5/30/06
greetings from namibia, currently in Sakamond, Namibia (on the west coast of africa in the Namib Desert) the birthplace of baby Jolie-Pitt yesterday (I'm so glad that Angie held out so that I could be here for the birth). In other news ...
1. Threw myself out of a plane at 10,000 feet today over the Namib Desert. very fun. very beautiful. much less scary then bungy.
2. Drove a Quad bike thru the desert this morning at about 60 km/hr lots of huge hills and good bumbs, only nearly ate sand once, didn't flip my vehicle like some others in the group.
3. Went sandboarding this morning from a dune that was about 400 ft high and went straight down, apparently you get upto speeds about 88 km/hr ... again, very very fun. Glad I didn't break my neck.
4. Yesterday went to a seal colony 300,000 seals ... yes the size of Rochester! it was unbelievable, of course i took WAY too many pictures, that I cannot send due to their size, after many many tries. Also hiked up the world famous (apparently) dune 45 one of many many many giant red sand dunes that cover an area of 32,000 hectares!! it is unbelievably beautiful.
5. Two days ago I hiked up another dune, took an hour, lots of wheezing in the dry air but really great views.
AND THE LIST GOES ON. Like bush camping under the shadow of a giant bolder, it was beyond amazing.
Must say. namibia, very very unexpectedly cool. and really easy to get around, I will come back and do it on my own. i will say however, that i should have been a little more respectful of the whole "winter" thing. the desert apparently gets very very cold ... we've been out camping in the middle of no where now for a couple of days in temps that are getting into the 20s ... even in a 3 season sleeping bag, not freeing to death requires me to basically wear every single piece of clothing that i own.
The group is fun, i'm being very anti-social. i think i'm just socialled out. it is 9 english women, 2 aussies, 2 dutch and me ... everyone is about my age which makes it fun, i just wish i felt like partying all the time, i think i'm getting a rep. i just want to be awake to enjoy everything, so i haven't exactly been greeting the dawn with a beer in hand.
My tentmate is Carrie from Bath. She is a vet nurse and hysterically funny, she's the most fun english girl i think ... and reminds me a bit of you Carrie! We have a crappy tent that refuses to "pop" so we swear and kick the damn thing and then whine until the guides do it for us.... that helps.
There's really way too much to tell, unfortunately besides brushing the wire out of my braces one day and losing my water bottle while dune 'leaping' in the desert I haven't done anything too crazy or stupid ... but lucky for you there is still time. i wish this wasn't such a boring email!
Well the baboons were certainly entertaining at the Cape of Good Hope. They break into cars there in such of a sweet snack. We drive up and this large male baboon jumps into one of the tour trucks and what does the guide do? he closes the door locking the baboon in .. not sure what the purpose of that was other then to piss off large strong baboon. Apparently if you try to picnic there they will climb a tree over you and pee on your sandwich so that you drop it on the ground and then they run away with a urine soaked snack ... mmmm yummy.
6/2/06
Yesterday was going to watch wild cheetahs being fed and when trying to get the perfect picture I fell off the truck. Yes people I fell off the truck right smack in front of hungry cheetahs being fed raw meat. Hmmm.... Needless to say I moved pretty quick and made it back in the truck before most even noticed I had fallen!
6/3/06
Greetings from Etosha, Namibia. This is our first place for game drives and so far so good. Yesterday we saw about 47 elephants around a waterhole, even some babies. Managed to get some good pictures without falling in. Apparently now I'm the entertainment of the group. Sounds like I won't be able to stay that extra week which is a disappointment, but I just found out my next hotel nights are in over a month ... so I'll probably be ready for a break from camping by then.
While some people on this list may dissaprove ... contending it is not REAL camping, the facitilities here are amazing. It is basically a compound in the middle of the game reserve. We are the animals in the zoo. They basically close off the gates at sundown to keep the lions out (someone got eaten a couple of years ago ... oops). Apparently the Lions were up and roaring all night keeping everyone awake. I've given up trying to get any sleep at all without my earplugs. The jackels are running rampant around here, stealing shoes, but are pretty much harmless and the waterhole that is just outside the compound is all lit up at night. We got to see a couple of lions and 5 black rhinos (including a baby!) come for a drink after dark.
My camera has been nicknamed "baby" by the group, i.e. "Lisa's Baby" ... most are terrified to touch it. They are starting to understand my sense of humor and have taken to mocking me. Also we have instituted a rule in Uno that you are not allowed to apologize for dealing someone a crappy card ... in fact if you say "sorry" you have to pick up another card. I'm glad I can be such a positive influence on the group.
Let's see ... every time I'm off line I think of things I've forgotten to mention. How about a top ten list of things I've learned, in my last 10 min. of internet time.
10. Cheetahs don't like sunglasses
9. You can find Magnum ice cream bars in any African village, no matter how small.
8. Rock paintings are NEVER interesting, even if they are 3,000 years old.
7. No picture is important enough to get eaten by a cheetah for.
6. Winter means its cold ... even in Africa
5. The smellier your shoes are the more likely they are to get eaten by a jackel
4. Its okay to pee in public
3. 6am is early no matter when you went to sleep.
2. 300,000 seals smell. Bad.
1. $3.30/day can feed me with second helpings.
Okay people. That's about it. Feel free to email me, I like to have the mail to read. For those that have and now feel dissed by my lack of individual response ... SORRY! I'm at an expensive place, but in Livingston I'll have lots of time to catch up on my real replies.
Hope all is well, hope you are having fun ... when you wake up without your nose frozen solid think of me!
6/6/06
Windhoek, Namibia ... the capital city apparently (yes my ignorance is
overwhelming at times)
Well after 45 minutes of trying to get onto my email account, I
finally gave up and moved over here to the "largest internet cafe in
Africa" ... well I'm not sure it is really the largest at all but at
least I can get onto my email account. So I promised a long note for
you all today ... so here it goes.
I brought my journal so that I could see if anything in particular had
happened that you might all care about, that I had forgotten to
mention previously.
Well, the first piece of big news is our leopard spottings have gone
thru the roof! In the 5 years our guide has worked he's only seen 2
leopards. As a truck we've seen 4, including a cub! ... unfortunately
for me I have only seen two, but one of those allowed me to get a
fabulous picture, that hopefully will turn out okay.
Last night was cold, really really really cold. It was not really fun
to sleep in all of your clothes, especially after a few days of 80
degree weather and lots of shorts. So last night, I had my ear plugs
in, as usual. And apparently my tentmate Carrie was in a battle
against her sleeping bag, with me completely unaware. After shivering
and worrying that hypothermia might actually kill her she slept in the
tub of the bathroom poor thing. Meanwhile, I was happily tucked into
my sleeping bag wearing everything I owned with only my nose peeking
out into the tent.
I also never mentioned that there is a petrified forest here in
Namibia. It is filled with Pine trees, now you may scoff, but I
always thought petrified trees were still standing up, so I was very
surpised to be walking around a bunch of rocks with a strong tree
resemblence, but since I had never been before I guess it was still
good, especially since the entry fee was only about a dollar.
The amount of game here in Namibia is absolutely unbelievable! We
have just seen hundreds and hundreds of zebra, giraffe, and elephants,
we don't even wake up for them anymore since they are so prevelent.
One cool thing at the last campsite was the fact that there was a
mongoose family that greeted everyone as they came into the
campground. They were so cute! They ran up and said hello and then
went on their merry way back to doing whatever it is mongooses (yes,
apparently the plural is NOT mongeese) do all day. We also had a
family of worthogs that lived there as well, they were a little more
interested in eating our food then the mongooses and would gentlly ram
your behind through the chairs as a "Hey, you know I wouldn't mind a
part of that sandwich" ... this head butting was not appreciated by
some in the group and the poor Pumba's were run off. Needless to say
Hakuna Matata has been going through my head for days now.
In all the excitment of falling into the cheetahs and nearly getting
eaten (those new to the list, I'll have to fill you in later!) I
forgot to mention my other accident. We went canoeing in the Orange
River (apparently named for the dutch "Orange" family, not the color)
and you know when you are in moving vehicles of anytype with women
steering, there are bound to be issues. Well, two in our crew
although appently believing they are strong canoers didn't get the
whole gist of steering, and while Carrie and I were going at a pretty
good rate of speed we were rammed into a bush. Carrie's reaction was
smart, she dropped the paddle and dove into the canoe to shield her
from the branches ... what did I do? Well, I did battle one on one
with the bush, and the bush won. I had all sorts of defensive wounds
on my arms and nearly took a swim in the ice cold river. However, all
was made slightly better when I turned around and saw that the two
that had rammed us had soon after capsized their vessle and were
floating down the river .... hee hee.
I've decided I'm definitly retiring to Namibia, it has all the
amenities, and I've been totally overwhelmed by the amount of animals
in Etosha (named after the salt pan that covers a couple 1,000 acres),
its nearly as good as the crater ... did I mention the 14 lions and
the giraffes drinking at a water hole (really cool pics). There are
beautiful houses you can rent just inside the park (within those
"compounds" I was telling you about with "barriers" that my house cats
could overcome if the right meal was put on the other side). They
have kichens and outdoor seating, everything those who are
"anti-camping" could ever want.
Okay, I have a little more time to answer some emails you all have
sent, I'm going to try to do that for a bit. We are off to Botswana
next (news to me) ... the Okavango Delta. Oh and I'll just throw this
in at the end ... apparently there is some new unnamed disease that
our tour leader mentioned in the same breath as Ebola kicking around
here. We are going into the hot zone ... so I'll try not to bring any
viruses home. No tourists have died, just the locals, so I'm sticking
to my tent and keeping the cipro tablets near.
6/13/06
Greetings from Kasane, Botswana ... just on the outskirts of Chobe National Park. We are here for two days. Yes, it has been a while. My attempt to gain internet access in Maun was failed, and very very sad. Seems we have indeed left Namibia and the comforts of South African wealth behind. Although Botswana is one of the richest African nations, much of that wealth is poorly reflected in the availability of different services (as we have found out!)
Spent the last few days in the Delta. No not that Delta, the Okavango Delta (for those confused, yes the Okavango Delta is created by the Okavango River (this caused some confusion for those in our group). This is the only river in the world to end in a desert, in this case its the Kalahari. And keeping to our theme this trip of ... yes Africa does have winter. We camped out in a frigid 22 degrees one of the nights. That is DAMN cold in a tent on the ground when you get up before dawn!
We survived and are now well on our way to the equator ... hurray! It has been downright balmy here at Chobe Safari lodge, and it is all I can do to stop from being eaten alive by the mozzies (mosquitos). Speaking of which, my tent is perched about 25 feet from the crocidile and hippo infested river. We are supposed to "look around" before climbing out of our tent at night ... yeah. I don't think so ... apparently sticking to the other theme of our trip "how animals can kill you" ... a crocidile recently pulled someone at this campground who foolishly kept their door open out of their tent and all that was found was his head, great. Why does our tour leader Chris tell us all of these things when so many of us are taking Lariam (an anti-malarial that causes vivid nightmares) I'll never understand. However, instead of nightmares about Crocs I just had a dream that my tentmate Carrie was German and refused to talk to me in English anymore.... obviously the scare tactics are no longer working on me.
Speaking of another close call, apparently a group that went to the Delta a week before us were canoing along in their dugout canoes ... now these are REAL dugout canoes. We are talking about out of trees that grow in the Kalahari ... the Kalahari being a desert does not grow really big trees ... the canoes hold two people and a pulla (who is basically like the gondala guy) ... who steers you along. You are about 2 inches above the water line and constantly being bailed out. Okay. So a week ago another overlander trip like ours was heading out for their canoe trip in the afternoon (since the morning consisted of a pre-dawn 10 mile hike across the animal-free delta area (yes 4 hours walking in the sand ... no breakfast, AND they woke me up at 5:30am) .... ANYWAY back to the afternoon
So in the afternoon a week before our own trip the canoes headed out to see the hippos. Well, apparently they came across one that was out of its "domain" (the words of the safari manager) ... well Hippos kill more people then anyother animal in Africa so they are not the funnest animals to accidently run into. The hippo flipped the canoe over and even before the overlanders could react their Pulla (guide and canoe captain) took off faster then a cat with its tail on fire. Leaving the stranded foreigners to figure out how one reacts to a wild and angry Hippo. Again, according to this safari manager ... the Pullas reaction to "flee" was "unfortunate"... hmmm anyway since the Hippo was out of its domain it just ran away again, the manager also chose this moment to let us know that if it had been a Hippo in its own territory "it would have made sure no one was left alive" ... yeah. Thanks for that. So after that lovely bedtime story we head out to see hippos ... IN THEIR "DOMAIN" in DUGOUT CANOES ... we were within feet of them at some points and my tentmate Carrie got so scared she nearly threw herself out of the boat and tried to swim for shore (poor girl) did get some great pictures of Hippos trying to scare us out (and they did a damn good job I must say).
Overall however, the delta seemed mostly overrated, even with the perspective of a flight over it, there was not a hell of a lot living there and you can only go by foot so the ground you cover is minimal, although the fun of being within a couple of feet of giraffes in the wild is pretty cool. This morning it was back to the old 4x4 way through Chobe. Another early morning game drive, but it really paid off we saw a couple of spotted Hyenas, literally drove through a large herd of Buffalo (the second most dangerous animal in Africa) and then topped it off by spotting 4 of the 40 lions that live in Chobe. To put that in perspective picture spotting 4 of the 40 german shepards living in Delaware in a 3 hour period ... very impressive, and they were really close which made it all the cooler.
Next it is off to Zambia and Livingston and Vic Falls, since we are spending a week there I'm probably going to go into Zim to try and get shot at by the locals ... just kidding dad. Most of the other companies are still traveling there, so I've been assured it is relatively safe. I'm going to try and get to some of the parks I missed last time as well as a chance to buy some of the rock sculptures I love.
I'm sure you'll be hearing from me a lot in Livingston since I'll be there for 7 days with no planned activities. Have my fingers crossed the water level will be low enough for whitewater rafting and there is the new "Gorge" jumping that sounds fun so I'm going to do that with the "youngins".
6/16
Well had another two "adventure days" ... after today I think I'm sticking
to the manis and pedis for a while. Well the Livingston side of Vic Falls,
not really pretty, not really a nice town, and filled with "dodgey boys" as
our guide calls them. However, lots of new adventure things to take
advantage of since I left including the gorge swing, absailing, and a zip
line over the gorge.
So that was yesterday. Myself and the German Andrea signed up for the all
day, all you can do package. So that meant after a brief orientation we
were free to take advantage of all the different fun stuff to do. Started
with the regular absailing down about 80 meters (that's pretty freakin high)
... unfortuately once you get down there is no escalator up so we had to
hike back up the gorge (did this 6 times for a total of 130 stories of
climbing by my calculations). Then it was on to the "superman" zip line,
they hook you up to a harnass on your back and then you run 5 meters and
jump off a cliff and go flying out to the middle of the gorge, very cool,
very unscary, no walking involved! Then it was back to the absailing
station for "forward absail" okay this one is a little intimidating, you
have a full harnass and a rope to control your speed and then you run down
the face of the cliff face forward! Ran pretty fast and heated up the
gloves they gave us pretty good, it was a bit scary but in the end fun.
Last but not least, the gorge swing. Basically bungy except with out the
bounce. You jump off a cliff and fall until you hit the bottom of a
pendulum and then you swing back and forth in the middle of the gorge.
ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING ... I went 4 times! One forward, one backward and two
tandems with Andrea backwards (ahhhh). In the video the look of terror on
my face after we push off is priceless. Now suffering from whiplash due to
two bad jumps, I'm quite the picture of health, and my leg pain from
climbing the gorge all those times hasn't even kicked in yet!
So I decided to take it easy today and do rafting down the level 4 Zambezi
(basically level 5 is the highest you can do without always dying) ... it
just opened up today because the water levels have been so high, so the
water was very fast the rapids were much smaller the the whirlpools were
"huge" ... so anyway had my first really close call with any of these sports
when I fell off in a rapid in which our guide "could not guarentee our
safety -- do not fall off the raft" ... yup fell off. Almost held on until
we hit a big wave and the "oh shit" cord got pulled out of my hands and the
raft ran over me ... so that was a little scary because I couldn't find the
edge of the raft ... slightly worse when I DID find the edge of the raft
right in a downward current (probably not a full on whirlpool or I wouldn't
be here) so that pulled me down even farther and I just couldn't seem to get
up, even opened my eyes finally to make sure I was actually swimming UP!
but I was still like 5 or 6 feet down. Finally it just spit me out and I
popped up choking and very ready to come home. A wonderful kayak came and
picked me up and dropped me onto another boat until I could catch up to my
raft. I was very very very shaky but luckily it was one of the first rapids
of the day so that by the end I really had fun, fell in once more "on a safe
rapid" with no real problems.
So there ya go right with the theme of "almost" and this trip. I'm not sure
I mentioned the drunk guy that almost would have run over us in our tent if
not for a small guard rail right outside that he smashed into at a pretty
good clip, or the next morning when a high caliber bullet flew within 2 feet
of a girl from our truck brushing her teeth (about 10 feet from me) at 8:30
in the morning ... we actually heard the damn thing fly by ... Kasane,
Botswana ... not exactly a place for the kiddies!
So basically I have the B[rendk]amp luck, weird bad things happen but we
always come through unscathed! ... although i think I may have used up all
of my 9 lives by the end of this trip.
I'm off to get ready for our going away dinner, but I will write tomorrow as
I plan a VERY lesurly day nursing my wounds and trying to get my back in
shape again so that I can move my head.
6/21
Hi again from South Luwange, Zambia our latest national park adventure.
This one should be a goodie, night game drives .... oooo ahhhh. We
are also basically camped across the river (no swimming due to crocs
and hippos --shucks) from the park so its "anything" goes in the
wildlife kingdom as we have safety platforms positioned strategically
around the campsite in order to avoid being run over, trampled,
attacked, or eaten by those animals we've come to know and love.
Apparently my reputation has quickly passed onto this new group now
joining us (we are down to a group of 10 after Livingstone ... they
all left of natural causes). The game of "abuse the token American"
has reached a fevered pitch as they find new and more hilarious ways
to torment me including a ban on Americans in any safety platform
(from our Zimbawean tour leader) ... to this I replied "everyone's
always picking on us Americans that's why we are forced to bomb your
countries" ... this was well received by all (even by the painfully
shy Tanzanian cook). In fact any Anti-Bush humor seems to be the key
to the hearts of the African people ... in all of my travels I've
never experienced the directed level of distaste people have for him
as a president. But threatening to call Bush and have their resident
countries bombed never really fails to get a laugh.
However, less political, when we were briefed about the safety
platforms initially I think I asked a smart question, "what if we
climb onto a safety platform in a tree to escape the elephants, only
to find a leopard waiting?" apparently leopard trumps elephant in a
strange game of rock paper scissors and I was told the right answer is
"jump" from our resident Masai warrior/driver/lion spotter. I didn't
proceed onto the more difficult combos of leopard in tree, lioness on
ground ... hmmm I'll have to bring that up at dinner. And yes, my
education continues here as I have been learning hiphop moves from a
real Masai (how cool is that!). In fact I'm told I am even pretty
good for a white girl.
For all you frat boys reading along, one last social commentary ...
posted in the toilet is a sign asking all residents not to leave
TP/loo paper lying around. The reason? apparently Baboons are
working on the same level as 12 year olds and fraternity freshmen, if
presented a lose roll of toilet paper they will happily climb a tree
and chuck it from one to another and watch joyfully as it unrolls
around the branches.... hmm prehaps we are a little more closely
related then previously imagined.
Finally, if you find yourself pelted by nuts while trying to eat your
2,345 sandwich lunch don't drop your lunch and run. That just what
the vervit monkeys want you to do (so they can come and steal it) ...
luckly they at least are a little more clean about it. Apparently in
one park they climb a tree and urinate on your sandwich hoping that
you will react accordingly and then swoop in to steal it ... smart
little buggers aren't they?
I know I said finally but there was just one last note, mainly to
those picking me up from the airport. After washing what appeared to
me to be still fairly clean trousers and turning the wash water black
3 times over I realize that my self-image my be slightly skewed, so
I'll wear my Wharton t-shirt home and you should just look for the
tall African-American girl with braces coming off my flight from
Newark.
Hope to talk to you all soon! Fill me in on interviews, life changes,
moves, Bon Jovi ... etc etc. Heck even world news (with the exception
of the world cup which I have been watching very closely).
