she started taking medical advice from an engineer in our group with zero doctoring skills. And so, they mis-diagnosed Shannon twice - at first they thought it was "jiggers" then they decided it was a "guinea worm" and took to cutting the worms out of her foot. This was unfortunately unsuccessful.
They then decided to dip her feet in potassium permanganate, thinking that would kill the worms and any bacteria that got in her now open wounds. This also didn't do the trick, though it's brightened Shannon's toe nails to a rich brown colour. And so, her feet kept getting itchier, until finally we made it to Nairobi and went to the rich Muzungu (foreigner) hospital. Even then, it took two nurses, a doctor, and finally the tropical disease specialist to properly diagnose her with hookworm - cutaneous larval migrans - and get her the proper medication. And now, a week later, she's almost 100%, though she likes talking about the "dead worms" still residing in her feet a little too much I think.
Other than the medical troubles, the last while in Africa was awesome. We went to the Serengeti and Ngorongoro crater for our last big adventure, which was absolutely mind-blowing. It was quite a drive to get in there, through miles of Massai land (the local nomad people who herd animals and live on a diet mostly of meat and animal blood), before coming to the widest flattest plain I've ever seen. From the hill driving down, it looked like the earth extended out almost infinitely, before suddenly cascading out of sight in a perfect line across the horizon. Driving down, we spent the next day and a half seeing every large animal you could hope to see, though wow, do most animals spend far too much time being lazy for my liking.
At night, we camped in the Serengeti, surrounded by the animals in their natural habitat. During the day they might have been to lazy for my liking, but at night they seemed a little too active - once dusk came, we could hear buffalo rummaging through the bushes only 100 metres away. Hyenas were wondering all around our camp through the night as well, and we found large footprints from some kind of predator animal all along the campground.
The second night we camped on the rim of the Ngorongoro crater, a massive caldera from a volcano that collapsed in on itself several thousand years ago. There wasn't such a wide array of animals up here, and though I slept soundly though the night there were plenty of stories of more buffalo and wild pigs tearing through the campsite at night.
The crater itself is probably the most awe-inspiring place I could imagine seeing. The animals are so dense inside it, it's hard not to feeled swamped and surrounded by them. After only an hour or two, I was rather tired of it all - There's a herd of zebra. There's some more wildebeast. Buffalo. Zebra. Warthog. Ostrich. Hippo. Buffalo. Wildebeast. And more, and more, and on and on. By the end I was so tired, I shut my eyes and refused to move for anything that wasn't killing, being killed or making babies.
Oh, and we learned a song in Swahili, the local language in Kenya and Tanzania. In case anyone from the truck comes on here, here's the lyrics:
Jambo, Jambo Bwana
Habari Ghani
Mizouri Sana
Muzungu Karibu Tanzania
Hakuna Mattata
Basically it says, Hi there, how are you? I'm good. Welcome to Tanzania foreigner, no worries.
And so, Africa came to an end. I'm hoping to make it back someday though. I'd like to see Nairobi (Cheetah park, sand dunes, "click" tribes), Uganda (gorillas) and climb Kilimanjaro. Next time right? I'm thinking another round the world trip might be in order in a few years.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
People You Meet
You meet a lot of characters on the road while in Africa. Here's some stories from a few of the folks I've encountered:
Ben
Ben is a 38 year old Kenyan with at least three kids. He's been driving or guiding tours in Africa for at least 10 years, and has shared some of his stories from driving across Kenya during the civil unrest from last year's elections. He was in Uganda when trouble started, and decided immediately that traveling through Kenya was probably not a good idea. He was a little unclear on what finally spurred him on to enter Kenya, but I think the people on his tour were unable or unwilling to wait, so off they left Uganda and crossed into Kenya.
Once over the border, they quickly decided it was necessary to hire a police escort. And so, for a few hundred US dollars, the tour truck had two police vehicles escort them from town to town, usually demanding more money at each town, telling them this was as far as they'd be willing to go. During the election unrest, Ben said there was rioting outside the major cities, and so even with a police escort their tour bus still had people throwing things at the truck, climbing up on the doors and windows and causing as much havoc as they could. Ben described his driving as a mixture of dodging rioters in the streets, tossing coins out the window to distract people climbing on the bus, and swatting others from the door as he drove.
Ben, not known for his patience or understanding at even the best of times, described his state of mind as being a extremely stressed and perhaps a little neurotic. One of the passengers even had the nerve (or perhaps stupidity) to even poke their head into the driver's cab at one point asking Ben when they would be stopping for lunch. Ben said it was the last tour he worked for that company, mentioned a few tourist profiles that he would no longer work as a guide for.
Blessed
Blessed is one outlandish character. He was probably the handsomest looking dude I met in Africa, was rather indifferent to meeting new people and had a strong stubborn streak. He was certainly friendly, but he never took even the slightest bit of bull-shit from anyone, including - or perhaps especially - police officers. I asked him about driving in Africa and if police or robbers ever gave him grief, and he said cops were the only ones who ever gave him trouble.
"Police always want to give you shit for anything," he said. "No seatbelt, no shoes on, not enough emergency flares. Who the fuck in Africa ever even uses emergency flares?" I asked him what he does whenever the cops give him a hard time for something or if he ever got into trouble.
"Are you kidding? I tell the cops they can just fuck off. And if they don't, then I just drive the fuck away."
Blessed comes from Zimbabwe, which meant things were always a little more interesting and challenging for him. In South Africa he picked up a month's worth of food to smuggle into Zimbabwe for his family. I asked him if he ever faced violence while at home, and he told me more than once he had to go houseboating for a week or two.
"Some guys just wanted to beat us up (Blessed and some friends), so we went out on the lake for a while. It was cool, we drank beers, went fishing. That kind of stuff just happens."
Right now, our tour is camped on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe. It's an incredibly safe campground, where wildly aggressive monkeys are the only cause for concern, but outside the campgrounds, it's a different story, with tourists told not to walk into town after a traveler on a recent trip was mugged not far from the front gate. The Zambezi river divides Zambia from Zimbabwe, and is a great spot for white water rafting, which some of the people on our tour did. The rapids were a highlight I'm sure, but it was the Zimbabweans smuggling food across the river that got the most attention. Apparently it's not uncommon at all for people to do this, nor is it uncommon for them to be killed in the process. The rafters stopped their trip and transported the two food smugglers across the river before continuing on their trip.
Dion
Where to begin with Dion. Two nights was enough to know this guy had more loose screws than a Home Hardware store. At 18 he was bitten by a puff adder snake, losing three fingers from his left hand. At 19, as a white South African, he had to make the choice between joining the army or the police, and so he became a police sniper, shooting members of the ANC (now the current ruling party in SA). After Apartheid ended, he spent a year on drugs, dealing with insomnia and an array of emotional issues (at least, that's what I interpreted his stories and musing to mean), followed by at least a year or two in therapy. When I met him, he was running a campground next to Kruger National Park. Obviously the snake bite did little to scare him off of animals, as he regularly made his way into the park to "interact" with the animals. His stomach had a large puncture wound from a recent lion attack, which came about while Dion was picking tics off the lion's face. While picking tics (perhaps the same time or perhaps on a different tic-picking episode; Dion was rather unclear), Dion also decided to take some photos. He showed me some fantastic close-up photos of a lion, a sequence which follows his hand reaching onto the lion's face, picking a tic, and the lion reacting by rolling forward, biting at Dion. Dion then produced the now-mangled camera lens, and displayed some of the strangest "inside a lion's mouth" photos I've ever seen.
Oh, and then there was the time he let a lion out of the park. Dion, leaving the park after another personal adventure, left the gate open too long and a lion trotted out. So, Dion used himself as bait, teasing the lion until it chased him back into the park.
Dion's plan was to run and leap onto a nearby tree branch, not remembering that lion's are much better at leaping onto trees than humans are. And so, Dion jumped into the tree, followed by the lion, but rather than being pounced on by the lion, Dion hits the branch and falls awkwardly and the lion went clear over top of him. Still not out of the woods, Dion's dog finally saves him, barking from the truck and distracting the big cat long enough for Dion to scurry around to the far side of his vehicle.
There were more stories about Dion, some rather sadistic and all very bizarre. All of them seem too outlandish to be true, but they were all verified by others who knew Dion and were around to see the outcome and evidence from these stories themselves.
The Anti-Poacher
Most big parks in Africa employ anti-poaching agents, guys with big guns who scare off (or shoot) poachers in the park. This one poor fellow I guess was getting a little bored with his job. He'd been in the park for a while, and never got around to moving his camp - a big no-no since the predators get used to you if you stay to long in one spot. One night he gets drunk and passes out - with his head outside the tent. And so, that night turned out to be his last, since it was also the night when a lion felt comfortable enough to come up and take a swat at his head, killing him. It then dragged him out of the tent and ate him. Poor lion too - the policy is to kill any animal that eats humans to prevent them from getting comfortable with the idea that humans are a good way to get dinner.
Dion's Landlord
Birds of a feather right? So Dion is a little nuts (to be fair, his wife does keep him grounded when she's around), so it seems natural that he'd end up in business with other crazies. He was having some troubles with his landlord and negotiating a new lease on his campground property while we were at his place, and he told us about it. It seems his landlord was getting out of jail soon and thought maybe he could do something more with the land. And what was the landlord in jail for? Seems there was a murder some years back, and while the landlord didn't have anything to do with the actual killing, owning land next to Kruger Park put him in a nice position to help dispose of the body, which he fed it to the lions.
So yeah, that's some of the folks I've met while in Africa. I think it's pretty hard to spend much time there and not have a good (or scary) story or two, and even just being a tourist here means ending up with a few horrific stories of your own. Just wait till I write about Shannon's worm story next entry.
Ben
Ben is a 38 year old Kenyan with at least three kids. He's been driving or guiding tours in Africa for at least 10 years, and has shared some of his stories from driving across Kenya during the civil unrest from last year's elections. He was in Uganda when trouble started, and decided immediately that traveling through Kenya was probably not a good idea. He was a little unclear on what finally spurred him on to enter Kenya, but I think the people on his tour were unable or unwilling to wait, so off they left Uganda and crossed into Kenya.
Once over the border, they quickly decided it was necessary to hire a police escort. And so, for a few hundred US dollars, the tour truck had two police vehicles escort them from town to town, usually demanding more money at each town, telling them this was as far as they'd be willing to go. During the election unrest, Ben said there was rioting outside the major cities, and so even with a police escort their tour bus still had people throwing things at the truck, climbing up on the doors and windows and causing as much havoc as they could. Ben described his driving as a mixture of dodging rioters in the streets, tossing coins out the window to distract people climbing on the bus, and swatting others from the door as he drove.
Ben, not known for his patience or understanding at even the best of times, described his state of mind as being a extremely stressed and perhaps a little neurotic. One of the passengers even had the nerve (or perhaps stupidity) to even poke their head into the driver's cab at one point asking Ben when they would be stopping for lunch. Ben said it was the last tour he worked for that company, mentioned a few tourist profiles that he would no longer work as a guide for.
Blessed
Blessed is one outlandish character. He was probably the handsomest looking dude I met in Africa, was rather indifferent to meeting new people and had a strong stubborn streak. He was certainly friendly, but he never took even the slightest bit of bull-shit from anyone, including - or perhaps especially - police officers. I asked him about driving in Africa and if police or robbers ever gave him grief, and he said cops were the only ones who ever gave him trouble.
"Police always want to give you shit for anything," he said. "No seatbelt, no shoes on, not enough emergency flares. Who the fuck in Africa ever even uses emergency flares?" I asked him what he does whenever the cops give him a hard time for something or if he ever got into trouble.
"Are you kidding? I tell the cops they can just fuck off. And if they don't, then I just drive the fuck away."
Blessed comes from Zimbabwe, which meant things were always a little more interesting and challenging for him. In South Africa he picked up a month's worth of food to smuggle into Zimbabwe for his family. I asked him if he ever faced violence while at home, and he told me more than once he had to go houseboating for a week or two.
"Some guys just wanted to beat us up (Blessed and some friends), so we went out on the lake for a while. It was cool, we drank beers, went fishing. That kind of stuff just happens."
Right now, our tour is camped on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe. It's an incredibly safe campground, where wildly aggressive monkeys are the only cause for concern, but outside the campgrounds, it's a different story, with tourists told not to walk into town after a traveler on a recent trip was mugged not far from the front gate. The Zambezi river divides Zambia from Zimbabwe, and is a great spot for white water rafting, which some of the people on our tour did. The rapids were a highlight I'm sure, but it was the Zimbabweans smuggling food across the river that got the most attention. Apparently it's not uncommon at all for people to do this, nor is it uncommon for them to be killed in the process. The rafters stopped their trip and transported the two food smugglers across the river before continuing on their trip.
Dion
Where to begin with Dion. Two nights was enough to know this guy had more loose screws than a Home Hardware store. At 18 he was bitten by a puff adder snake, losing three fingers from his left hand. At 19, as a white South African, he had to make the choice between joining the army or the police, and so he became a police sniper, shooting members of the ANC (now the current ruling party in SA). After Apartheid ended, he spent a year on drugs, dealing with insomnia and an array of emotional issues (at least, that's what I interpreted his stories and musing to mean), followed by at least a year or two in therapy. When I met him, he was running a campground next to Kruger National Park. Obviously the snake bite did little to scare him off of animals, as he regularly made his way into the park to "interact" with the animals. His stomach had a large puncture wound from a recent lion attack, which came about while Dion was picking tics off the lion's face. While picking tics (perhaps the same time or perhaps on a different tic-picking episode; Dion was rather unclear), Dion also decided to take some photos. He showed me some fantastic close-up photos of a lion, a sequence which follows his hand reaching onto the lion's face, picking a tic, and the lion reacting by rolling forward, biting at Dion. Dion then produced the now-mangled camera lens, and displayed some of the strangest "inside a lion's mouth" photos I've ever seen.
Oh, and then there was the time he let a lion out of the park. Dion, leaving the park after another personal adventure, left the gate open too long and a lion trotted out. So, Dion used himself as bait, teasing the lion until it chased him back into the park.
Dion's plan was to run and leap onto a nearby tree branch, not remembering that lion's are much better at leaping onto trees than humans are. And so, Dion jumped into the tree, followed by the lion, but rather than being pounced on by the lion, Dion hits the branch and falls awkwardly and the lion went clear over top of him. Still not out of the woods, Dion's dog finally saves him, barking from the truck and distracting the big cat long enough for Dion to scurry around to the far side of his vehicle.
There were more stories about Dion, some rather sadistic and all very bizarre. All of them seem too outlandish to be true, but they were all verified by others who knew Dion and were around to see the outcome and evidence from these stories themselves.
The Anti-Poacher
Most big parks in Africa employ anti-poaching agents, guys with big guns who scare off (or shoot) poachers in the park. This one poor fellow I guess was getting a little bored with his job. He'd been in the park for a while, and never got around to moving his camp - a big no-no since the predators get used to you if you stay to long in one spot. One night he gets drunk and passes out - with his head outside the tent. And so, that night turned out to be his last, since it was also the night when a lion felt comfortable enough to come up and take a swat at his head, killing him. It then dragged him out of the tent and ate him. Poor lion too - the policy is to kill any animal that eats humans to prevent them from getting comfortable with the idea that humans are a good way to get dinner.
Dion's Landlord
Birds of a feather right? So Dion is a little nuts (to be fair, his wife does keep him grounded when she's around), so it seems natural that he'd end up in business with other crazies. He was having some troubles with his landlord and negotiating a new lease on his campground property while we were at his place, and he told us about it. It seems his landlord was getting out of jail soon and thought maybe he could do something more with the land. And what was the landlord in jail for? Seems there was a murder some years back, and while the landlord didn't have anything to do with the actual killing, owning land next to Kruger Park put him in a nice position to help dispose of the body, which he fed it to the lions.
So yeah, that's some of the folks I've met while in Africa. I think it's pretty hard to spend much time there and not have a good (or scary) story or two, and even just being a tourist here means ending up with a few horrific stories of your own. Just wait till I write about Shannon's worm story next entry.
Monday, March 9, 2009
More Tales From the Dark Continent
Not sure where Africa picked up that name, but I have a feeling it's very race related. Let's see what wikipedia has to say on the matter... Well, it seems skin colour may not have been the reason but instead - "As little was known about the continent's interior geography, map-makers would often leave this region dark." Fascinating.
I'm out of Africa now, though not literally. While still part of Africa, Egypt seems to be considered much more middle eastern, as the population is Arabic and the Saharan divide seems enough to render this place much more closely akin to the mid east. But enough of that, let's type about the last few weeks.
I left off in Vic Falls, where Shannon, myself and a few others from our tour spent a day at the "Gorge Swing." It's been a few weeks, so I may be wrong on my numbers here, but I believe it was a 140 metre swing over an 80 metre gorge, with 3.2 seconds of free fall time and a whole lotta me yelling and gasping for air. For $75 we rappelled down the cliff, did a few flying foxes and then two of these swings across the gorge. They even threw in a beer at the end to help ease the frazzled nerves we all had, which was much appreciated. The swing itself (it's too bad I can't put up pictures right now) was pretty freakin' intense, and if you went off backwards, you had enough time to rotate around so that you were completely upsidedown and facing the other side of the gorge before the rope finally pulled tight and swung you back upright. Quite fun for sure.
The next few days were spent with a lot of driving. A cruise along a river whose name slips my mind, African drumming, dancing and singing by a bonfire, a village walk, then to Lake Malawi, which wikipedia informs me is "the third largest lake in Africa and the 9th larges in the world... The lake's tropical waters teem with more fish species than any other lake on Earth." Well, I didn't know all that until just now.
The lake was a pretty good time to relax, toss a frisbee, swim and spend way too much money buying bizzarro arts and crafts from the locals. Besides a Bao board (you'll have to look that up on your own), Shannon and I also picked up a kick-ass chess set. We found this one set that was probably the coolest chess set I've ever seen, but the dude started bartering at $120 US. Ugh. In hindsight I wish we'd bought it (probably for about $50) but we got one that was nearly as nice for $34. Plus some salt and pepper shakers.
Oh, and we picked up some worms too. Hookworms. The parasitic kind. Only in Shannon's feet though, but having them in your feet is certainly bad enough. We (she) didn't really notice them right away though, so more on that in a bit.
After Lake Malawi we drove. A lot. And after the drive, we drove some more. For three days, we would wake up early, drive all day, take lunch in heat so terribly bad that people were literally clinging to the truck to find any kind of shade from the midday sun, get to camp right at sundown, unpack, eat, sleep, then do it all over again. We did have a fun bin-bag (Aussie slang for garbage bag) party, but even that was kept mildly early for the sake of another long day's drive.
At the end of the mega-haul, we reached Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania, the jumping off point for Zanzibar. Zanzibar is certainly one kick-ass place, and well worth the incredibly long drive to get there. Stone Town, the capital, is one of those historic towns where even if you know nothing of history and cultural significance, you can still sort of feel the importance of things oozing out of the walls. Indian and Arabic architechure are visible everywhere, there's a strange "colonial" feel to things even now, and learning a bit about the slave trade and seeing the former slave markets really helps you appreciate just what kind of place Stone Town used to be.
After Stone Town we stayed at Nungwi, a little beach town on the northern tip. And wow, I've never seen water so spotlessly clear, with nothing but white sand and coral reefs to compliment the crystal waters and blingingly bright sky. Okay, so I'm not sure if I'm doing so well on my paradise-esque metaphors here, but it was a pretty amazing spot. I went scuba diving, and while the sea-life was just so-so, it was well worth it to spend a day swimming in the waters.
There was also a booze-crooze we went on in Nungwi, which was pretty low on the cultural significance, but pretty high on the good-times and acting-silly charts. I think it was saying something when we had to return to shore after 10 minutes on the water to get more alcohol.
All right, I'm pretty spent for the moment. Internet here in Cairo is pretty plentiful and not too expensive, so I should be able to continue the African stories shortly. Maybe even some photos too. Till then...
I'm out of Africa now, though not literally. While still part of Africa, Egypt seems to be considered much more middle eastern, as the population is Arabic and the Saharan divide seems enough to render this place much more closely akin to the mid east. But enough of that, let's type about the last few weeks.
I left off in Vic Falls, where Shannon, myself and a few others from our tour spent a day at the "Gorge Swing." It's been a few weeks, so I may be wrong on my numbers here, but I believe it was a 140 metre swing over an 80 metre gorge, with 3.2 seconds of free fall time and a whole lotta me yelling and gasping for air. For $75 we rappelled down the cliff, did a few flying foxes and then two of these swings across the gorge. They even threw in a beer at the end to help ease the frazzled nerves we all had, which was much appreciated. The swing itself (it's too bad I can't put up pictures right now) was pretty freakin' intense, and if you went off backwards, you had enough time to rotate around so that you were completely upsidedown and facing the other side of the gorge before the rope finally pulled tight and swung you back upright. Quite fun for sure.
The next few days were spent with a lot of driving. A cruise along a river whose name slips my mind, African drumming, dancing and singing by a bonfire, a village walk, then to Lake Malawi, which wikipedia informs me is "the third largest lake in Africa and the 9th larges in the world... The lake's tropical waters teem with more fish species than any other lake on Earth." Well, I didn't know all that until just now.
The lake was a pretty good time to relax, toss a frisbee, swim and spend way too much money buying bizzarro arts and crafts from the locals. Besides a Bao board (you'll have to look that up on your own), Shannon and I also picked up a kick-ass chess set. We found this one set that was probably the coolest chess set I've ever seen, but the dude started bartering at $120 US. Ugh. In hindsight I wish we'd bought it (probably for about $50) but we got one that was nearly as nice for $34. Plus some salt and pepper shakers.
Oh, and we picked up some worms too. Hookworms. The parasitic kind. Only in Shannon's feet though, but having them in your feet is certainly bad enough. We (she) didn't really notice them right away though, so more on that in a bit.
After Lake Malawi we drove. A lot. And after the drive, we drove some more. For three days, we would wake up early, drive all day, take lunch in heat so terribly bad that people were literally clinging to the truck to find any kind of shade from the midday sun, get to camp right at sundown, unpack, eat, sleep, then do it all over again. We did have a fun bin-bag (Aussie slang for garbage bag) party, but even that was kept mildly early for the sake of another long day's drive.
At the end of the mega-haul, we reached Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania, the jumping off point for Zanzibar. Zanzibar is certainly one kick-ass place, and well worth the incredibly long drive to get there. Stone Town, the capital, is one of those historic towns where even if you know nothing of history and cultural significance, you can still sort of feel the importance of things oozing out of the walls. Indian and Arabic architechure are visible everywhere, there's a strange "colonial" feel to things even now, and learning a bit about the slave trade and seeing the former slave markets really helps you appreciate just what kind of place Stone Town used to be.
After Stone Town we stayed at Nungwi, a little beach town on the northern tip. And wow, I've never seen water so spotlessly clear, with nothing but white sand and coral reefs to compliment the crystal waters and blingingly bright sky. Okay, so I'm not sure if I'm doing so well on my paradise-esque metaphors here, but it was a pretty amazing spot. I went scuba diving, and while the sea-life was just so-so, it was well worth it to spend a day swimming in the waters.
There was also a booze-crooze we went on in Nungwi, which was pretty low on the cultural significance, but pretty high on the good-times and acting-silly charts. I think it was saying something when we had to return to shore after 10 minutes on the water to get more alcohol.
All right, I'm pretty spent for the moment. Internet here in Cairo is pretty plentiful and not too expensive, so I should be able to continue the African stories shortly. Maybe even some photos too. Till then...
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