Sunday, July 24, 2011

101 Hours of travel


Long story short.  tuesday the 19th took a ferry in huge swells at noon from zanzibar to Dar es salam.  got train tickets first class sold out so we were in second class sleeper.  Train was delayed 11 hours finally left station at midnight and headed out.  right after the zambian border the train ran out of gas, 12 hours later more gas.  Then the brakes were sparking setting the savannah on fire, 4 more hours. 
Needless to say three nights on a train with a constantly rotating cast of cabinmates (all women) ranging from two teens with a baby brest feeding non stop to a 26 year old woman who was fasanated with our nightly 'American rituals" of cleaning our contacts and such.  she asked us all kinds of questions about the US such as do we know homosexuals? (it's an abomination) to her asking about naked runners and if everyone has a gun.  We probably left her with the impression that we are all gun touting, homosexual mounting, naked running Americans.
On thursday night we got off that god forsaken train and headed by taxi to lusaka and the yesterday a 6 hour bus ride to livingstone.
This morning we got up early and headed to the FAlls.  It was amazing and we had it all to ourselves only took us 5 days to reach it!!!  There is barely electricity and hardly internet so I'm sooooo sorry to all those for not answering iit email (it doesn't open) and updating fb. 
I'm now headed to meet my class on an 18 hour hopefully good shape bus in Windhoek.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Zanzibar


Hi guys for the past four days we have been laying in the sun on Zanzibar island.  The first day we arrived here we stayed in Stone Town which is an old walled city made by the portugese to begin growing their own spices.  We walked around the town looked at old forts, visited the market and watched the sun set over the ocean with dhow boats in the background.  The next day we took a tour of a spice plantation which was not what we had expected, some villagers from just outside the town had set up their own tour and the tour ended with a tour of their village which was not expected and very sad.  I purchased some spices to deal with my guilt. 
That evening we headed north to the beaches and have spent the past few days dining under the stars, laying on the beach and enjoying the sunset.  Tanzania has an electricity outage every day and hot water and internet are very hard to come by.  it's a whole other world that makes me see what huge benifits we have living in the US of A.  Speaking of the United States there is Obama everywhere.  Villagers carry him on the purse, wear them on the skirts, and even name shops after him.  In stonetown there is an Obama barber shop that has a huge mural of his head and an american flag.  This is one of the few places I have traveled where being from the USA is grand!!
Tomorrow we get on a train to Zambia for two days to see Victoria Falls

Thursday, July 14, 2011

I'm not Lion

wow wow wow
That's all i have to say about the past few days.  We were picked up
at our "hotel" in Arusha and wisked off into another world.  We set
off in a 4 x4 across Tanzania where we saw things I only read about or
saw in zoos!!  There are more zebras and wildebeast than you can shake
a stick at and they are just roaming everywhere thousands.
The first evening we were parked nexted to a river at dusk and there
was a herd of 22 elephants, 100 zebras, and a family of baboons all
drinking and relaxing.
The second day we were watching a lion in a field when she ambled over
and laid down next to the car for some shade!!!!  We also saw two
ostriches doing a mating dance which is an elaborate dance of waving
wings, laying on the ground thrusting and being coy.
We saw the footsteps of the first humanoid and the place where
evolution was first throught of!
Every night we retired to a safari camp where we had a private cook,
hot showers, and a spotless tent with proper beds!!
Today we tried to make the journey to Zanzibar but we missed the ferry
due to a run in between an elderly bus rider who called the cops on
our rough bus driver (this had nothing to do with us).  So we will
take the ferry tomorrow to zanzibar tonight we are staying in Dar Es
salam.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Giraffe's Sneeze

After this years Air India debacles and my family's cancelled American Airlines I didn't hold much stock in my flight to Nairobi but I was wrong.  After Sankat and I had dinner at O'hare i breezed through security and took off on Turkish Air to Istanbul.  11 hours and three movies later I landed in Istanbul long enough to brush my teeth and marvel at the guy selling Turkish delight in a funny outfit that I had only previously seen monkeys wear, when I boarded my second flight I was greeted with an exit row seat with no neighbors!!

I cleared immigration with ease and a taxi driver from my hotel greeted me holding a sign with my name on it!  On the drive to the hotel i saw five zebras grazing on the side of the road.  When I arrived at the hotel liza was already there and we crashed!!  The next morning we went on a epic walking journey to find a bus company to take us to Arusha Tanzania. As we neared the center of the city more and more people wanted to sell us a safari and telling us that the bus company we wanted to us was closed!  after a break in a coffee shop we did prevail with two bus tickets to Arusha (the company was open).  

We then went on to be proper tourists and went to the giraffe orphanage.  there we were given handfuls of feed and we hand fed the giraffe's!!  as another traveler was feeding the giraffe it sneezed and I was in it's path.  That was a first.  below the giraffes there were warthogs scurrying around picking up the leftovers.  We then went on a small walk through the bush were there was actual giraffe tracks and scat, I've never seen that on a trail!!

Today we got up went to the bus and after the driver's prayer we set out on a five hour bumpy drive to Arusha.  We found a place to sleep tonight and are setting out tomorrow on a three day safari of Tanzania's national parks and the birthplace of mankind.