John Stewart does it to wrap up the Daily Show, so I am doing it to wrap up this blog.
Here it is, your blogspot moment of zen...
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
This is it...
The last blog entry. The **LAST** blog entry **EVER**. Well, I intend this to be the last, but in case I get a huge inspiration 5 months from now about something I absolutely meant to share, I may add another update... or if I can ever get that video of Steve riding an ostrich in South Africa to load, that would be worthy of another entry.
So, it has been almost two months since my last entry. I promise I haven't been a total slacker, just laying around on a beach sipping a pina colada the whole time (although we have had some fantastic beach time in the Bahamas and in Florida.) Since my last entry, we traveled to Uruguay, said goodbye to our beloved Buenos Aires, returned to the USA (including a teaser one-hour layover in the Atlanta airport at 6AM en route to Florida), went to Disney World- much better than Disneyland Paris, spent a couple of weeks in the Bahamas meeting more of Steve's family, came back to Atlanta, ran in the Peachtree Road Race (decided to do it 2 days before, I don't recommend running a 10k on July 4th in Atlanta with zero training), recovered from the Peachtree, went back to Florida for two different family reunions, and now we're all caught up to today. Whew.
Here are a few of the highlights of the past couple of months:
*While in Uruguay, we were able to meet the Ubals, friends of my grandparents dating back to the 1950´s. As a newlywed couple the Ubals had moved from Uruguay to Lubbock, Texas in order to attend Texas Tech. Through a foreign student support program, my grandparents met and soon became friends /surrogate parents for the Ubals. Fifty years later, they are still in touch and Mr. Ubal has returned to Lubbock several times to visit. We spent two days touring Montevideo and the surrounding areas with true locals, dining on local specialties ranging from delicious steak and pasta to panchos (hot dogs served with a horseradish mustard) and hearing all about their time in Lubbock as well as their many travels abroad. At one point Mr. Ubal was head of the Uruguayan navy and then became a naval attaché in Spain, so needless to say they had some great stories to share!
*Relaxing in the Bahamas, eating deliciously grilled fish and perfectly fried conch fritters that had just been caught a few hours earlier (and not being made to clean either the fish or the conch!), swimming in crystal clear waters, roasting marshmellows on our own private stretch of sand while watching the sun set over what (I think) is one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.
*Upon returning to the USA, first walking into a Publix grocery store and being amazed at how it smelled like delicious fresh-baked bread, how clean everything was, the fact that every shelf was completely stocked, and they don't give you a nasty look for paying with a bill higher than $5. I have since gotten a bit more adjusted to our American way of life, but I still try to keep in mind how lucky we are that we can go out at any time of day, driving my own car down a paved street, walk into an air conditioned store, and find just about any product I need and be able to pay with it using a credit card. Wow.
Now we are back home, slowly unpacking the many many boxes in order to feel officially moved back into our house. It is hard to believe the trip is over, that we have already been gone for a year. More honestly, though, it is hard to believe that we are able to make this trip a reality- to put our "normal" life on hold to have the chance to travel and see new worlds and meet new people. This is something that we have dreamed of / been planning together for 5+ years. Was it life-changing? Yes. My eyes have been opened to so many new cultures, but there are still so many more new places to go and places to go back to. Would I do it again? In a heartbeat. What's next? Perhaps skydiving in New Zealand for our 30th birthdays next year. Or going back to Africa to hike Kiliminjaro and explore the Kenyan coast. Or journeying to the Galapagos Islands. Or sailing to Antarctica. Or......we'll see ;-)
A VERY special thanks to everyone that has been following this blog. It has meant so much to know that you guys are following along and taking an interest in our adventures- whether you read every post or just skim entries every few months. I look forward to sharing more of our experiences in person- we have about 8,000 photos so let me know when you have a few weeks blocked off and we can do the whole slideshow, starting way back in August 2007 with New Zealand.
Cheers,
Anna
So, it has been almost two months since my last entry. I promise I haven't been a total slacker, just laying around on a beach sipping a pina colada the whole time (although we have had some fantastic beach time in the Bahamas and in Florida.) Since my last entry, we traveled to Uruguay, said goodbye to our beloved Buenos Aires, returned to the USA (including a teaser one-hour layover in the Atlanta airport at 6AM en route to Florida), went to Disney World- much better than Disneyland Paris, spent a couple of weeks in the Bahamas meeting more of Steve's family, came back to Atlanta, ran in the Peachtree Road Race (decided to do it 2 days before, I don't recommend running a 10k on July 4th in Atlanta with zero training), recovered from the Peachtree, went back to Florida for two different family reunions, and now we're all caught up to today. Whew.
Here are a few of the highlights of the past couple of months:
*While in Uruguay, we were able to meet the Ubals, friends of my grandparents dating back to the 1950´s. As a newlywed couple the Ubals had moved from Uruguay to Lubbock, Texas in order to attend Texas Tech. Through a foreign student support program, my grandparents met and soon became friends /surrogate parents for the Ubals. Fifty years later, they are still in touch and Mr. Ubal has returned to Lubbock several times to visit. We spent two days touring Montevideo and the surrounding areas with true locals, dining on local specialties ranging from delicious steak and pasta to panchos (hot dogs served with a horseradish mustard) and hearing all about their time in Lubbock as well as their many travels abroad. At one point Mr. Ubal was head of the Uruguayan navy and then became a naval attaché in Spain, so needless to say they had some great stories to share!
*Relaxing in the Bahamas, eating deliciously grilled fish and perfectly fried conch fritters that had just been caught a few hours earlier (and not being made to clean either the fish or the conch!), swimming in crystal clear waters, roasting marshmellows on our own private stretch of sand while watching the sun set over what (I think) is one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.
*Upon returning to the USA, first walking into a Publix grocery store and being amazed at how it smelled like delicious fresh-baked bread, how clean everything was, the fact that every shelf was completely stocked, and they don't give you a nasty look for paying with a bill higher than $5. I have since gotten a bit more adjusted to our American way of life, but I still try to keep in mind how lucky we are that we can go out at any time of day, driving my own car down a paved street, walk into an air conditioned store, and find just about any product I need and be able to pay with it using a credit card. Wow.
Now we are back home, slowly unpacking the many many boxes in order to feel officially moved back into our house. It is hard to believe the trip is over, that we have already been gone for a year. More honestly, though, it is hard to believe that we are able to make this trip a reality- to put our "normal" life on hold to have the chance to travel and see new worlds and meet new people. This is something that we have dreamed of / been planning together for 5+ years. Was it life-changing? Yes. My eyes have been opened to so many new cultures, but there are still so many more new places to go and places to go back to. Would I do it again? In a heartbeat. What's next? Perhaps skydiving in New Zealand for our 30th birthdays next year. Or going back to Africa to hike Kiliminjaro and explore the Kenyan coast. Or journeying to the Galapagos Islands. Or sailing to Antarctica. Or......we'll see ;-)
A VERY special thanks to everyone that has been following this blog. It has meant so much to know that you guys are following along and taking an interest in our adventures- whether you read every post or just skim entries every few months. I look forward to sharing more of our experiences in person- we have about 8,000 photos so let me know when you have a few weeks blocked off and we can do the whole slideshow, starting way back in August 2007 with New Zealand.
Cheers,
Anna
Friday, May 30, 2008
Iguazu Falls, Take 2!
Since we have now officially done about everything "touristy" there is to do in Buenos Aires, Steve and I took a break from sightseeing and went and saw the new Indiana Jones film the other night. For just 2 pesos more (about $0.60) we upgraded to the super-giant tub of popcorn (which here is served sweet, like kettle corn, rather than buttery) and then walked into the super-giant movie theater (looked like it could seat 2000 people at least-had two huge balcony levels, although there were only about 20 of us there to see the movie.) You can imagine our excitement when, towards the end of the movie, there is a scene involving several waterfalls, and we realized that we had been to those same waterfalls before- it was Iguazu Falls! It was strange to actually recognize waterfalls, but we double-checked our facts and because of a freak storm in Hawaii Steven Spielberg had to find another location to shoot those scenes and he selected Iguazu. Very cool.
So I am sad to report that our time in our wonderful little apartment in Buenos Aires is coming to an end. Tomorrow we check out of our apartment and head out to see a few more cities- Tigre and the Delta Parana in Argentina, then Colonia and Montevideo in Uruguay. Last night we had our (French expat) landlord and his girlfriend over for Argentenian wine and pizza. There were 3 languages being spoken at any given time, mostly Spanish, but we had a great time trying to understand each other and it was fun to realize how much of the language we have picked up since being here. Now all we need to do is remember it once we get back to the States!
I think I have said this before, but it has been a completely different experience actually being settled in one place for this amount of time- we have learned to navigate the streets of our neighborhood- well a lot of the streets in the city really- without relying on a map. We had a great time showing our families around, catching a tango show in one of the most historic cafes in the city, visiting a milonga where locals go in the middle of a weekday afternoon to dance the tango, checking out the many wonderful museums as well as outdoor art installations, touring an estancia (farm) where we saw traditional dancing and amazing demonstrations of gaucho (like cowboy) skills, and of course eating lots and lots of delicious Argentenian beef. I am pretty confident to say that in the last month we have eaten more beef than we have in the last two years! We have enjoyed the Argentenian parrilla (type of grill) so much that we bought one of our own to take back to Atlanta. Now we have to figure out how in the world we are going to get the giant box back with us..... and the super-heavy box of tiles, too, ha!
So if you happen to decide to visit Buenos Aires (which you definitely should), here are some observations/things we've learned and seen that might help you get settled into the city easier:
Riding on the subway:
-at various times of the day, the subway gets VERY packed, and people have no problem whatsoever just pushing until they can pry their way into the car, too, making for a very tight experience like you might see in a deoderant commercial. our advice- wait for the next train, it's usually no more than 5 minutes behind and may be significantly less crowded
-people sell all sorts of stuff on the subway- from road maps to packets of kleenex to hair rubber bands, and they do this by passing out their items to everyone on a subway car, sometimes explaining the product, and then before the next stop picking all of the merchandise back up- we have yet to buy anything from them, but it is an interesting practice
-the A-line is the oldest subway line, complete with old wooden cars that you have to pull the doors open to exit. very fun experience, but the doors open way before the train stops, so keep your balance and hold on until you can hop out
Around town:
-Dog walking is a serious profession here. Everywhere around town you will see these folks walking 15-20 dogs at a time, from the smallest chihuahua to the largest great dane. Pretty comical when these are on the same leash! Go to any park on a weekday and you will probably see hundreds of dogs just lounging around as part of their daily walk routine- now if only they could clean up after all these dogs.....
-Most smaller intersections don't have traffic lights, or even stop signs. It is more a game of chicken, where the car going faster or is bigger has the right of way over the other vehicles. This gets really exciting when your taxi driver decides he should always have the right of way and flies through intersections without yielding to anyone. Pedestrians are the lowest folks on the totem pole in this situation, so you yield to EVERYTHING- even guys on bicycles, and even if you have a crosswalk.
-Protests can pop up anywhere, any time of day; just get somebody a flag, and someone else a drum, and you've got yourself a protest. The streets around the Casa Rosada (equivalent to our White House) are always jammed with some sort of demonstration- it is such a part of daily life that it seems odd if you don't see protestors out on the street. There was even a protest that marched down our little street in front of our apartment- they were carrying flags with Che Guevera on it banging drums on a Wednesday morning- not sure what they were promoting or protesting, but still interesting to watch.
-In the past, they have had a large problem with counterfeit bills, so almost everywhere you go they will check your money for the watermark to verify it is real. They do this even for a 2 peso bill (about $0.60), so paying for something with a lot of bills can really take a while!
Beverages:
-We were in a wine store and saw a ceramic penguin. Odd, we thought, so we asked. Apparently there is a tradition of pouring wine into a ceramic penguin, so that it can then be poured into a wine glass and mixed with soda water. Not to decant it, just to serve it. Now if you see a ceramic penguin pitcher, you know it comes from Argentina.
-Mate is consumed everywhere- on the subway, while touring Iguazu Falls, while walking around town, everywhere. It is a tea beverage, served by completely filling a hollowed out small gord with these leaves, pouring hot water into the gord, and then drinking with a silver straw fitted with a small filter on the bottom to keep from sucking up the leaves. People go everywhere with their mate cup and thermos of hot water. It is an acquired taste- as my mother described, it tastes like "wet tobacco leaves"- but a very interesting tradition nonetheless. We bought a mate cup and a bag of the tea, but not knowing how to prepare it properly our cup quickly sprouted some weird spores, so we have retired it to "dust collector" status as a souvenir from Buenos Aires. On the note of mate, we would like to give a very special thanks to our spanish teacher Juan, who shared his mate with us, explaining some of the practices surrounding it, and teaching us how to speak more like Argentenians!
Only a few more posts to go until we return to our casa in Atlanta......
Cheers,
Anna
So I am sad to report that our time in our wonderful little apartment in Buenos Aires is coming to an end. Tomorrow we check out of our apartment and head out to see a few more cities- Tigre and the Delta Parana in Argentina, then Colonia and Montevideo in Uruguay. Last night we had our (French expat) landlord and his girlfriend over for Argentenian wine and pizza. There were 3 languages being spoken at any given time, mostly Spanish, but we had a great time trying to understand each other and it was fun to realize how much of the language we have picked up since being here. Now all we need to do is remember it once we get back to the States!
I think I have said this before, but it has been a completely different experience actually being settled in one place for this amount of time- we have learned to navigate the streets of our neighborhood- well a lot of the streets in the city really- without relying on a map. We had a great time showing our families around, catching a tango show in one of the most historic cafes in the city, visiting a milonga where locals go in the middle of a weekday afternoon to dance the tango, checking out the many wonderful museums as well as outdoor art installations, touring an estancia (farm) where we saw traditional dancing and amazing demonstrations of gaucho (like cowboy) skills, and of course eating lots and lots of delicious Argentenian beef. I am pretty confident to say that in the last month we have eaten more beef than we have in the last two years! We have enjoyed the Argentenian parrilla (type of grill) so much that we bought one of our own to take back to Atlanta. Now we have to figure out how in the world we are going to get the giant box back with us..... and the super-heavy box of tiles, too, ha!
So if you happen to decide to visit Buenos Aires (which you definitely should), here are some observations/things we've learned and seen that might help you get settled into the city easier:
Riding on the subway:
-at various times of the day, the subway gets VERY packed, and people have no problem whatsoever just pushing until they can pry their way into the car, too, making for a very tight experience like you might see in a deoderant commercial. our advice- wait for the next train, it's usually no more than 5 minutes behind and may be significantly less crowded
-people sell all sorts of stuff on the subway- from road maps to packets of kleenex to hair rubber bands, and they do this by passing out their items to everyone on a subway car, sometimes explaining the product, and then before the next stop picking all of the merchandise back up- we have yet to buy anything from them, but it is an interesting practice
-the A-line is the oldest subway line, complete with old wooden cars that you have to pull the doors open to exit. very fun experience, but the doors open way before the train stops, so keep your balance and hold on until you can hop out
Around town:
-Dog walking is a serious profession here. Everywhere around town you will see these folks walking 15-20 dogs at a time, from the smallest chihuahua to the largest great dane. Pretty comical when these are on the same leash! Go to any park on a weekday and you will probably see hundreds of dogs just lounging around as part of their daily walk routine- now if only they could clean up after all these dogs.....
-Most smaller intersections don't have traffic lights, or even stop signs. It is more a game of chicken, where the car going faster or is bigger has the right of way over the other vehicles. This gets really exciting when your taxi driver decides he should always have the right of way and flies through intersections without yielding to anyone. Pedestrians are the lowest folks on the totem pole in this situation, so you yield to EVERYTHING- even guys on bicycles, and even if you have a crosswalk.
-Protests can pop up anywhere, any time of day; just get somebody a flag, and someone else a drum, and you've got yourself a protest. The streets around the Casa Rosada (equivalent to our White House) are always jammed with some sort of demonstration- it is such a part of daily life that it seems odd if you don't see protestors out on the street. There was even a protest that marched down our little street in front of our apartment- they were carrying flags with Che Guevera on it banging drums on a Wednesday morning- not sure what they were promoting or protesting, but still interesting to watch.
-In the past, they have had a large problem with counterfeit bills, so almost everywhere you go they will check your money for the watermark to verify it is real. They do this even for a 2 peso bill (about $0.60), so paying for something with a lot of bills can really take a while!
Beverages:
-We were in a wine store and saw a ceramic penguin. Odd, we thought, so we asked. Apparently there is a tradition of pouring wine into a ceramic penguin, so that it can then be poured into a wine glass and mixed with soda water. Not to decant it, just to serve it. Now if you see a ceramic penguin pitcher, you know it comes from Argentina.
-Mate is consumed everywhere- on the subway, while touring Iguazu Falls, while walking around town, everywhere. It is a tea beverage, served by completely filling a hollowed out small gord with these leaves, pouring hot water into the gord, and then drinking with a silver straw fitted with a small filter on the bottom to keep from sucking up the leaves. People go everywhere with their mate cup and thermos of hot water. It is an acquired taste- as my mother described, it tastes like "wet tobacco leaves"- but a very interesting tradition nonetheless. We bought a mate cup and a bag of the tea, but not knowing how to prepare it properly our cup quickly sprouted some weird spores, so we have retired it to "dust collector" status as a souvenir from Buenos Aires. On the note of mate, we would like to give a very special thanks to our spanish teacher Juan, who shared his mate with us, explaining some of the practices surrounding it, and teaching us how to speak more like Argentenians!
Only a few more posts to go until we return to our casa in Atlanta......
Cheers,
Anna
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Sort of "Fall" in Buenos Aires
Being in the southern hemisphere, the seasons are opposite from those at home. Simple concept, except it can be very strange to experience- going from summer one day to almost winter the next. After arriving in Buenos Aires from Paris, we were lucky that the transition wasn't that drastic. Literally every day in Argentina has been sunny and pretty warm- almost spring like.
The only sign that it was fall here were a few trees losing leaves (although those trees may have actually just been dead- hard to tell!) Today is the first official day where it is feeling like we are creeping into winter- cloudy skies, actually need a jacket during the day. It is going to be quite a shock to come home to Hotlanta in the middle of the summer!
We are currently enjoying a visit from my mom, and are looking forward to Steve's mom and sister arriving this weekend. It gives us a great excuse to get out and see more of those sights that we've had on our to-do list but managed to somehow not
get around to seeing yet!
get around to seeing yet!
We just got back from a trip to Iguazu Falls, one of the most beautiful places on earth.... and that is coming from a couple of travelers who have been fortunate enough to see a LOT of beautiful places on earth :-) The first picture is of part of Iguazu Falls- from the Argentenian side. Some folks like to say that they are more beautiful from the Brazillian side, but I think they are amazing from where we were standing. The second is from our balcony in our hotel which was big enough to comfortably seat a family of about 20- randomly enough there is a Sheraton inside the Iguazu National Park.... which happens to be the ONLY hotel in the park, so this is what we got to enjoy waking up to every day! The third picture is what we look like going about 15 miles an hour (although it felt much faster) down a river getting ready to get drenched in the waterfalls. When we signed up the 3:45 time slot seemed like a brilliant idea, except we didn't take into consideration the fact that the sun sets pretty early- cold waterfall, sunset, speeding down a river, made for a refreshingly exhilarating experience!
We are heading out to our favorite lunch spot in Buenos Aires now, so I will write more soon about our experiences in the city and some of the (quirkier?) things you start to notice after being in a place for more than a few days!
Cheers,
Anna
Friday, May 9, 2008
From Paris to...... Paris?
Actually, we are in the "Paris of South America", but it is beautiful nonetheless. We have been in Buenos Aires for almost two weeks (I can't believe it's been that long!) and in our apartment for a week. After many trips to many different stores, we are officially settled into our temporary home. We have found an excellent butcher, a great produce guy (who happens to be literally outside our front door), and all the other important vendors that go along with helping you get settled. Steve has mastered the art of the "parrilla" (Argentenian for barbecue) and has successfully prepared the most delicious steak, chicken, eggplant.... the list could go on for much longer..... that I have ever had and to sweeten the deal everything is so cheap. Almost like Southeast Asia cheap. AMAZING Argentenian bife de chorizo (steaks) for $1.50 each from the butcher, a few pounds of vegetables for $2, great bottles of wine for $3 (and this isn't your two-buck-chuck stuff!) Needless to say, we are LOVING having a kitchen to cook in, a dining room table to eat at, and well, everything else that goes along with having a place to feel settled. Even watering the plants on our terrace is a daily activity I look forward to.
We spent this week taking some Spanish classes, learning the Argentenian style of Spanish. It turns out that they have some pretty big differences in pronunciation of basic Spanish words.... and after finding that out in class we understand folks a lot better. Italian immigrants have had a big influence here, so it is basically people speaking the Spanish language but with a lot of the gusto of Italian. Plus, we are using one of the weird conjugations of "you" that your Spanish teacher probably skipped over (like mine did) explaining "you will never, ever, need to know this, ever" except now we do need it.... it is "VOS" instead of "TU" for those interested. It felt odd doing homework for the first time in..... well, we don't need to mention HOW many years..... and it also felt odd that Steve had completely finished his homework while I was still procrastinating on even starting, ha!
Today we ventured out to do some sight seeing, and stopped at the Recoleta Cemetery. This turned out to be WAY cooler, and much less creepy, than expected. Being one of the most popular tourist destinations in the city I expected it to be interesting, but it really was fascinating. It is literally like a city, complete with "street" signs, except the buildings are all mausoleums and, well, you can kind of fill in the rest. This is where the city's elite are buried, including Eva "Evita" Peron. Her tomb was pretty normal compared to the rest, except there were LOTS of flowers piled around it, and according to the guide book if we had been there at a busy time (we accidentally went 45 minutes before it closed) there would have been a huge line of people waiting to get close to it. Also interesting is that right around the corner is the Hard Rock Cafe Buenos Aires..... not exactly where I would have expected it to be, but oh well..... we didn't go in, but if we are looking for a super shot of "American" culture in the near future we know where to find it!
We have had a great time just wandering the streets checking out all of the amazing architecture..... although we can't look up for too long because a) the sidewalks are pretty broken up in areas so it is easy to trip, b) in places the sidewalk is literally like a mine field covered with "presents" from the many dogs in the city. There are some great parks in the area, but apparently the dogs prefer to just go on the sidewalk.... and the ones that have owners aren't terribly concerned about picking up after their dogs.... So, if you visit, consider yourself forewarned.
I am not sure if I just happen to be outside a lot, or tuned into it, or what, but I have seen a very large number of blind people in the city. Steve and i both agree that Buenos Aires could probably be the most difficult city to be blind in. We haven't seen any seeing eye dogs, either. The other day we literally saw "the blind leading the blind" along a sidewalk in our neighborhood, and it wasn't pretty. The good news is that folks seem to be pretty helpful, strangers helping strangers navigate in the subways, crossing streets, etc.
Tomorrow is the first time in a long time where we will actually feel the difference between a weekday and the weekend, because we don't have class and we don't have homework! We haven't figured out exactly what we will do, but probably check out one of the great weekend markets (if anyone is in the market for an antique gramophone let me know, I have seen about 50 stores selling them just in our neighborhood!) There was a volcano eruption hundreds of kilometers away from us this week, but the ash has travelled all the way to BA giving sky a grayish tint. Hopefully that will clear up by tomorrow so we can go back to the perfectly blue skies and great weather we have been enjoying!
Cheers,
Anna
We spent this week taking some Spanish classes, learning the Argentenian style of Spanish. It turns out that they have some pretty big differences in pronunciation of basic Spanish words.... and after finding that out in class we understand folks a lot better. Italian immigrants have had a big influence here, so it is basically people speaking the Spanish language but with a lot of the gusto of Italian. Plus, we are using one of the weird conjugations of "you" that your Spanish teacher probably skipped over (like mine did) explaining "you will never, ever, need to know this, ever" except now we do need it.... it is "VOS" instead of "TU" for those interested. It felt odd doing homework for the first time in..... well, we don't need to mention HOW many years..... and it also felt odd that Steve had completely finished his homework while I was still procrastinating on even starting, ha!
Today we ventured out to do some sight seeing, and stopped at the Recoleta Cemetery. This turned out to be WAY cooler, and much less creepy, than expected. Being one of the most popular tourist destinations in the city I expected it to be interesting, but it really was fascinating. It is literally like a city, complete with "street" signs, except the buildings are all mausoleums and, well, you can kind of fill in the rest. This is where the city's elite are buried, including Eva "Evita" Peron. Her tomb was pretty normal compared to the rest, except there were LOTS of flowers piled around it, and according to the guide book if we had been there at a busy time (we accidentally went 45 minutes before it closed) there would have been a huge line of people waiting to get close to it. Also interesting is that right around the corner is the Hard Rock Cafe Buenos Aires..... not exactly where I would have expected it to be, but oh well..... we didn't go in, but if we are looking for a super shot of "American" culture in the near future we know where to find it!
We have had a great time just wandering the streets checking out all of the amazing architecture..... although we can't look up for too long because a) the sidewalks are pretty broken up in areas so it is easy to trip, b) in places the sidewalk is literally like a mine field covered with "presents" from the many dogs in the city. There are some great parks in the area, but apparently the dogs prefer to just go on the sidewalk.... and the ones that have owners aren't terribly concerned about picking up after their dogs.... So, if you visit, consider yourself forewarned.
I am not sure if I just happen to be outside a lot, or tuned into it, or what, but I have seen a very large number of blind people in the city. Steve and i both agree that Buenos Aires could probably be the most difficult city to be blind in. We haven't seen any seeing eye dogs, either. The other day we literally saw "the blind leading the blind" along a sidewalk in our neighborhood, and it wasn't pretty. The good news is that folks seem to be pretty helpful, strangers helping strangers navigate in the subways, crossing streets, etc.
Tomorrow is the first time in a long time where we will actually feel the difference between a weekday and the weekend, because we don't have class and we don't have homework! We haven't figured out exactly what we will do, but probably check out one of the great weekend markets (if anyone is in the market for an antique gramophone let me know, I have seen about 50 stores selling them just in our neighborhood!) There was a volcano eruption hundreds of kilometers away from us this week, but the ash has travelled all the way to BA giving sky a grayish tint. Hopefully that will clear up by tomorrow so we can go back to the perfectly blue skies and great weather we have been enjoying!
Cheers,
Anna
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Springtime in Paris
Yes, it really is as beautiful as you'd think! We were there at the absolute perfect time- the tulips were in full bloom, the birds were chirping in full force, and the outdoor cafes were filled with people enjoying the sunshine and a not-so-cheap espresso. This was also a perfect time to visit Disneyland Paris!
We spent an entire day hopping between the two parks, enjoying the European version of Disney. In case you're wondering, they have a lot of the same rides- Twilight Tower of Terror, Aerosmith Rockin' Rollercoaster, It's a Small World, Pirates of the Caribbean, but there is definitely not the same level of "polish" as you get in Orlando. We waited until the close of the park, in front of Sleeping Beauty's Castle, expecting a spectacular fireworks show in celebration of the 15th anniversary of Disneyland Paris...... but the Candleabration Extravaganza was actually Mickey and a couple of other characters dancing on a platform made to look like a cake and some tinsel confetti shot out of 15 candles (off the beat of the music) and no fireworks were in sight. If you have never been to Disneyworld in Orlando, you might think I am being overly harsh, but if you HAVE been then you know what I am talking about- I mean, a few tinsel streamers compared to a giant fireworks extravaganza- really no comparison there..... One other exciting moment of the day- not really in a good way- was being emergency-evacuated from the Star Tours ride (yes, we really did EVERY thing) with no explanation of what was going on, and then told to completely evacuate the park by a misinformed drink cart saleswoman. We're not sure what actually happened- we figured a medical emergency of some kind- but we never had to evacuate the park, and we never went back to ride Star Tours. Nonetheless, we had a fantastic time at Disney and it was very surreal with it being so easy to forget that we weren't actually in Orlando. In case you're wondering, Mickey Mouse speaks English at Disney Paris.
We hit all the major sites in Paris, the Eiffel Tower and all the crowds that go with it,
...the Louvre Museum which was complemented by the fantastic Rick Steves audio guide that we downloaded onto the iPod (hence the headphones).....
So now we are in Buenos Aires, getting over jetlag from the 14 hour flight from Paris. We decided to settle down a bit more and have rented an apartment for the month in a "bohemian" part of town. It is going to be a very different feeling not hopping towns every two days, but it should be fun having a chance to get to know a place better, and hopefully pick up on more of the language and local culture. We have a few more days to live it up with our hotel points (the Plaza Hotel definitely didn't know what to make of us rolling in with our giant backpacks!) and then off to our new (temporary) apartment!
...the Louvre Museum which was complemented by the fantastic Rick Steves audio guide that we downloaded onto the iPod (hence the headphones).....
....Notre Dame, multiple trips to patisseries to enjoy their fantastic desserts. I would say this go-round Paris wins the award for most delicious creme brulee, butter croissant, rhubarb pie, well the list really could go on but you get the drift.....
We stayed in a Courtyard Marriott just on the edge of the city, which was close enough to have an amazing view of the Eiffel Tower from our room, but far enough away to not have swarms of tourists on your doorstep. We started the trip on a sour note having a run-in with a VERY snooty Parisian on the subway coming in from the airport. Turns out everyone else was in general much nicer, and of special note was when I was spending our last €6.50 on a sandwich in the airport, the bill came up to €6.60 and I embarassedly had to admit I didnt have enough to pay for the food. Instead of making me put the sandwich back, the clerk gave me .10€ from her tip jar to cover the difference- now THAT was a nice way to leave a city.
The week before Paris we spent in Valencia, Spain, having a fantastic time taking advantage of the apartment(s) we rented. We cooked lots of great dinners using all the fresh produce we picked up at the daily markets, wandered around the town enjoying the laid-back atmosphere, bought a laptop computer- not QUITE the impulse purchase it sounds like- rented bikes to explore more of the city, and just had a great time relaxing. Valencia is a great place if you have a chance to visit.
So now we are in Buenos Aires, getting over jetlag from the 14 hour flight from Paris. We decided to settle down a bit more and have rented an apartment for the month in a "bohemian" part of town. It is going to be a very different feeling not hopping towns every two days, but it should be fun having a chance to get to know a place better, and hopefully pick up on more of the language and local culture. We have a few more days to live it up with our hotel points (the Plaza Hotel definitely didn't know what to make of us rolling in with our giant backpacks!) and then off to our new (temporary) apartment!Cheers,
Anna
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Cinque Terre- the walking stick capital of the world!
In the past few weeks Steve and I have been doing some more country hopping between Hungary, Italy, and now Spain. We had a great (but very cold time) in Budapest, and we even had the chance to rent a car to get out of the city for a day. It was great fun to get to explore a few of the smaller towns, but the first couple of hours of having the map in my hand brought back some painful flashbacks of Australia and New Zealand (accidentally navigating us to an RV dumping station instead of a campsite in the middle of the night, crazy confusing toll road interstates with no toll booths to pay at....) BUT, after cruising alongside the Danube for a while I managed to relax and we enjoyed the beautiful countryside. Our trip was cut a little short by a freak snow shower- one minute completely sunny and the next minute it was snowing giant snowflakes. Bad news- no Hungarian spa visit this trip- good news, we didn´t get stranded, we made our flight the next morning to Italy, and now there´s a perfectly good reason to go back to Budapest.
After Hungary we headed to Italy and spent a couple of weeks having a blast traveling around with Mary Beth and Drew Lake. We started in Rome, and I have to say this go-round was much more pleasant than last time I was there (picture in the middle of July, as a student, dragged around by a crazy architecture professor completely oblivious to the fact that it was 100F in the shade, with an EXTRA million visitors as someone was being canonized as a saint that weekend.) This time the weather was nice, we actually got to sit down in the Sistine Chapel for a few minutes without just being ushered through, and the company was fantastic. Next we headed to Sienna (claim to fame- one of the scariest horse races in the world, done on a tiny track in the middle of town, riders dont use saddles, horses can finish even if their riders fall off- we were not there to witness this said spectacle.) It was a quick stop-over but definitely a place I would love to revisit. Then to Florence, home to the most amazing restaurant in the world (Il Latini)- at least that is my biased opinion. We toured all the sites- saw Michelangelo's David, the Ufizi Gallery, the Duomo, several gelato stands....
Then to one of the most amazingly beautiful places in the world- Cinque Terre. Arriving via the train from Florence, stepping off the platform was literally like stepping into a postcard. Beatifully steep cliffs dropping straight into the clear ocean, quaint little towns built into the hillside, lemon trees growing on the steeply terraced hills. We stayed in Riomaggiore, one of the 5 (Cinque) towns in the area. We completely lucked out, finding an apartment, complete with a kitchen, with a balcony that opened out to the water. We took full advantage of the kitchen, cooking dinner (for the first time in months, literally) with ingredients we bought from the local market just around the corner. We spent one day hopping between the different towns, each equally charming but still having their own personalities. If you ever have a chance to visit this area of Italy, I would HIGHLY recommend staying several days, it really is amazing.
A funny side note about visitors to Cinque Terre- we saw more people with walking sticks there than anywhere else in the world. Not just your average "I picked this up during a stroll in the woods" kind of walking stick- think serious high performance low weight carbon trekking poles that mountain climbers use. We didnt make it to the "rough" part of the trail between the last two towns so I admit that I am a little in the dark about its degree of severity, but it seemed to me to be a bit of overkill with the gear. Seriously. Maybe Rick Steves recommended bringing trekking poles, so all of his fans followed his advice and they all happened to be in Cinque Terre when we were there. If any of you reading this have been on that part of the trail, please let me know how it is, it has been the source of much debate for us! :-)
We bid adieu to Drew and Mary Beth in Milan, and as was the case when Mom and Sue left in Istanbul, the weather quickly turned from beautiful and sunny to cold and rainy, staying that way basically until we left Venice 4 days later. If we have any more visitors on this trip, you're not going to be allowed to leave because of this trend! Venice was great, as it always is, a little harder to find a restaurant with a menu that is not translated into at least 4 languages, but still beautifully picturesque and fun to get lost in its many winding streets.
A few days ago we flew from Venice into Barcelona (where we are now.) It has been an adjustment switching from Italian to Spanish. Well, at least with the few Italian words we picked up- since being in Spain I keep saying thank you / hello to everyone in Italian, maybe that just makes us look more cosmopolitan (and helps them overlook the fact that we're obviously tourists in our zip-off pants and quick-dry wicking shirts!) Today we did some serious sightseeing from the eclectic "History of chocolate" museum (complete with large displays, all of chocolate, of characters ranging from Disney's Bambi to Don Quixote) to the just downright confusing "La Sagrada Familia" church designed by Antonio Gaudi that is only 50% complete despite the fact that folks have been building it for around 100 years. So many conflicting adjectives come to mind after seeing the structure- or semibuilt structure- tacky, unbelievably creative, confusing, beautiful, mildly creepy...... Several of the spires are topped in technicolor larger-than-life bunches of grapes.... need I say more? Really, without seeing it for yourself, it is impossible to describe what it's like. Millions of visitors visit this church every year, dubbed by the guide books as the "most visited construction site in the world."
We have enjoyed this brief stint in Barcelona, and tomorrow we head to Valencia to hopefully sample some amazing paella (and see some cool sites, too.) In only a couple of weeks we switch continents again, the whirlwind tour continues!
Anna
After Hungary we headed to Italy and spent a couple of weeks having a blast traveling around with Mary Beth and Drew Lake. We started in Rome, and I have to say this go-round was much more pleasant than last time I was there (picture in the middle of July, as a student, dragged around by a crazy architecture professor completely oblivious to the fact that it was 100F in the shade, with an EXTRA million visitors as someone was being canonized as a saint that weekend.) This time the weather was nice, we actually got to sit down in the Sistine Chapel for a few minutes without just being ushered through, and the company was fantastic. Next we headed to Sienna (claim to fame- one of the scariest horse races in the world, done on a tiny track in the middle of town, riders dont use saddles, horses can finish even if their riders fall off- we were not there to witness this said spectacle.) It was a quick stop-over but definitely a place I would love to revisit. Then to Florence, home to the most amazing restaurant in the world (Il Latini)- at least that is my biased opinion. We toured all the sites- saw Michelangelo's David, the Ufizi Gallery, the Duomo, several gelato stands....
Then to one of the most amazingly beautiful places in the world- Cinque Terre. Arriving via the train from Florence, stepping off the platform was literally like stepping into a postcard. Beatifully steep cliffs dropping straight into the clear ocean, quaint little towns built into the hillside, lemon trees growing on the steeply terraced hills. We stayed in Riomaggiore, one of the 5 (Cinque) towns in the area. We completely lucked out, finding an apartment, complete with a kitchen, with a balcony that opened out to the water. We took full advantage of the kitchen, cooking dinner (for the first time in months, literally) with ingredients we bought from the local market just around the corner. We spent one day hopping between the different towns, each equally charming but still having their own personalities. If you ever have a chance to visit this area of Italy, I would HIGHLY recommend staying several days, it really is amazing.
A funny side note about visitors to Cinque Terre- we saw more people with walking sticks there than anywhere else in the world. Not just your average "I picked this up during a stroll in the woods" kind of walking stick- think serious high performance low weight carbon trekking poles that mountain climbers use. We didnt make it to the "rough" part of the trail between the last two towns so I admit that I am a little in the dark about its degree of severity, but it seemed to me to be a bit of overkill with the gear. Seriously. Maybe Rick Steves recommended bringing trekking poles, so all of his fans followed his advice and they all happened to be in Cinque Terre when we were there. If any of you reading this have been on that part of the trail, please let me know how it is, it has been the source of much debate for us! :-)
We bid adieu to Drew and Mary Beth in Milan, and as was the case when Mom and Sue left in Istanbul, the weather quickly turned from beautiful and sunny to cold and rainy, staying that way basically until we left Venice 4 days later. If we have any more visitors on this trip, you're not going to be allowed to leave because of this trend! Venice was great, as it always is, a little harder to find a restaurant with a menu that is not translated into at least 4 languages, but still beautifully picturesque and fun to get lost in its many winding streets.
A few days ago we flew from Venice into Barcelona (where we are now.) It has been an adjustment switching from Italian to Spanish. Well, at least with the few Italian words we picked up- since being in Spain I keep saying thank you / hello to everyone in Italian, maybe that just makes us look more cosmopolitan (and helps them overlook the fact that we're obviously tourists in our zip-off pants and quick-dry wicking shirts!) Today we did some serious sightseeing from the eclectic "History of chocolate" museum (complete with large displays, all of chocolate, of characters ranging from Disney's Bambi to Don Quixote) to the just downright confusing "La Sagrada Familia" church designed by Antonio Gaudi that is only 50% complete despite the fact that folks have been building it for around 100 years. So many conflicting adjectives come to mind after seeing the structure- or semibuilt structure- tacky, unbelievably creative, confusing, beautiful, mildly creepy...... Several of the spires are topped in technicolor larger-than-life bunches of grapes.... need I say more? Really, without seeing it for yourself, it is impossible to describe what it's like. Millions of visitors visit this church every year, dubbed by the guide books as the "most visited construction site in the world."
We have enjoyed this brief stint in Barcelona, and tomorrow we head to Valencia to hopefully sample some amazing paella (and see some cool sites, too.) In only a couple of weeks we switch continents again, the whirlwind tour continues!
Anna
Thursday, March 20, 2008
On the note of Africa...
This is a very random appeal, but there were a few groups / people that we had the privilege of meeting during our trip to Malawi and would like to let you know about in case you can / would like to help in any way.
The first is a primary school that is in desperate need of supplies (rather than money)- pens, pencils, notebooks, soccer balls- literally anything that can be spared. The children attend school on a dirt floor- no desks- and the lucky ones actually have pens to take notes.
The Headmaster
Chitimba F.P. School
PO Box 30
Chitimba
Rumphi District
Malawi
Central Africa
The next is a hospital who could use anything they could get their hands on- medical supplies (even just gauze), basic bedding, lıterally anything. The hospital expects to get power sometime in 2008, so until then all equpment is sterilized by burning wood to boil water and they burn paraffin lamps for light.
Chitimba Hospital
PO Box 42, Chitimba
Malawi, Central Africa
The last is a small village that was desperate for clothes- especially girls clothes and shoes. These guys were really fantastic and made some beautiful sculptures out of wood, but they have a very hard time getting basic supplıes like clothes. İf you're looking at donating old clothes and could spend a little on shippıng, these guys (everyone knows them by theır nicknames below) will make sure it gets to people who need it:
Peter Pan and Mel Gibson
Mbamba Vıllage
PO Box 33, Kande
Nkhata-Bay
Malawı
The first is a primary school that is in desperate need of supplies (rather than money)- pens, pencils, notebooks, soccer balls- literally anything that can be spared. The children attend school on a dirt floor- no desks- and the lucky ones actually have pens to take notes.
The Headmaster
Chitimba F.P. School
PO Box 30
Chitimba
Rumphi District
Malawi
Central Africa
The next is a hospital who could use anything they could get their hands on- medical supplies (even just gauze), basic bedding, lıterally anything. The hospital expects to get power sometime in 2008, so until then all equpment is sterilized by burning wood to boil water and they burn paraffin lamps for light.
Chitimba Hospital
PO Box 42, Chitimba
Malawi, Central Africa
The last is a small village that was desperate for clothes- especially girls clothes and shoes. These guys were really fantastic and made some beautiful sculptures out of wood, but they have a very hard time getting basic supplıes like clothes. İf you're looking at donating old clothes and could spend a little on shippıng, these guys (everyone knows them by theır nicknames below) will make sure it gets to people who need it:
Peter Pan and Mel Gibson
Mbamba Vıllage
PO Box 33, Kande
Nkhata-Bay
Malawı
From Mzungus in the Mist to "Lady İ help you spend your money"
Wow, it has been way too long since the last blog update. We have changed countries as well as continents, had a couple of visitors from home, and experienced some amazing adventures (well, I would say they are amazing!) We are currently in İstanbul, Turkey visiting with a relative of Steve's that lives in the city. My mom and her friend Sue just flew out after a great visit that spanned Greece and Turkey.İ had a chance to upload some photos from Africa (below) so here is more on what we have been up to:
After arriving in Uganda and having a few days in the city, we met up with our tour group (8 of us Mzungus- white people- total in two Land Cruisers fitted for safaris, complete with a pop-up roof.) One of our first stops was the equator and there was even an experiment there to prove that water does in fact drain in two different directions depending on what hemisphere you're in (but the guy charged $10 to pour water out of a bucket as a demonstration, which we viewed as a ripoff, so we just took their word for it!)
From there we spent our first (of many) nights communing with nature- with only a campfire to keep away the wild animals. İ was assured that this technique did in fact work well.....but the next day we woke up and found that the resident hippos had left a few "presents" outside of a neighbor's tent about 10 feet from our own. The good news is that nobody was hurt, and no tents were trampled, but that didnt do much in convincing us that hippos would stay out of our camp grounds as they left the water at night to look for vegetation to eat! Oh well, it's all part of the adventure....
Soon after that we headed to Rwanda to go searching for gorillas. Once we crossed the border İ was shocked to find that Rwanda could potentially win the award for best roads in Africa. Seriously, they were all freshly paved and in great condition. We soon realized that the only people in cars were the tourists heading to watch the gorillas- literally everyone else was walking- so that probably helped a lot. To be honest, beforehand İ was nervous about heading to this part of the world due to the recent history, but was very happy to find out that the country has done a good job (especially in Africa terms) of rebuilding and getting back on their feet. The people were very nice and the folks we talked to that had done more traveling in the country had great reviews of the capital city- calling it very cosmopolitan. We didnt have a chance to visit but İ hope to some day. On to the exciting stuff- the gorillas!
There is a capacity of 40 tourists per day to visit gorilla families to mınımıse the impact on these incredible animals. On the big day we met up with our guide- 8 of us in our group- and learned about our family. There are 17 in total, 5 babies, and their name means "peace" in the local language- we all took that as a very good sign. Another interesting fact- their nose prints are like our finger prints- totally unique- so that helps tell them apart. We ended up driving past the Diane Fossey İnstitute on our way up to the mountain- our guide told us it was a school program given by this organization that convinced him he wanted to grow up and help protect the gorillas too. Beforehand we had heard stories from different people of how they only had to hike 15 minutes before finding their family, and the maximum allowed to hike is 6 hours- so we didnt know what to expect. After an hour and a half on semi-cut paths we met up with our trackers who had gone out first thing that morning to find our family. The good news was that our family was only about 10 minutes away! We ditched all our gear (to minimise distractions / scaring the gorillas with walking sticks) and headed further up. When we got to where the gorillas should have been they were nowhere to be seen. Then we realised that within that short time they had gone down our mountain and scaled another one- not being quite as agile as the gorillas we instead had to climb all the way UP the mountain, head across the ridge and go back down the other where the gorillas were.
Our guide, Frances, literally hacked his way through the jungle with a small machete- we were totally off any paths that had been cut before- going through really dense vegetation. We never saw any snakes, but İ was intentionally not looking too closely in case there was anything İ didnt want to see! After 3 more hours of hiking/crawling/stumbling through the Rwandan jungle, we meet up with another group of trackers with the news that we were close! One of the guides literally grabbed my hand and pulled me through the jungle until we got to the clearing where our gorillas were, and what a sight!!!! At least 8 full-grown gorillas were lounging around, dining on a meal of rotting wood (for minerals our guide said) with several babies playing and climbing around the adults. One mom was cradling her baby in a pose that truly looked human. We just sat at the edge of the clearing, watching these animals in complete awe. They were very calm despite our presence- every now and then they would start to make noises and one of our trackers would respond in a kind of grunt to let them know that we were ok, we meant no harm, and that seemed to calm them down. Towards the end of our visit the main silverback made an appearance, and that was the first point when İ actually felt scared. He was HUGE- really built like a tank- and when he pounded the ground you could feel the earth shake underneath you. He was totally disinterested in us though- taking his spot at the rotted log and eating away. We had a couple of the younger male gorillas run in front of us, one threw a log as a sign of his strength, another ran past one of our group members and kind of pushed her aside, but never meant to be aggressive- just to show off a little bit. We were only allowed one hour with them- to minimise the chance of them catching a cold or anything from us. İ think we all could have sat there for weeks, not doing anything but watching- their movements and gestures could be so wild at one moment and then another moment seem completely human-like. İ could go on and on, but to sum it up this was truly one of the most memorable moments of my life (Steve agrees too) and if you EVER have the chance to see these animals then definitely do it!
Other good news is that it only took us an hour and a half to climb down the other mountain- we didn't have to go back the way we'd come in. Random side note- the gorillas you see in zoos are lowland gorillas. Mountain gorillas cannot survive in captivity so the only chance to see them is in the wild. Another sidenote- the new King Kong movie is spot on. Seriously. Watching the gorillas, İ felt like İ was watching the movie.
We also had an opportunity to track chimpanzees in the wild. Getting to these animals was much easier- flat ground, vegetation was not as dense- but these guys like to hang out in really tall trees, so once we found them we spent the next hour craning our necks upwards to catch glimpses of these guys as they enjoyed the fig tree they'd just found. İ realıized that in movies when you hear chimpanzees, the noises they make are always associated with them being upset or agitated, so when they started making these noises in the wild it was kind of terrifying. Our guide had just finished telling us how they could be pretty vicious and sometimes hunt monkeys (to eat.) Turns out they make these noises when they are happy, or just to communicate- one had found an especially fruitful fig tree and sent the message across the forest canopy to all his friends. Our experience here was not as up close and personal as the gorillas but still cool.
İ could go on and on about all the amazing wild life we saw, but basically every day felt like we were in a National Geographic TV show. We saw lions, lots of antelope, hippos fighting at the waterside, hippos walking along our camp, İ realized that İ am mildly obsessed with hippos.... and lots of other incredible sights. We saw the narrowest part of the Nile River- and also one of the world's most powerful waterfalls (the same site.)
Leaving Africa was bittersweet- it was definitely the hardest part of our trip but also some of the most rewarding. There are so many beautiful sites and amazing animals to see that İ wished that we could have had twice as long to take it all in. But at the same time there is so much poverty, people struggling to get by and us not knowing if our tourism is helping or harming the locals. Most of the children we met along the way didn't ask us for candy, but instead asked us for pens so they had something to write with at school. İf you gave one child something, 20 more would materialize out of nowhere and we'd all be upset because we didnt have enough to share with all of them. İ wish that we had been able to go through Kenya. Hopefully next time we travel to that part of the world the tribal conflicts will have smoothed out, and the politicians will have settled their differences for the good of their countries (İ'm not holding my breath too much here.) There are definitely many places that İ would love to go back to, and would recommend for you to visit as well (although İ would probably keep Johannesburg off that list- sorry if İ offend anyone with that!)
After Africa we met up with my mom and her friend Sue in Athens, Greece. We had a great time visiting the ancient sites there, and eating lots of delicious Greek food along the way. We managed to avoid all of the strikes that are going on there now- good news because İ heard the trash is piling up all over the streets where we were staying. We are now in İstanbul, Turkey where we have thoroughly done the sites (Aya Sofia, Blue Mosque, Grand Bazaar, Spice Bazaar, tour of the Bosphorus, saw the Whirling Dervishes perform, even a visit to a Turkish bath.) Steve found some great Armani knock-off jeans to expand his pants collection beyond his zip-off pants. We managed to avoid buying a Turkish carpet despite the many rug salesmen that offer very nicely to help you spend your money. Next we head to Budapest and then to İtaly to meet up with Drew and Mary Beth Lake!
Hopefully now that we are back in the westernized world pictures and blog updates will be more frequent.
Cheers,
Anna
After arriving in Uganda and having a few days in the city, we met up with our tour group (8 of us Mzungus- white people- total in two Land Cruisers fitted for safaris, complete with a pop-up roof.) One of our first stops was the equator and there was even an experiment there to prove that water does in fact drain in two different directions depending on what hemisphere you're in (but the guy charged $10 to pour water out of a bucket as a demonstration, which we viewed as a ripoff, so we just took their word for it!)
From there we spent our first (of many) nights communing with nature- with only a campfire to keep away the wild animals. İ was assured that this technique did in fact work well.....but the next day we woke up and found that the resident hippos had left a few "presents" outside of a neighbor's tent about 10 feet from our own. The good news is that nobody was hurt, and no tents were trampled, but that didnt do much in convincing us that hippos would stay out of our camp grounds as they left the water at night to look for vegetation to eat! Oh well, it's all part of the adventure....
Soon after that we headed to Rwanda to go searching for gorillas. Once we crossed the border İ was shocked to find that Rwanda could potentially win the award for best roads in Africa. Seriously, they were all freshly paved and in great condition. We soon realized that the only people in cars were the tourists heading to watch the gorillas- literally everyone else was walking- so that probably helped a lot. To be honest, beforehand İ was nervous about heading to this part of the world due to the recent history, but was very happy to find out that the country has done a good job (especially in Africa terms) of rebuilding and getting back on their feet. The people were very nice and the folks we talked to that had done more traveling in the country had great reviews of the capital city- calling it very cosmopolitan. We didnt have a chance to visit but İ hope to some day. On to the exciting stuff- the gorillas!
There is a capacity of 40 tourists per day to visit gorilla families to mınımıse the impact on these incredible animals. On the big day we met up with our guide- 8 of us in our group- and learned about our family. There are 17 in total, 5 babies, and their name means "peace" in the local language- we all took that as a very good sign. Another interesting fact- their nose prints are like our finger prints- totally unique- so that helps tell them apart. We ended up driving past the Diane Fossey İnstitute on our way up to the mountain- our guide told us it was a school program given by this organization that convinced him he wanted to grow up and help protect the gorillas too. Beforehand we had heard stories from different people of how they only had to hike 15 minutes before finding their family, and the maximum allowed to hike is 6 hours- so we didnt know what to expect. After an hour and a half on semi-cut paths we met up with our trackers who had gone out first thing that morning to find our family. The good news was that our family was only about 10 minutes away! We ditched all our gear (to minimise distractions / scaring the gorillas with walking sticks) and headed further up. When we got to where the gorillas should have been they were nowhere to be seen. Then we realised that within that short time they had gone down our mountain and scaled another one- not being quite as agile as the gorillas we instead had to climb all the way UP the mountain, head across the ridge and go back down the other where the gorillas were.
Our guide, Frances, literally hacked his way through the jungle with a small machete- we were totally off any paths that had been cut before- going through really dense vegetation. We never saw any snakes, but İ was intentionally not looking too closely in case there was anything İ didnt want to see! After 3 more hours of hiking/crawling/stumbling through the Rwandan jungle, we meet up with another group of trackers with the news that we were close! One of the guides literally grabbed my hand and pulled me through the jungle until we got to the clearing where our gorillas were, and what a sight!!!! At least 8 full-grown gorillas were lounging around, dining on a meal of rotting wood (for minerals our guide said) with several babies playing and climbing around the adults. One mom was cradling her baby in a pose that truly looked human. We just sat at the edge of the clearing, watching these animals in complete awe. They were very calm despite our presence- every now and then they would start to make noises and one of our trackers would respond in a kind of grunt to let them know that we were ok, we meant no harm, and that seemed to calm them down. Towards the end of our visit the main silverback made an appearance, and that was the first point when İ actually felt scared. He was HUGE- really built like a tank- and when he pounded the ground you could feel the earth shake underneath you. He was totally disinterested in us though- taking his spot at the rotted log and eating away. We had a couple of the younger male gorillas run in front of us, one threw a log as a sign of his strength, another ran past one of our group members and kind of pushed her aside, but never meant to be aggressive- just to show off a little bit. We were only allowed one hour with them- to minimise the chance of them catching a cold or anything from us. İ think we all could have sat there for weeks, not doing anything but watching- their movements and gestures could be so wild at one moment and then another moment seem completely human-like. İ could go on and on, but to sum it up this was truly one of the most memorable moments of my life (Steve agrees too) and if you EVER have the chance to see these animals then definitely do it!
Other good news is that it only took us an hour and a half to climb down the other mountain- we didn't have to go back the way we'd come in. Random side note- the gorillas you see in zoos are lowland gorillas. Mountain gorillas cannot survive in captivity so the only chance to see them is in the wild. Another sidenote- the new King Kong movie is spot on. Seriously. Watching the gorillas, İ felt like İ was watching the movie.
We also had an opportunity to track chimpanzees in the wild. Getting to these animals was much easier- flat ground, vegetation was not as dense- but these guys like to hang out in really tall trees, so once we found them we spent the next hour craning our necks upwards to catch glimpses of these guys as they enjoyed the fig tree they'd just found. İ realıized that in movies when you hear chimpanzees, the noises they make are always associated with them being upset or agitated, so when they started making these noises in the wild it was kind of terrifying. Our guide had just finished telling us how they could be pretty vicious and sometimes hunt monkeys (to eat.) Turns out they make these noises when they are happy, or just to communicate- one had found an especially fruitful fig tree and sent the message across the forest canopy to all his friends. Our experience here was not as up close and personal as the gorillas but still cool.
İ could go on and on about all the amazing wild life we saw, but basically every day felt like we were in a National Geographic TV show. We saw lions, lots of antelope, hippos fighting at the waterside, hippos walking along our camp, İ realized that İ am mildly obsessed with hippos.... and lots of other incredible sights. We saw the narrowest part of the Nile River- and also one of the world's most powerful waterfalls (the same site.)
Leaving Africa was bittersweet- it was definitely the hardest part of our trip but also some of the most rewarding. There are so many beautiful sites and amazing animals to see that İ wished that we could have had twice as long to take it all in. But at the same time there is so much poverty, people struggling to get by and us not knowing if our tourism is helping or harming the locals. Most of the children we met along the way didn't ask us for candy, but instead asked us for pens so they had something to write with at school. İf you gave one child something, 20 more would materialize out of nowhere and we'd all be upset because we didnt have enough to share with all of them. İ wish that we had been able to go through Kenya. Hopefully next time we travel to that part of the world the tribal conflicts will have smoothed out, and the politicians will have settled their differences for the good of their countries (İ'm not holding my breath too much here.) There are definitely many places that İ would love to go back to, and would recommend for you to visit as well (although İ would probably keep Johannesburg off that list- sorry if İ offend anyone with that!)
After Africa we met up with my mom and her friend Sue in Athens, Greece. We had a great time visiting the ancient sites there, and eating lots of delicious Greek food along the way. We managed to avoid all of the strikes that are going on there now- good news because İ heard the trash is piling up all over the streets where we were staying. We are now in İstanbul, Turkey where we have thoroughly done the sites (Aya Sofia, Blue Mosque, Grand Bazaar, Spice Bazaar, tour of the Bosphorus, saw the Whirling Dervishes perform, even a visit to a Turkish bath.) Steve found some great Armani knock-off jeans to expand his pants collection beyond his zip-off pants. We managed to avoid buying a Turkish carpet despite the many rug salesmen that offer very nicely to help you spend your money. Next we head to Budapest and then to İtaly to meet up with Drew and Mary Beth Lake!
Hopefully now that we are back in the westernized world pictures and blog updates will be more frequent.
Cheers,
Anna
More Photos from Africa
Pretty self-explanatory- İ'm in the northern, Steve is in the southern hemisphere.
Our Uganda touring vehicle- we're prepped for a game drive (fortunately the lions stayed far away from the truck!)
One of the silverback gorillas watching over the family- the #1 silverback was MUCH bigger.
Our vantage point to watch the gorillas- they are LOVİNG the wood they are chewing on.
One of the baby gorillas climbing on its mother's back (who also has her face in the wood.)
İt was a VERY steep climb up the mountain to get to the gorillas- it took us over 4.5 hours of climbing through the jungle just to get to them.
A few friends İ made in a village on Lake Malawi.
You may not recognize them, but Peter Pan and Mel Gibson are pictured here (well, that is their assumed names anyway.) This is out front of our camp ground at Kande Beach in Malawi, with a few of the local guys that make local handicrafts.
On our truck "Junior" on the way to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.
View of one of the many beautiful sunsets in Zanzibar.
Even gnomes like waterfalls- especially one as impressive as Victoria Falls (we're on the Zambian side.)
This isn't even the biggest Baobab tree we saw- they're HUGE!
İt may not look vicious, but this honey badger can be a seriously dangerous animal. This photo was taken at an animal sanctuary and they were trying to get a wild one into a cage to re-release it into the wild- it took 5 strong guys to get the little one into a cage (and the scene looked like something out of Jurassic Park!)
Our group before heading out on a night game drive in Swaziland.
A male lion we were lucky enough to see up close during an early morning game drive in Krueger National Park (this photo was taken around 5AM safely from the confines of our truck.)
The FİRST elephant to charge us in a national park- this was a grumpy old man elephant (İ would be grumpy too if İ only had one tusk.)
Lunch time- taking refuge from the sun under the "kitchen" on our overlander truck.Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Finally, some photos!
So yes, İ have been a huge slacker in updatıng the blog (we have had visitors!) so blog has taken a backseat. After many false starts, here are some photos from Africa! İ promise a great verbal update very soon too.
The fırst day of our Afrıcan adventure- settıng up our tents at a campground outside of Cape Town. That's our truck Freddy in the background.
Steve getting a "back massage" from baby ostriches in Oudtshoorn, the ostrich capital of Africa.
The fırst day of our Afrıcan adventure- settıng up our tents at a campground outside of Cape Town. That's our truck Freddy in the background.
Steve getting a "back massage" from baby ostriches in Oudtshoorn, the ostrich capital of Africa.Below the boys had to share the bathroom with this less-than-hospitable house guest. Steve doing his best imitation of a cowboy in Lesotho (a country completely surrounded by South Africa.) Not pictured: my devil horse. And, Steve and our driver Noel scouting out wild animals at Addo National Park (from here Noel spotted with his bare eyes a Caracal - a big cat with really pointy ears. With binoculars we all thought it was just a warthog or some thing!)
Monday, February 25, 2008
In Uganda to find some gorillas!
Greetings from Kampala, Uganda. Steve and I have spent the last few days really doing a whole lotta nothing, and it's been great! Well, we've done a few things.... internet (it's finally cheaper here)....enjoying air conditioning.... catching up on all the US election drama on CNN... even seeing UB40 in concert.
We had a break between tours and we have taken advantage of our hotel points to stay in a western-style hotel, complete with A/C, cable TV, and a real door that locks! Tonight we meet up with the group (6 of us total from the last tour we completed in Tanzania) to start our Uganda tour, so we go back to the not-so-glamourous life of sleeping in tents and shared dorm rooms. We'll be on the road for the next couple of weeks, so the next time I post an entry it will probably be from Greece!
Getting to Kampala was a bit of an adventure for us, so it's been nice to have time to relax. Several days ago, as we were heading to Arusha, Tanzania (close to Mt. Kiliminjaro, but not as exotic as it sounds) we had an emergency stop at the hospital because one of the guys in our group had some sort of stomach bug and was severely dehydrated. Fortunately he's doing much better now, but stopping at a small hospital in a random town in Tanzania (at night) was a little bit strange. We thought our flight from Arusha to Kampala was nonstop, so we got off the airplane when the plane stopped.... only to figure out a few minutes later, when our bags didn't come off the plane and the airport seemed like an awfully small place to be an "international" airport, that we were in fact still in Tanzania. That explains why the lady meeting our plane gave me such a weird look when I insisted she give us declaration forms, considering we were still in the same country. Fortunately we figured out the problem and got back on the plane before it left us in the middle of nowhere!
When we got into Kampala, it turns out that UB40 was playing their last concert ever, and it just happened to be when we were there. We ended up buying tickets, and when it was all over- tickets, dinner, transporation to the concert, we ended up spending less than $50US. Not too shabby. The concert itself was pretty good- an insane number of people there (over 30,000) , and even more exciting is that while we were standing in line to get in we saw UB40 drive into the super-secret back entrance to the concert venue, the Bugandan Queen's entourage, and a guy get arrested for pick-pocketing (not our pockets.)
I am running out of time- 2 minutes to go- otherwise I would write more. We have had a great, and at times very challenging time in Africa, and look forward to sharing many more tales, including gorilla sightings, with you soon!
Cheers,
Anna
We had a break between tours and we have taken advantage of our hotel points to stay in a western-style hotel, complete with A/C, cable TV, and a real door that locks! Tonight we meet up with the group (6 of us total from the last tour we completed in Tanzania) to start our Uganda tour, so we go back to the not-so-glamourous life of sleeping in tents and shared dorm rooms. We'll be on the road for the next couple of weeks, so the next time I post an entry it will probably be from Greece!
Getting to Kampala was a bit of an adventure for us, so it's been nice to have time to relax. Several days ago, as we were heading to Arusha, Tanzania (close to Mt. Kiliminjaro, but not as exotic as it sounds) we had an emergency stop at the hospital because one of the guys in our group had some sort of stomach bug and was severely dehydrated. Fortunately he's doing much better now, but stopping at a small hospital in a random town in Tanzania (at night) was a little bit strange. We thought our flight from Arusha to Kampala was nonstop, so we got off the airplane when the plane stopped.... only to figure out a few minutes later, when our bags didn't come off the plane and the airport seemed like an awfully small place to be an "international" airport, that we were in fact still in Tanzania. That explains why the lady meeting our plane gave me such a weird look when I insisted she give us declaration forms, considering we were still in the same country. Fortunately we figured out the problem and got back on the plane before it left us in the middle of nowhere!
When we got into Kampala, it turns out that UB40 was playing their last concert ever, and it just happened to be when we were there. We ended up buying tickets, and when it was all over- tickets, dinner, transporation to the concert, we ended up spending less than $50US. Not too shabby. The concert itself was pretty good- an insane number of people there (over 30,000) , and even more exciting is that while we were standing in line to get in we saw UB40 drive into the super-secret back entrance to the concert venue, the Bugandan Queen's entourage, and a guy get arrested for pick-pocketing (not our pockets.)
I am running out of time- 2 minutes to go- otherwise I would write more. We have had a great, and at times very challenging time in Africa, and look forward to sharing many more tales, including gorilla sightings, with you soon!
Cheers,
Anna
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Hakuna Matata!
Greetings from Zanzibar. We have had a few days to relax on this beautiful island and enjoy a little sunshine at the beach (finally!!!) We left Malawi a few days ago for Tanzania, and when we pulled into Dar es Salaam there were American flags hanging everywhere and banners saying things like "Tanzania loves President Bush." We were a bit behind on the news, so it took a little while to figure out that Bush is planning a visit to Tanzania (probably while we're still in the country, but most likely not in the same city.) We didn't spot Madonna in Malawi, so maybe we will have luck seeing Bush in Tanzania.
We took a ferry a few days ago from Dar to Zanzibar, when we left the mainland it was overcast and very gray, when we landed in Stone Town, a port of entry into Zanzibar, the sky was beautiful and cloudless and the water bright blue and green. We had a couple of days to wander around Stone Town- named because of all the stone used in constructing the buildings- where there are lots of alleyways you can wander down and get lost in. It reminded us a lot of Venice, once you escape the craziness of San Marco Square, except without the canals.
We then headed north to Nungwi, where we are now, stopping for an afternoon to do a spice tour (one of the things Zanzibar originally got famous for.) We saw a cinnamon tree- the actual wood of the branches is the cinnamon we think of, and the roots are used in things like Vicks Vapor Rub and are very smelly! We also saw "Butterfly"- a 40 year old coconut tree climber, scale a 70 foot coconut tree with his bare hands and feet and a piece of rope tied in a figure eight that he hooked his feet into, cut down enough coconuts for a group of 25 people to enjoy, and then did a few acrobatic tricks at the top- all completely terrifying and amazing at the same time.
We're now in a little hotel in Nungwi and are enjoying the beautiful beaches, while trying to dodge all of the bracelet / wood carving salesmen that like to walk up and down the beach and harass you until you buy something. I guess every paradise can't be absolutely perfect!
In a few days we head to Uganda, where we'll get to track mountain gorillas in their natural habitat and hopefully see a few up close. Originally our tour took us through Kenya, but our company officially decided to cancel that part of the trip because of the unrest in areas we would have gone to- it's fine with us, safety first, but disappointing and it's taken a lot of last-minute adjustments to our travel plans.
After Uganda we head to Europe, and are looking forward to meeting up with family / friends in Greece, Turkey, and Italy. and We've managed to meet a lot of great Europeans on this tour who have offered free places to stay if we come visit their countries (the down side is that it's all the northern european countries- Holland, Sweden, etc where it will be really cold when we get there) so who knows where we'll end up after Italy.
It's time to go enjoy the beach for a while, hope you're all doing well and had a very happy Valentine's Day!
Cheers,
Anna
We took a ferry a few days ago from Dar to Zanzibar, when we left the mainland it was overcast and very gray, when we landed in Stone Town, a port of entry into Zanzibar, the sky was beautiful and cloudless and the water bright blue and green. We had a couple of days to wander around Stone Town- named because of all the stone used in constructing the buildings- where there are lots of alleyways you can wander down and get lost in. It reminded us a lot of Venice, once you escape the craziness of San Marco Square, except without the canals.
We then headed north to Nungwi, where we are now, stopping for an afternoon to do a spice tour (one of the things Zanzibar originally got famous for.) We saw a cinnamon tree- the actual wood of the branches is the cinnamon we think of, and the roots are used in things like Vicks Vapor Rub and are very smelly! We also saw "Butterfly"- a 40 year old coconut tree climber, scale a 70 foot coconut tree with his bare hands and feet and a piece of rope tied in a figure eight that he hooked his feet into, cut down enough coconuts for a group of 25 people to enjoy, and then did a few acrobatic tricks at the top- all completely terrifying and amazing at the same time.
We're now in a little hotel in Nungwi and are enjoying the beautiful beaches, while trying to dodge all of the bracelet / wood carving salesmen that like to walk up and down the beach and harass you until you buy something. I guess every paradise can't be absolutely perfect!
In a few days we head to Uganda, where we'll get to track mountain gorillas in their natural habitat and hopefully see a few up close. Originally our tour took us through Kenya, but our company officially decided to cancel that part of the trip because of the unrest in areas we would have gone to- it's fine with us, safety first, but disappointing and it's taken a lot of last-minute adjustments to our travel plans.
After Uganda we head to Europe, and are looking forward to meeting up with family / friends in Greece, Turkey, and Italy. and We've managed to meet a lot of great Europeans on this tour who have offered free places to stay if we come visit their countries (the down side is that it's all the northern european countries- Holland, Sweden, etc where it will be really cold when we get there) so who knows where we'll end up after Italy.
It's time to go enjoy the beach for a while, hope you're all doing well and had a very happy Valentine's Day!
Cheers,
Anna
Saturday, February 9, 2008
As I was sitting in my hammock a few minutes ago I got news that the internet was (finally) up and working again. It's been raining all morning- we woke up at 6AM to a torrential downpour/lightning storm outside and closed the bamboo shades to try to block some of the rain that's coming down sideways from our little 2-person hut on the beach. Fortunately there are blue skies peeking out now, 7 hours later, and maybe we'll have a little sun to dry up all this water! We're in Malawi right now, actually on the shores of Lake Malawi, and just heard the rumor that Madonna is somewhere in the country. If we happen to bump into her during a village tour I'll definitely take some photos, but I'm not getting my hopes up too high, this is still a big country! :-)
Since my last post, which feels like ages ago, we finished up our last tour, have crossed multiple country borders, and are now on a new tour with a new group of people that will take us into East Africa. There are so many things that I would love to post, but for your benefit and my wallet's benefit (internet is about $10 per hour here, the most expensive yet) I will try to summarize as much as possible!
After we left Durban, we headed to Kruger Nat'l Park. We did our game drives in our Nomad Tour vehicle (basically just self-guided along the roads of the park, where our tour driver Noel and guide Nathan sat up front in the cab looking for wildlife while we all sat in the back with our cameras and binoculars ready.) There are very strict rules regarding speed limits in the park- there are even traffic cops with speed cameras, because Kruger is a popular cut-through for truck drivers delivering goods- and you absolutely cannot get out of your vehicle at all (which meant we were on strict water rationing, because bathroom breaks aren't exactly available with wild lions and everything on the prowl!) As it turns out, despite it being the rainy season so fewer animals congregating at the big watering holes, we had two days of absolutely successful game drives. We saw tons of elephants, much bigger than those we saw in Addo, as well as a family of hyenas, zebras, lions and lionesses up close, hippos, giraffes, warthogs. We saw white rhinos, as well as 3 of the very endangered black rhinos (they're not actually different colors, the two types have different mouth shapes), and probably the most amazing sighting was that of a leopard that was lounging in the shade of a tree in the road in front of us. There are very few leopards in Kruger, and they typically only come out at night, so to see one at 2 in the afternoon was incredible. It was incredible to see the animals up close, in much more of a natural habitat than that of a zoo.
We also did a sunset game drive with a park ranger in one of their safari vehicles- so an open air vehicle with canvas doors. This was when we had our second run-in with an elephant. It's breeding season for elephants so the males are constantly on the look-out for femals and are very protective of their territory. We had just pulled into a turn-around at a watering hole (translation- a dead end) when a huge male elephant came and blocked the road in front of us. He was obviously not pleased with us being there- he was shaking his head, trumpeting, and generally doing everything he could to tell us to go away. We were downwind and he absolutely reeked (one way of attracting the females is the males urinate all over their back legs- needless to say, he was quite fragrant.) The park ranger revved the engine several times, moving forward a few feet and the elephant started to back up- and then he turned around and we were chasing this elephant down the one-way road. He was kicking up so much dust and we were so close that you could taste the dirt in the air- we chased him for over a kilometer, at the main road the elephant swerved off to the left as we took a sharp right. The chase wasn't over, though, as the elephant started to run after us still shaking his head and trumpeting- the park ranger drove as fast as he could over the bumpy roads and after what seemed like an eternity (more like 2 or 3 minutes) the elephant gave up chase and we all calmed down enough to stop screaming at the ranger to drive faster. As far as I'm concerned, we've had enough run-in's with elephants and hope there are no more, but it makes for a great story!
After a few more adventures in South Africa, including less than 24 hours in Johannesburg (which was more than enough for me in a lifetime) we bid farewell to our group of 11 and boarded a flight from Johannesburg to Livingstone, Zambia, where we would meet up with our new tour group. Our new group is much larger than our last, with much stronger personalities (fill in the blanks as you'd like)- 25 of us on a vehicle slightly larger than our last- so no more luxurious two seats to a person and easily stowed baggage- the new adventure begins. Steve and I made an afternoon of going to the Zambian side of Victoria Falls- not sure of the actual accolades, but it's either the largest by volume, or the longest waterfalls in Africa (or the world?) , and they are amazing. When we landed in Zambia I thought there was a giant fire burning somewhere out in the countryside, but it turns out that it is the cloud of mist rising up from the falls. When you walk towards them, there is so much water coming off the falls that it's as if it's raining from every angle- we had our raincoats/pants on and still got absolutely drenched. We would like to come back in the dry season and see the falls from the Zimbabwean side, where you can see more of the actual rock formations/falls.
We left Zambia behind a couple of days ago, and are now in Malawi for about a week, tomorrow we head further north along the lake where hopefully it will be a bit drier than it is here! One interesting note on our tour is that it's a German tour, so there's also a translator- although only a handful of people actually need the translator, and a majority of the group doesn't even speak German. This has gotten us into a couple of sticky situations, though, as the message of "absolutely do not take photos at any border crossings or police checkpoints" must have gotten lost in translation, because at three different instances in one day we had run-in's with the local officials due to photography. At one point, a police officer jumped up on the side of our vehicle and started screaming at a German woman who speaks zero English (except "okay" and "alright") who was taking a photo of the countryside not realizing we were at a police checkpoint. Another incident involved several people taking photos of a large beetle at the Zambia/Malawi border, right after we got our passports stamped (I'm not joking here) and the border patrolman said that they'd damaged the screen where the beetle was sitting and insisted on payment for repair of the screen. Fortunately for us, our guides and translator were able to diffuse the situations and no money was ever handed over and no one was thrown in jail. Since then, the photography has decreased somewhat..... but we still have many many more borders to cross!
Lunch is ready so I have to run. I have one parting piece of information to leave you with- so far, 3 out of 3 Zimbabweans confirm that they either like / love Dolly Parton's music. Our last driver had several of her CD's and would play them for us on the bus (until one of us begged him to turn it off ), and our 2 new guides are both Zimbabwean as well and agree that they dig her songs. It's not a big sample size, but still- 100% like Dolly Parton. Now THAT is a fact I didn't expect to find out in our African travels.
Cheers,
Anna
Since my last post, which feels like ages ago, we finished up our last tour, have crossed multiple country borders, and are now on a new tour with a new group of people that will take us into East Africa. There are so many things that I would love to post, but for your benefit and my wallet's benefit (internet is about $10 per hour here, the most expensive yet) I will try to summarize as much as possible!
After we left Durban, we headed to Kruger Nat'l Park. We did our game drives in our Nomad Tour vehicle (basically just self-guided along the roads of the park, where our tour driver Noel and guide Nathan sat up front in the cab looking for wildlife while we all sat in the back with our cameras and binoculars ready.) There are very strict rules regarding speed limits in the park- there are even traffic cops with speed cameras, because Kruger is a popular cut-through for truck drivers delivering goods- and you absolutely cannot get out of your vehicle at all (which meant we were on strict water rationing, because bathroom breaks aren't exactly available with wild lions and everything on the prowl!) As it turns out, despite it being the rainy season so fewer animals congregating at the big watering holes, we had two days of absolutely successful game drives. We saw tons of elephants, much bigger than those we saw in Addo, as well as a family of hyenas, zebras, lions and lionesses up close, hippos, giraffes, warthogs. We saw white rhinos, as well as 3 of the very endangered black rhinos (they're not actually different colors, the two types have different mouth shapes), and probably the most amazing sighting was that of a leopard that was lounging in the shade of a tree in the road in front of us. There are very few leopards in Kruger, and they typically only come out at night, so to see one at 2 in the afternoon was incredible. It was incredible to see the animals up close, in much more of a natural habitat than that of a zoo.
We also did a sunset game drive with a park ranger in one of their safari vehicles- so an open air vehicle with canvas doors. This was when we had our second run-in with an elephant. It's breeding season for elephants so the males are constantly on the look-out for femals and are very protective of their territory. We had just pulled into a turn-around at a watering hole (translation- a dead end) when a huge male elephant came and blocked the road in front of us. He was obviously not pleased with us being there- he was shaking his head, trumpeting, and generally doing everything he could to tell us to go away. We were downwind and he absolutely reeked (one way of attracting the females is the males urinate all over their back legs- needless to say, he was quite fragrant.) The park ranger revved the engine several times, moving forward a few feet and the elephant started to back up- and then he turned around and we were chasing this elephant down the one-way road. He was kicking up so much dust and we were so close that you could taste the dirt in the air- we chased him for over a kilometer, at the main road the elephant swerved off to the left as we took a sharp right. The chase wasn't over, though, as the elephant started to run after us still shaking his head and trumpeting- the park ranger drove as fast as he could over the bumpy roads and after what seemed like an eternity (more like 2 or 3 minutes) the elephant gave up chase and we all calmed down enough to stop screaming at the ranger to drive faster. As far as I'm concerned, we've had enough run-in's with elephants and hope there are no more, but it makes for a great story!
After a few more adventures in South Africa, including less than 24 hours in Johannesburg (which was more than enough for me in a lifetime) we bid farewell to our group of 11 and boarded a flight from Johannesburg to Livingstone, Zambia, where we would meet up with our new tour group. Our new group is much larger than our last, with much stronger personalities (fill in the blanks as you'd like)- 25 of us on a vehicle slightly larger than our last- so no more luxurious two seats to a person and easily stowed baggage- the new adventure begins. Steve and I made an afternoon of going to the Zambian side of Victoria Falls- not sure of the actual accolades, but it's either the largest by volume, or the longest waterfalls in Africa (or the world?) , and they are amazing. When we landed in Zambia I thought there was a giant fire burning somewhere out in the countryside, but it turns out that it is the cloud of mist rising up from the falls. When you walk towards them, there is so much water coming off the falls that it's as if it's raining from every angle- we had our raincoats/pants on and still got absolutely drenched. We would like to come back in the dry season and see the falls from the Zimbabwean side, where you can see more of the actual rock formations/falls.
We left Zambia behind a couple of days ago, and are now in Malawi for about a week, tomorrow we head further north along the lake where hopefully it will be a bit drier than it is here! One interesting note on our tour is that it's a German tour, so there's also a translator- although only a handful of people actually need the translator, and a majority of the group doesn't even speak German. This has gotten us into a couple of sticky situations, though, as the message of "absolutely do not take photos at any border crossings or police checkpoints" must have gotten lost in translation, because at three different instances in one day we had run-in's with the local officials due to photography. At one point, a police officer jumped up on the side of our vehicle and started screaming at a German woman who speaks zero English (except "okay" and "alright") who was taking a photo of the countryside not realizing we were at a police checkpoint. Another incident involved several people taking photos of a large beetle at the Zambia/Malawi border, right after we got our passports stamped (I'm not joking here) and the border patrolman said that they'd damaged the screen where the beetle was sitting and insisted on payment for repair of the screen. Fortunately for us, our guides and translator were able to diffuse the situations and no money was ever handed over and no one was thrown in jail. Since then, the photography has decreased somewhat..... but we still have many many more borders to cross!
Lunch is ready so I have to run. I have one parting piece of information to leave you with- so far, 3 out of 3 Zimbabweans confirm that they either like / love Dolly Parton's music. Our last driver had several of her CD's and would play them for us on the bus (until one of us begged him to turn it off ), and our 2 new guides are both Zimbabwean as well and agree that they dig her songs. It's not a big sample size, but still- 100% like Dolly Parton. Now THAT is a fact I didn't expect to find out in our African travels.
Cheers,
Anna
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Irritable elephants and cheeky monkeys
Greetings from Durban, South Africa! It feels like it's been forever since the last post, but I guess I'm not as much of a slacker as I thought. Steve and I have spent the last couple of weeks on the Southern Africa portion of the guided tour (and have another week or so to go with this group.) As seems to be the unending story of my experience with internet in Africa, this computer has completely disabled file saving, photo uploading, etc, so if you would like to check out our route and the absolutely ridiculous looking "bus" we're traveling in, check out these links: http://www.nomadtours.co.za/south_african_explorer_c_3.html#mapsheader and http://www.nomadtours.co.za/our_vehicles.html
Maybe one day I'll actually find a computer that will let me load some of our photos (which I think we have thousands of already.) So in words, what exactly have we been up to in Africa? Our tour group started out as 8 people and two guides/drivers, then after a week we had 3 new people join. It's been a mixture of ages/nationalities, from a 21 year old Dutch girl to a 40+ year old Scotch guy and his mother, a couple of brazillians, a german girl, an english guy, a couple of Californians and us. As we found out on the first day, we were a VERY lucky group because we were so small- the bus has capacity for 26 people, so with 11 total we've had plenty of room to spread out in (although napping is a bit of a challenge considering how bumpy the roads are, but we keep getting told that they're just going to get worse in East Africa!)
We have been making our way across South Africa, spending a night or two in every town. We've done about half camping/ half staying in dorm rooms depending on the weather and how lazy we're feeling about putting up our tents. One of the highlights has been our guide/cook- he is a professionally trained chef so the dinners he's been cooking have been amazing- we've gotten to try a number of local dishes (and it all comes out of a tiny kitchen that's built into the side of our bus). Tonight is a going away dinner for 3 of the original group members, so our guide gets a night off cooking and we're heading to a great restaurant (according to some other groups we've run into) in Durban.
As far as activities, we have been VERY busy getting to see a lot of the local flora and fauna. We went to an ostrich farm where I got to hold a 3 day old baby ostrich- much cuter than the grown ups- and Steve got to ride on one. He held his own pretty well, and fortunately we have it all caught on video! I found out there are ostrich jockeys, similar to horse jockeys-that race, but that sport hasn't really made it to the States yet...... keeping my fingers crossed...
We also did our first visit to a game park- Addo. We drove through the park in our bus (named Freddy) and had an encounter with a very irritable old elephant. We didn't realize at the time he was not happy with us, we thought he was just walking up to the bus to take a look, but when someone accidentally dropped a camera it spooked the elephant and our driver kicked it into reverse at full speed, then our guide explained that the elephant had given us two "mock charge" signs and was ready to really charge at our bus hence the reverse to get out of his way. Crisis averted, and again it was all caught on video. We spent the night at the park and had a few run-ins with some very curious monkeys who were quite adept at stealing food off of tables of unsuspecting campers.
In a few days we head to the very well-known "Kruger National Park" where we'll hopefully see more of the "Big 5" including lions. :-)
I am literally down to 2 minutes on the computer, so this post has to end before the computer kicks me off. We are having a great time on the trip and are VERY glad we're doing it with a group. Hopefully I"ll be able to post again soon with some photos of Steve on the ostrich!
Cheers!
Anna
Friday, January 11, 2008
Into Africa
Greetings from Cape Town, South Africa. It's been a while since the last entry- not a WHOLE lot has happened but we've somehow managed to fill every day so that we still feel really busy. The biggest event was probably the marathon travel that took us on New Year's Eve from Bangkok through many airports to go to end up in Cape Town in 2008.
Here are a few highlights of our 48+ hours spent en route (FYI- we were flying using airline miles, so we were at the mercy of Delta hence the ridiculous number of connections.)
We left Bangkok on a 12+hour Aeroflot flight headed to Moscow, Russia. It was the two of us, a handful of Russian tourists, and a pretty surly airline crew. After watching a really grotesque demonstration of orange eating in the airport by one of our future co-passengers (think juice all over the floor, very primitive ripping of the pieces, seriously I cannot overstate how scarring this was for me- clearly it's been 2 weeks and I'm still obsessing over it) we boarded our giant airplane. The flight was so undersold that every person could have almost had an entire row (as in all 9 seats across) to themselves. The plane was decently old so there were lots of quirks that Steve and I had never encountered- only every 5th row was numbered, so you had to count/guess about your row if you weren't seated in row 10, 15, or 20, etc. Also, the seats folded forward (not sure if they were supposed to, but passengers still did this) so after takeoff everyone folded seats forward and stuck their feet up on them like a coffee table. The flight attendants would speak in English to Steve but kept assuming I was Russian and would give me weird looks when I would just stare blankly after they would say a sentence to me in Russian. The flight attendants also had to make **multiple** announcements that it was illegal to consume Duty Free Alcohol while on board the flight.
So I've only been to Moscow one other time so I had a small idea of what to expect in the airport, but when we arrived we were whisked from strange line to strange line while chasing the lady carrying our passports who was taking us to the Transfer desk so we could make our Air France connection to Paris. After arriving at a tiny counter in the middle of who knows where terminal, we were told to wait for the AF representative to come and approve our connection and give us our ticket. A guy shows up, gives us the 3rd degree on why we're going to Cape Town never seeming convinced about anything we're saying that we're on vacation and why we have so many connections, and then finally gives us the approval to eventually board "his" flight. The last experience we had in Moscow was buying bottled water- a simple task yes- but we accidentally bought sparkling water (ít's like we're amateurs!) and then after asking the woman very nicely if we could switch it out for still since we just pulled it out of the case she very rudely said "No" and kept repeating that, so we walked away with our sparkling water, stood at our gate that is surrounded my smoking stations (they haven't adopted the fishbowl style smoking rooms like the States, so there are small air filters placed around that people smoke over that don't really do more than just spread the smoke around the terminal. Needless to say, we were excited to be leaving Moscow behind, because that was one step closer to Cape Town.
The next flight was uneventful, and we landed in Paris the evening of New Year's Eve. We had grandiose plans of going into the city to toast the New Year, but when we landed we realized that we had done no pre-planning, had no idea of where to go, how to get there. We also hadn't planned on it being FREEZING cold in Paris ('we'd just come from sunny and 85F degrees, we werne't thinking about needing our long underwear) and considering our bags were checked all the way through to Cape Town we had no way of getting outfitted for the cold. Plus the subway wouldn't start running in time for us to make it back for our flight, and our chances of finding a taxi to bring us back on NYE was basically 0%. So Plan B was to find a Delta Crown Room (since Steve still has access) and hang out there for a while until they closed and then find a comfy spot in a terminal to hang out until our flight left the next morning. Only problem was that the airport basically shut down at 6PM- it was now 8PM, and we couldn't find a map or anyone to tell us where a crown room was. After going between terminals on a wild goose chase, and being harassed about "why don't you have a hotel, you can't sleep in the airport"(well duh, it's New Year's Eve, and have you ever tried getting a hotel room for less than $500?) we decided to stop the search and found a place to settle down for the evening. Since we didn't have any euros, we couldn't get anything from the vending machines, so we ate the few snacks we had left and crashed on the airport benches. New Year's Eve wasn't quite the exciting Paris spectical we were hoping it to be, but memorable nonetheless.
The next morning we found the Crown Room, haha! And we got an excellent cup of coffee, filled up on the French equivalent of Biscoff cookies (it's a Delta thing) and then caught our flight to Amsterdam. We arrive in Amsterdam, catch our next connection, and are on our way to Cape Town. By this point we are about 35 hours into travel, and have another 12 hour flight ahead of us and our bodies are so confused about time that we have no idea if we should be asleep or trying to stay awake! The flight to Cape Town was great- KLM had awesome in-flight entertainment (it's the small things that make us happy at this point) :-) and the flight attendants were really nice- another thing we'd been missing. So by the time we got to Cape Town, it was about midnight, we were the last flight of the evening, and we were so exhausted we could have slept on the sidewalk! The last adventure was the fact that our bags didn't show up- they were lost somewhere between Paris and Amsterdam we were told. Whatever- at this point we could've cared less- we took a cab to our hotel (using points to stay at the Westin) and crashed. The bags eventually did show up the next day, but we realized that sometime during our journey we'd either lost or had our video iPod stolen. Unfortunately, the next few days of our time in Cape Town had similar downers (we found out that Steve's allergic to the Westin, so we had to switch to a hostel down the street; we had our first African scam pulled on as at an ATM but fortunately we realized what was going on before anything was stolen), and it's been quite an adjustment moving from Thailand where the people were generally really nice to a place where all the stores/restaurants have electric gates and the clerks have to buzz you in.
The GOOD news is that we've signed up with an awesome company to do a guided tour that will take us from Cape Town on Monday along the east coast of South Africa and then up north through parts of East Africa. We'll get to hit some of the highlights such as Kruger National Park, Victoria Falls, and we're really hoping that we'll get to see gorillas in the wild in East Africa. The tour will be almost two months long and we'll see a lot of different countries and meet a lot of different people. We were hesitant to sign up for a guided tour because we've been traveling independently up until now, but we figured that of all the places we're going, it would be nice to travel with a larger group in Africa and to spend more time enjoying the scenery rather than figuring out where we're going to spend the night!
Now that we have our plans made, we're trying to make the most of our last few days in Cape Town- hitting the highlights and seeing more than just the streets outside our hostel. Hopefully the next time I make a posting it will be with awesome pictures of animals we've seen in the African wild!
Cheers,
Anna
Here are a few highlights of our 48+ hours spent en route (FYI- we were flying using airline miles, so we were at the mercy of Delta hence the ridiculous number of connections.)
We left Bangkok on a 12+hour Aeroflot flight headed to Moscow, Russia. It was the two of us, a handful of Russian tourists, and a pretty surly airline crew. After watching a really grotesque demonstration of orange eating in the airport by one of our future co-passengers (think juice all over the floor, very primitive ripping of the pieces, seriously I cannot overstate how scarring this was for me- clearly it's been 2 weeks and I'm still obsessing over it) we boarded our giant airplane. The flight was so undersold that every person could have almost had an entire row (as in all 9 seats across) to themselves. The plane was decently old so there were lots of quirks that Steve and I had never encountered- only every 5th row was numbered, so you had to count/guess about your row if you weren't seated in row 10, 15, or 20, etc. Also, the seats folded forward (not sure if they were supposed to, but passengers still did this) so after takeoff everyone folded seats forward and stuck their feet up on them like a coffee table. The flight attendants would speak in English to Steve but kept assuming I was Russian and would give me weird looks when I would just stare blankly after they would say a sentence to me in Russian. The flight attendants also had to make **multiple** announcements that it was illegal to consume Duty Free Alcohol while on board the flight.
So I've only been to Moscow one other time so I had a small idea of what to expect in the airport, but when we arrived we were whisked from strange line to strange line while chasing the lady carrying our passports who was taking us to the Transfer desk so we could make our Air France connection to Paris. After arriving at a tiny counter in the middle of who knows where terminal, we were told to wait for the AF representative to come and approve our connection and give us our ticket. A guy shows up, gives us the 3rd degree on why we're going to Cape Town never seeming convinced about anything we're saying that we're on vacation and why we have so many connections, and then finally gives us the approval to eventually board "his" flight. The last experience we had in Moscow was buying bottled water- a simple task yes- but we accidentally bought sparkling water (ít's like we're amateurs!) and then after asking the woman very nicely if we could switch it out for still since we just pulled it out of the case she very rudely said "No" and kept repeating that, so we walked away with our sparkling water, stood at our gate that is surrounded my smoking stations (they haven't adopted the fishbowl style smoking rooms like the States, so there are small air filters placed around that people smoke over that don't really do more than just spread the smoke around the terminal. Needless to say, we were excited to be leaving Moscow behind, because that was one step closer to Cape Town.
The next flight was uneventful, and we landed in Paris the evening of New Year's Eve. We had grandiose plans of going into the city to toast the New Year, but when we landed we realized that we had done no pre-planning, had no idea of where to go, how to get there. We also hadn't planned on it being FREEZING cold in Paris ('we'd just come from sunny and 85F degrees, we werne't thinking about needing our long underwear) and considering our bags were checked all the way through to Cape Town we had no way of getting outfitted for the cold. Plus the subway wouldn't start running in time for us to make it back for our flight, and our chances of finding a taxi to bring us back on NYE was basically 0%. So Plan B was to find a Delta Crown Room (since Steve still has access) and hang out there for a while until they closed and then find a comfy spot in a terminal to hang out until our flight left the next morning. Only problem was that the airport basically shut down at 6PM- it was now 8PM, and we couldn't find a map or anyone to tell us where a crown room was. After going between terminals on a wild goose chase, and being harassed about "why don't you have a hotel, you can't sleep in the airport"(well duh, it's New Year's Eve, and have you ever tried getting a hotel room for less than $500?) we decided to stop the search and found a place to settle down for the evening. Since we didn't have any euros, we couldn't get anything from the vending machines, so we ate the few snacks we had left and crashed on the airport benches. New Year's Eve wasn't quite the exciting Paris spectical we were hoping it to be, but memorable nonetheless.
The next morning we found the Crown Room, haha! And we got an excellent cup of coffee, filled up on the French equivalent of Biscoff cookies (it's a Delta thing) and then caught our flight to Amsterdam. We arrive in Amsterdam, catch our next connection, and are on our way to Cape Town. By this point we are about 35 hours into travel, and have another 12 hour flight ahead of us and our bodies are so confused about time that we have no idea if we should be asleep or trying to stay awake! The flight to Cape Town was great- KLM had awesome in-flight entertainment (it's the small things that make us happy at this point) :-) and the flight attendants were really nice- another thing we'd been missing. So by the time we got to Cape Town, it was about midnight, we were the last flight of the evening, and we were so exhausted we could have slept on the sidewalk! The last adventure was the fact that our bags didn't show up- they were lost somewhere between Paris and Amsterdam we were told. Whatever- at this point we could've cared less- we took a cab to our hotel (using points to stay at the Westin) and crashed. The bags eventually did show up the next day, but we realized that sometime during our journey we'd either lost or had our video iPod stolen. Unfortunately, the next few days of our time in Cape Town had similar downers (we found out that Steve's allergic to the Westin, so we had to switch to a hostel down the street; we had our first African scam pulled on as at an ATM but fortunately we realized what was going on before anything was stolen), and it's been quite an adjustment moving from Thailand where the people were generally really nice to a place where all the stores/restaurants have electric gates and the clerks have to buzz you in.
The GOOD news is that we've signed up with an awesome company to do a guided tour that will take us from Cape Town on Monday along the east coast of South Africa and then up north through parts of East Africa. We'll get to hit some of the highlights such as Kruger National Park, Victoria Falls, and we're really hoping that we'll get to see gorillas in the wild in East Africa. The tour will be almost two months long and we'll see a lot of different countries and meet a lot of different people. We were hesitant to sign up for a guided tour because we've been traveling independently up until now, but we figured that of all the places we're going, it would be nice to travel with a larger group in Africa and to spend more time enjoying the scenery rather than figuring out where we're going to spend the night!
Now that we have our plans made, we're trying to make the most of our last few days in Cape Town- hitting the highlights and seeing more than just the streets outside our hostel. Hopefully the next time I make a posting it will be with awesome pictures of animals we've seen in the African wild!
Cheers,
Anna
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