The turquoise, pink and purples of the beautiful dresses shone through as the air hostesses walked through the cabin. We were headed to Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia. After 13 hours of being cramped in to a tiny spot called my seat and smells of microwaved beef arse drifting through the cabin, we arrived in the heat of the day to KL international airport. In true backpacking style, even after no sleep and no shower, we would not be defeated and pay for a taxi so a train it was. After walking for around 20 minutes to find the station with around 35 kilos on our backs between us, we boarded a train heading for where we believed was the part of Kuala Lumpur we needed. Hmm…15 minutes later and we were heading into more and more jungle than the tall towers and business centre we were imagining. We decided to jump of the train and re board another train in the hope we were on the right one. The trains were very modern, computer run and streamlined. Finally we alighted somewhere near ‘little India’ and started our map navigation skills. Whilst walking to the hotel we had booked we passed many a 5 star hotel and many tall buildings under construction. After about 30 minutes of walking this time in the blistering heat of midday we made it to our very unusual looking hotel ‘ Tune Hotels’. The hotel was red and white striped, all over the exterior and interior. We checked in and left our bags with reception until we were allowed in the room. By this time we were exhausted, yet so desperate to either shower and just jump into a pool, we were so hot and bothered. We grabbed our swimming gear from our bags before they locked them away and headed to the luxury hotels to see if we could sneak our way into them. After 3 hotels we managed it. The Concorde Hotel was to be our rest bite for the afternoon. However there were many people fully clothed jumping into the pool that day, Terry had to shield me every time I got in or out.
Malaysia is very different to Africa, it is very green with gorgeous large palm trees everywhere and random patches of jungle dotted around the city full of tall towers. First of Terry’s list to visit is of course the Petronas Towers, he has put me through many a documentary on the building of these towers and so it had to been seen. We have 5 days in Malaysia so we are now thinking of some plans to make the best of it.
Just before we go and make our plans and chill out in our brightly coloured room for a while, I thought I’d quickly update you on Cape Town. Cape Town was fantastic, full of colour, life and vibrancy. The sea is turquoise and the air is sweet, fresh, free and sweet. Table Mountain surrounds the city like its protector and an array of clouds trickle down the mountain as if its smoking. After sleeping over in a hostel named Zebra Crossing and catching up with family from home we were taken by mini bus to the sights, sounds and smelss of Cape Town. Our guide was a local historian and wanted to show us the real South Africa. We were taking past famous sights of cape town and then into a shanty town built by blacks when they were sent from the city. Thousands and thousands of people lived there in tin shacks with dirt roads. As we got out of the van in the middle of a maze of houses we were shocked to see every sets of eyes on us. An unnerving experience to say the least. We went to the local ‘pub’ and sat down for a talk from a local. We sampled the local beer also and sat in silence wondering why we were actually there. Was it from interest to see how others live, was it to experience segregation and fear or was it to sit and stare at people who are on the poverty line? We went from house to house, looking into peoples lives noticing every tony piece of space being used. Families pushed together by necessity in tiny spaces no bigger than my room at home. Terry made a friend and a small boy took his hand for the rest of the walking tour. We traded with the locals as as we did not want to take money with us and gained some beautiful hand painted paintings. We waved goodbye to this destitution, headed away with our flashy cameras and filled bellies and were left wondering why we were so lucky.
We decided that the best way to see this part of the world was to hire a car. We hired two cars and 8 of us piled into them driving down towards Cape Point where the atlantic meets the pacific and the most southerly point of Africa. We stopped for petrol and in a few animal sanctuaries along the way, spotting penquins at Bolders Bay and braving the fierce wind with them. We reached Cape Point after 2 hours of driving and climbed the viewing tower, whilst being frightened by our first snake experience of the trip. We took a photograph of the snake and it turns out it was a deadly snake!
Terry finished Africa with a bang, plunging himself into the atlantic ocean and being faced with the great white shark. The chum was through in to help with the action and the sharks reacted accordingly. Rethinking about it all after the event, Terry felt quite upset that they taunt the sharks in this way just for human pleasure.
Cape town is full of life and history. So much sadness and happiness combined. Although apartied was over around 15 years ago, it still haunts South Africa in a huge way today. There is so much segregation and feeling of uncertainty as you walk its street.
We will hopefully get some more pictures up soon....Terry has just ordered us a pizza so we can go and relax to Malaysian TV for a while until we are ready to go exploring.
Friday 30 November 2007
Tuesday 27 November 2007
More piccies!
Here are some more piccies, they are in a pretty random order but will give you an idea of the trip so far. Terry didnt get to shark cage dive yesterday as it was raining so will be trying his luck again tomorrow. Off to Malaysia on Friday!!
I just adore the elephants.
The girls from the second truck we went on.
Nice and red we are in this pic!
Us on the beloved truck!
Spitskoppe, terrys favourite place so far! This is out dodgy tent!
Namibian desert, the oldest desert in the world!
Seal Colony at Cape Cross. Just born!
Rafting.....arh!
On the Zambezi river!
How cute is that!
Our first crew, on the Chobe river!
Good shot ay!
On the mokoro on the Okovango Delta
A beautiful Botswana girl, she was so cute.
Terry playing volleyball in the Okovango Delta with the hippos and crocodiles!
Our camp....
Check my googles out!
An african bushman...they live in the Bostwanan Bush
This was in Windhoek, Namibia
At Ethosa National ParkSo many more pics are on Truprint now...if you havent recieved an invite to view them let me know xx
Sunday 25 November 2007
Day 25 on Acacia Adventures...
Summary of first leg (Southern Africa by Overland Truck)
Day 25 is here and we have now completed our tour of Southern Africa. We've seen some breathtaking landscapes coupled with extremely friendly people and peppered with a few spats of craziness (in our activities). Namibia is by far the most beautiful country, with my personal favourite being Spitzkoppe - an awesome collection of mountains that we camped right under by moonlight and next to the odd wild Leopard!!!
As people, I would say that we have just reaffirmed that we like our own space. That is not to say that we haven't enjoyed being in extremely close proximity to 23 other people, normally 500km's at a time...as we have thoroughly enoyed it. But, and its a big but...we like our own space...as with every couple.
We have met some cool people though that we'll defs keep in contact with such as an aussie couple called Holly and Tony...hilarious couple. We're also defs gonna try and keep in contact with Becks (aka Baby Becks) and Mark (aka Markos Mantis) - not a couple, but a cool couple of people.
Anyways, you lot dont know who these people are so back to our itinery.
Part B of the first leg is 5 days in Cape Town (where I currently am). I have now booked to go Shark Cage Diving...yep, in a friggin cage with a known maneater!!...or rather, hes on the outside..hopefully!!!! Should be good fun.
Then we're going to do Table Mountain and Robben Island before preparing for Malaysia in 5 days time!! Wooohoooo.....bring it on baby!!!!!
Day 25 is here and we have now completed our tour of Southern Africa. We've seen some breathtaking landscapes coupled with extremely friendly people and peppered with a few spats of craziness (in our activities). Namibia is by far the most beautiful country, with my personal favourite being Spitzkoppe - an awesome collection of mountains that we camped right under by moonlight and next to the odd wild Leopard!!!
As people, I would say that we have just reaffirmed that we like our own space. That is not to say that we haven't enjoyed being in extremely close proximity to 23 other people, normally 500km's at a time...as we have thoroughly enoyed it. But, and its a big but...we like our own space...as with every couple.
We have met some cool people though that we'll defs keep in contact with such as an aussie couple called Holly and Tony...hilarious couple. We're also defs gonna try and keep in contact with Becks (aka Baby Becks) and Mark (aka Markos Mantis) - not a couple, but a cool couple of people.
Anyways, you lot dont know who these people are so back to our itinery.
Part B of the first leg is 5 days in Cape Town (where I currently am). I have now booked to go Shark Cage Diving...yep, in a friggin cage with a known maneater!!...or rather, hes on the outside..hopefully!!!! Should be good fun.
Then we're going to do Table Mountain and Robben Island before preparing for Malaysia in 5 days time!! Wooohoooo.....bring it on baby!!!!!
Tuesday 20 November 2007
Piccies at last!
Hi everyone, better late then never, heres a few snippets from the trip so far....we uploaded 6gb yesterday so more to come!
Monday 19 November 2007
Etosha National Park
If you ever want to go on safari this is the place to do it. The land is arid and is desert, the animals are incredible and the place we stayed intense. As we drove through the arid landscapes to a huge gate, like the entarance to Jurassic Park, we couldn’t believe that we were going to stay in the middle of this incredible game park. It was right in the centre of the park and at night jackels just run around your camp lol, you can hear them scurring around for food. The hotel/campsite has its own waterhole (man made) and when night came they lit it up. God, this is seriously breathtaking, the animals all come to the waterhole to drink...elephants, zebras, giraffes, springbok, wilderbeast, oryx and even black rhino! They all share the hole but are weary of each other. Along our trip we have seen these animals but always separately and to thier own species so when we walked up to see a full waterhole full of animals, it just took our breath away. We sat for hours in ore of the scene in front of us, elephants and Rhinos interacting with each other, hundreds of springbok chilling out with each other, zebras drinking from the waterhole in a line with all of their stripyness and long neck giraffes kissing and drinking metres away from us. I’ll try and upload some pictures for you, there is definately nothing like it! (Read the blog underneath too, i just forgot to write about Etosha!)
Seals and their country surroundings
Hi everyone thank you for your comments, i love hearing from you all i just wana pick up the phone and spend hours updated you all and seeing how you are! I wish I could but we are so busy everyday is full on.
As we left the Okovanga Delta, we drove for what seemed like days and days to Namibia. Crossing the border we were all exhausted and ready for a rest. We slept on the truck, read our books and pushed our heads out of the windows to watch the Nambian people live their lifes beyond the truck. The landscape dramatically changed to a world full of desert sand and water. We drove for miles with the skeleton coast following behind us to the enormous, overpowering Spitskoppe. We took a left from the desert road to what looked like a huge lump of sand in the flat desert. As we approached the lump of sand, it gre and grew until we felt like tiny ants looking up to humans. We set up our tents once we arrived and thought about our night living until the stars, in the desert and in leopard territory (with lots of recent sightings). In true Terry fashion he decided to be an individual and walk alone in the rock formation. I went with him for protection, hehe, but as we went deeper and deeper in the formation I soon began to feel eyes looking at us. I decided to stand very still as Terry was begging me to walk on. He walked alone to climb a different rock and I looked around at my surroundings. I was alone in the vast desert, flat landscape with a huge rock formation as big as a mountain above me. I felt like bait ready to eat. After 30 minutes of thinking I was going to be eaten, Terry finally returned to a very unhappy girlfriend. Terry took me back to the rest of the crew and decided to walk off alone for a whole hour, I was so worried about him!
The next morning we arose early to the sound of pots and pans banging together and we managed to get up, pack up and jump on the bus for an action packed day. We visited the beautiful sanddunes of Namibia, extremely famous for being the tallest in the world, dune number 9. It was 5am when we reached the dune, without any breakfast in our bellies we climbed the dune for an hour to reach the top ready for sunrise. I managed half way and used a scared friend as an excuse to stop the pain in my legs and we slide down the dune after sunrise. Terry made it to the top and watched an amazing sunrise over the Namibian desert. After this we visited the scenes of The Cell with Jennifer Lopez, a very eerie desert with a few dead trees and sand snakes. Unimagineable place unless seen by your own eyes, the colours were so strong that you forget how the rest of the world looks for a moment.
The day did not finish there. The afternoon was spent heading to Swakopmund, the capital city and heading off to board down the desert dunes. We were all given pieces of MDF and pushed down the highest, nearly 90 degree angled dunes. I wiped out on the first attempt, I was so nervous but as usual Tel was a natural. Great fun, apart from the aching of your legs as you climb for the next rush.
We spent the night in a hostel, having a nice pizza in town and watching our day on the DVD. We booked to sky dive the next day so we both didn’t sleep to much in anticipation! I have to say Sky diving is the best thing I have ever done in my life. Something everyone must try! We were given really bright jumpsuits to wear and we were strapped to a pro as we went slowly up to 10,000 feet in a rickety old plane. The door opened and our legs were moved into place, touching the bottom of the outside part of the plane. One, Two, Three and we were out of the plane falling so fast we couldn’t breathe and so powerfully that I could barely think of anything but wow, wow, wow. Terry was so frightened he barely said a word going up in the plane and all he could think off when falling out of the plane is, ‘has the guy strapped me in right!!’ The parachute goes up after about 30 seconds and we just flew for about 5 minutes as the sunset over the skeleton coast in front. I looked up to see Terry flying above me.
Qualified Adrenaline junkies now. White water rafting, Gorge swinging, Sky diving and sand boarding! Terry is going to go Shark cage diving in Cape Town too. Crazy stuff!
In the afternoon, we headed off to the coast and to see the seal colony. We were warned about the smell before we reached the coast and they were not wrong. It was really overpowering but it was worth putting up with as we walked to the coastline to witness hundreds upon hundreds of seals and their pups. It was breeding season so the seals were joined with a lots of red colours and even more smell.
I was sick last night due to the malaria tablets, I took one on an empty stomach, such a bad idea!
Tonight we are so going to chill out with the TV, have a long hot shower and play cards with our troop. Required and throughly deserved. Love you all, i miss you all when i get on here and see your comments!
As we left the Okovanga Delta, we drove for what seemed like days and days to Namibia. Crossing the border we were all exhausted and ready for a rest. We slept on the truck, read our books and pushed our heads out of the windows to watch the Nambian people live their lifes beyond the truck. The landscape dramatically changed to a world full of desert sand and water. We drove for miles with the skeleton coast following behind us to the enormous, overpowering Spitskoppe. We took a left from the desert road to what looked like a huge lump of sand in the flat desert. As we approached the lump of sand, it gre and grew until we felt like tiny ants looking up to humans. We set up our tents once we arrived and thought about our night living until the stars, in the desert and in leopard territory (with lots of recent sightings). In true Terry fashion he decided to be an individual and walk alone in the rock formation. I went with him for protection, hehe, but as we went deeper and deeper in the formation I soon began to feel eyes looking at us. I decided to stand very still as Terry was begging me to walk on. He walked alone to climb a different rock and I looked around at my surroundings. I was alone in the vast desert, flat landscape with a huge rock formation as big as a mountain above me. I felt like bait ready to eat. After 30 minutes of thinking I was going to be eaten, Terry finally returned to a very unhappy girlfriend. Terry took me back to the rest of the crew and decided to walk off alone for a whole hour, I was so worried about him!
The next morning we arose early to the sound of pots and pans banging together and we managed to get up, pack up and jump on the bus for an action packed day. We visited the beautiful sanddunes of Namibia, extremely famous for being the tallest in the world, dune number 9. It was 5am when we reached the dune, without any breakfast in our bellies we climbed the dune for an hour to reach the top ready for sunrise. I managed half way and used a scared friend as an excuse to stop the pain in my legs and we slide down the dune after sunrise. Terry made it to the top and watched an amazing sunrise over the Namibian desert. After this we visited the scenes of The Cell with Jennifer Lopez, a very eerie desert with a few dead trees and sand snakes. Unimagineable place unless seen by your own eyes, the colours were so strong that you forget how the rest of the world looks for a moment.
The day did not finish there. The afternoon was spent heading to Swakopmund, the capital city and heading off to board down the desert dunes. We were all given pieces of MDF and pushed down the highest, nearly 90 degree angled dunes. I wiped out on the first attempt, I was so nervous but as usual Tel was a natural. Great fun, apart from the aching of your legs as you climb for the next rush.
We spent the night in a hostel, having a nice pizza in town and watching our day on the DVD. We booked to sky dive the next day so we both didn’t sleep to much in anticipation! I have to say Sky diving is the best thing I have ever done in my life. Something everyone must try! We were given really bright jumpsuits to wear and we were strapped to a pro as we went slowly up to 10,000 feet in a rickety old plane. The door opened and our legs were moved into place, touching the bottom of the outside part of the plane. One, Two, Three and we were out of the plane falling so fast we couldn’t breathe and so powerfully that I could barely think of anything but wow, wow, wow. Terry was so frightened he barely said a word going up in the plane and all he could think off when falling out of the plane is, ‘has the guy strapped me in right!!’ The parachute goes up after about 30 seconds and we just flew for about 5 minutes as the sunset over the skeleton coast in front. I looked up to see Terry flying above me.
Qualified Adrenaline junkies now. White water rafting, Gorge swinging, Sky diving and sand boarding! Terry is going to go Shark cage diving in Cape Town too. Crazy stuff!
In the afternoon, we headed off to the coast and to see the seal colony. We were warned about the smell before we reached the coast and they were not wrong. It was really overpowering but it was worth putting up with as we walked to the coastline to witness hundreds upon hundreds of seals and their pups. It was breeding season so the seals were joined with a lots of red colours and even more smell.
I was sick last night due to the malaria tablets, I took one on an empty stomach, such a bad idea!
Tonight we are so going to chill out with the TV, have a long hot shower and play cards with our troop. Required and throughly deserved. Love you all, i miss you all when i get on here and see your comments!
Monday 12 November 2007
Sniffing Glue in Botswana
Hola everyone, just catchin up on the internet, this internet is pretty fast so can at least update you all on the last few days. I am sitting in this really modern internet cafe with about 20 computers, flat screens and fast speed internet whilst looking out on the dusty town in front of me full of shacks of vegetables and local produce. This cafe is surreal in the surroundings. Tel has gone off to get his hair cut by a local and ive only got half an hour so sorry for the brief blog. We are currently in Botswana, we travelled down on the bus for a day to get to the capital Maun.
The scenery has been out of this world, and as we reached Maun all the local children ran behind the bus to welcome us. As we all jumped off the bus the children were begging for money and saying ice, ice, a luxury for them as most drinks they have are really hot. Our guide said not to give any money as the children here use the money to buy glue for sniffing. Looking into their beautiful faces you could never imagine them doing so, but people here live in poverty, living in tiny huts, with little to no shelter and little to no food or clothing. We gave litres of water away but it was left to the side as this wasn’t really what they were after at this point.
We have just spent the last night in the famous Okovanga Delta, a marshland in the middle of the desert. As we drove to the waters edge, the delta became a mirage in the heat. The delta is full of high reeds and plant life as well as a few hippos and crocodiles. As we arrived we were greeted by the locals who were going to take us on our overnight adventure in the middle of the delta itself. We were taking on mokoros, which are little dug out canoes capable of seating 2 people and a gondaleer. It was around 12 noon as we set off with our overnight bags and tents in tow. The heat was pounding down on us and the gondaleer, a rather large man with no hat or suncream, was pushing us through the reeds with a large stick. After 2 hours we reached out camp and we all got in the delta to cool off with a game of volleyball. Little did we know the delta was invested with hippos and crocodiles but we were too hot to care.
We set our tents up and spent the evening helping the local ladies make bracelets and bowls out of the reeds and listening to the guides stories of the bush. The next morning we awoke early tohead out for a walking safari. By now, we have done many safaris on 4x4’s nearly one every 3 days but never have we done a walking safari. I was really excited about it until we had our safety talk 30 minutes into the trek. Our guide said in plain English, if we saw an elephant and it starts charging to run in a zig zag fashion and get up a tree, the same for Buffalo and just stand still if you see a lion! The crazy thing was that there seemed to be no trees on the Island! After a long 4 hour trek through the terrain, and spotting an elephant and a herd of buffalos we made it back to the safety of the campsite. The camp fire was going and we had some pasta for dinner as we sang songs from our countries and told each other scary stories.
So far, we have been extremely lucky to see so many animals, elephants, lions, hippos, hyenas, monkeys, crocodiles, springbok, gifarres, zebras and rhinos. I have even sat next to the king of Africa, every second of this trip has been fantastic so far. We are now heading through to Namibia, the kingdom of sanddunes.
Love you all, miss you x
The scenery has been out of this world, and as we reached Maun all the local children ran behind the bus to welcome us. As we all jumped off the bus the children were begging for money and saying ice, ice, a luxury for them as most drinks they have are really hot. Our guide said not to give any money as the children here use the money to buy glue for sniffing. Looking into their beautiful faces you could never imagine them doing so, but people here live in poverty, living in tiny huts, with little to no shelter and little to no food or clothing. We gave litres of water away but it was left to the side as this wasn’t really what they were after at this point.
We have just spent the last night in the famous Okovanga Delta, a marshland in the middle of the desert. As we drove to the waters edge, the delta became a mirage in the heat. The delta is full of high reeds and plant life as well as a few hippos and crocodiles. As we arrived we were greeted by the locals who were going to take us on our overnight adventure in the middle of the delta itself. We were taking on mokoros, which are little dug out canoes capable of seating 2 people and a gondaleer. It was around 12 noon as we set off with our overnight bags and tents in tow. The heat was pounding down on us and the gondaleer, a rather large man with no hat or suncream, was pushing us through the reeds with a large stick. After 2 hours we reached out camp and we all got in the delta to cool off with a game of volleyball. Little did we know the delta was invested with hippos and crocodiles but we were too hot to care.
We set our tents up and spent the evening helping the local ladies make bracelets and bowls out of the reeds and listening to the guides stories of the bush. The next morning we awoke early tohead out for a walking safari. By now, we have done many safaris on 4x4’s nearly one every 3 days but never have we done a walking safari. I was really excited about it until we had our safety talk 30 minutes into the trek. Our guide said in plain English, if we saw an elephant and it starts charging to run in a zig zag fashion and get up a tree, the same for Buffalo and just stand still if you see a lion! The crazy thing was that there seemed to be no trees on the Island! After a long 4 hour trek through the terrain, and spotting an elephant and a herd of buffalos we made it back to the safety of the campsite. The camp fire was going and we had some pasta for dinner as we sang songs from our countries and told each other scary stories.
So far, we have been extremely lucky to see so many animals, elephants, lions, hippos, hyenas, monkeys, crocodiles, springbok, gifarres, zebras and rhinos. I have even sat next to the king of Africa, every second of this trip has been fantastic so far. We are now heading through to Namibia, the kingdom of sanddunes.
Love you all, miss you x
Wednesday 7 November 2007
Monkeys, parties and rafting in White Waters....
Bonjourno everyone, thank you so much for all of your comments on the blog, they were so great to read. We are seriously tired as yesterday was potentially the most hecticly epic day of our whole lifes. It all began last night, we had a party, alcohol fuelled shape shifters. It was so much fun as we are all close now and the storm added to the excitement as we ended up partying in it! The morning after the night before began very early at 6am, with a wake up call from the monkeys outside the tent.
We spent the morning driving to Victoria falls and walking for about 350 feet down the rock face to the river, oh and in slippery flip flops. The heat was pounding down on us all and we couldn’t wait to reach the clear waters of the Zambezi to cool down. We were given our paddles and assigned to a boat and a guide. Our guide named Simba taught us a few techiniques for all of 5 minutes, chucked us over the boat so we could see what it was like to fall in (at this point a nice refreshing dip from the heat) and we were off, the rapids began. With our huge life jackets on and a rather large man sitting in front of me, we floated down the river to rapid number 1. An easy rapid, we just glided through looking up at the steep rock faces of the river side. As the rapids progressed we were becoming very confident until rapid number 8 came around. My legs were like jelly, not only from the fact that Alan, the rather large guy in front of me, kept falling on them but also because just last week someone died doing rapid number 8. As you can imagine, Terry was right up front ready to face the notorious rapid number 8 and i was nearly holding the guide Simbas hand as we all said ‘striaght through the middle, bring the hardest part of the rapid on!’. It was amazing to glide through the rapid, up and down and round and round until a massive rapid picked us all up and flipped us over and into the crashing river. We were all struggling to get to the surface, our lifes were in our own hands at this point. I found myself trapped under the boat, struggling for air. Terry was a long swim away as he was flown for miles. Simba grapped my life jacket and pulled me onto the boat where i coughed up fish and water. Terry soon followed and comforted me as I cried my eyes out through fear and excitement. Rapid number 9 was called ‘commerical suicide’...hmmm yer not doing that one and then I was forced to do rapid number 10, a easy ride from number 8 trust me. I was shaking with fear when I got off the boat, so happy that it was over with. It was incredible but scary at the same time. An hour uphill across dangerous rock faces and stones and we reached the top exhausted and thirsty for a nice cold coke.
The afternoon was filled with more adrenaline. Terry began it all by abseiling down the Victoria Falls rockface and then we both we strapped to a rope and harness and pushed across from the Zambian to the Zimbabwe side of the falls hundreds of metres up. We pretended we were both superman to give the video some cool shots. Lol. The next adrenaline filled activity was madness. We swang our bodies, tandemly from 351 feet up down the rock face and swang so fast we nearly hit the other side which is 1700 metres away! It took a while for us to leave the platform as the instructor had to call 1,2,3 twice before Terry was actually brave enough to throw us off. There is nothing in the world like the feeling of falling very, very fast to plumet 351 feet to what could easily be your death only to be pulled back by a large bungy rope..
Today has been actioned packed, i wish i could ring you all and hear your voices and tell you all about it. We brought the DVD’s and they are awesome, cant wait to show you.
Tonight, we have had to get all of our things from the old truck and moved into the new truck with new people to head back down towards South Africa. 5am start tomorrow to Botswana. I will try and call you all in about 15 days, the cards we have only work in South Africa and its so expensive to call over here, 4 dollars for 1 minute!
Love you all, we will post again when i can, we won’t have internet in Namibia so will be a few days or so!
We spent the morning driving to Victoria falls and walking for about 350 feet down the rock face to the river, oh and in slippery flip flops. The heat was pounding down on us all and we couldn’t wait to reach the clear waters of the Zambezi to cool down. We were given our paddles and assigned to a boat and a guide. Our guide named Simba taught us a few techiniques for all of 5 minutes, chucked us over the boat so we could see what it was like to fall in (at this point a nice refreshing dip from the heat) and we were off, the rapids began. With our huge life jackets on and a rather large man sitting in front of me, we floated down the river to rapid number 1. An easy rapid, we just glided through looking up at the steep rock faces of the river side. As the rapids progressed we were becoming very confident until rapid number 8 came around. My legs were like jelly, not only from the fact that Alan, the rather large guy in front of me, kept falling on them but also because just last week someone died doing rapid number 8. As you can imagine, Terry was right up front ready to face the notorious rapid number 8 and i was nearly holding the guide Simbas hand as we all said ‘striaght through the middle, bring the hardest part of the rapid on!’. It was amazing to glide through the rapid, up and down and round and round until a massive rapid picked us all up and flipped us over and into the crashing river. We were all struggling to get to the surface, our lifes were in our own hands at this point. I found myself trapped under the boat, struggling for air. Terry was a long swim away as he was flown for miles. Simba grapped my life jacket and pulled me onto the boat where i coughed up fish and water. Terry soon followed and comforted me as I cried my eyes out through fear and excitement. Rapid number 9 was called ‘commerical suicide’...hmmm yer not doing that one and then I was forced to do rapid number 10, a easy ride from number 8 trust me. I was shaking with fear when I got off the boat, so happy that it was over with. It was incredible but scary at the same time. An hour uphill across dangerous rock faces and stones and we reached the top exhausted and thirsty for a nice cold coke.
The afternoon was filled with more adrenaline. Terry began it all by abseiling down the Victoria Falls rockface and then we both we strapped to a rope and harness and pushed across from the Zambian to the Zimbabwe side of the falls hundreds of metres up. We pretended we were both superman to give the video some cool shots. Lol. The next adrenaline filled activity was madness. We swang our bodies, tandemly from 351 feet up down the rock face and swang so fast we nearly hit the other side which is 1700 metres away! It took a while for us to leave the platform as the instructor had to call 1,2,3 twice before Terry was actually brave enough to throw us off. There is nothing in the world like the feeling of falling very, very fast to plumet 351 feet to what could easily be your death only to be pulled back by a large bungy rope..
Today has been actioned packed, i wish i could ring you all and hear your voices and tell you all about it. We brought the DVD’s and they are awesome, cant wait to show you.
Tonight, we have had to get all of our things from the old truck and moved into the new truck with new people to head back down towards South Africa. 5am start tomorrow to Botswana. I will try and call you all in about 15 days, the cards we have only work in South Africa and its so expensive to call over here, 4 dollars for 1 minute!
Love you all, we will post again when i can, we won’t have internet in Namibia so will be a few days or so!
Tuesday 6 November 2007
The drums of Africa
Goeie dag everyone or good afternoon from Africa! Sorry it’s taken us so long to add a new blog, we had internet for the first time yesterday in Botswana but it went at 2mph and we barely got to check emails!! As you can imagine its Africa, its hot, its crowded and the internet, let alone computers aren’t very well spread as yet. We are currently sat in a camp site, surrounded by the sights and sounds of Africa, birds talking to each other in the nearby trees, the Zambezi River in front of us flowing steadily as the fish below live merrily and the sky filled with thunder clouds and ready to get angry with a storm. It’s pouring with rain and the lightening is beginning, its amazing, keeps making us jump!
The campsite is equipped with its own cabin, where we all eat together and share our travelling stories. The cabin is decorated with laterns and bamboo tables as well as a nice little internet suite, well one computer and a chair to be exact but does the job, however it is as slow as a dead mosquito. The computer is facing out onto the majestic Zambezi River so i am watching the storm as i write to you.
Things are going well for us so far. We met a big yellow truck in Johannesburg that was to be our home for the next month. Johannesburg was a tad intimidating as we arrived to our first city on our travelling tour. Hot, sunny, barbed wired colourful city that has the higest rate of car jacking in the world. Great place to start we thought. Our first night here was spent in a hostel that was full, we had to stay in their overflow room, just 15 minutes walk away from the main hostel. Not far I hear you say, but in a place where you are warned to not leave your houses after 3pm this was a tad daunting for the both of us. We literally ran to the meeting we had that evening in the main hostel as it was dark and there were a lot of gangs hanging around the streets. In the night, we were quite unnerved, hanging our towels above our heads to dry then soon fell on us in the night, making us awake to what we believed to be an intruder!
The next morning after an unusually cold shower, we met a whole truck load of mates, 23 of us all together. All from varying backgrounds and lifestyles, it was great to finally meet who we would be spending the next 30 days with. We began our long journey together, heading out of Johannesburg and into Kruger National Park gaining our first real view of South Africa. It seemed very vast, but with lots of houses crowded together and lots of colour and vibrancy. We drove through the day out of the main cities and into the surrounding areas of Kruger National Park, taking our first glimpse of wildlife as we saw gifarres along the route.
It was amazing to think just a day or two before we were sat in our homes in England watching TV and as we were driving to Kruger, we were hot, sweaty, thirsty and in the South Africa safari bush looking out for the wildlife we had only ever seen on TV.
Our first night of camping approached as we were shown a tent ‘putting up’ construction. Easy enough we thought, as we were trying to work out what went where. The green dome shaped tents sat nicely in a circle as we all strecthced our legs to a game of volleyball whilst the cooks as the campsite were preparing the fire and the food for the evening. Once we had set our tents up we soon started to see why it was named Elephant camp as the footprints that we slightly larger than human prints began to emerge. After a lovely meal and a great camp fire we were treated to a dance by the family that owned the campsite. The family, of around 15 members of all ages, played the drums and danced in the shadows of the fire as we sat on and listened thinking how amazing Africa truly is. The children of the family danced merrily for hours, with their huge smiles and happy faces so I joined in and gave my English hips a chance at dancing African style.
Once the family left, we were on piled onto 4x4 trucks for our first safari in Africa. It was pretty dark by now so we were using head torches to spot wildlife. We were so lucky to see elephants and a hyena. The next day, after a pretty good sleep in the tent we packed up and headed to Kruger for one last safari in the park. We saw so much our camera ran out of its 3 batteries. We were metres away from herds of elephants, giraffes, zebra and even a lion decided to come and take a rest right next to my seat in the 4x4 as it watched the hippo in the river in front of us.
Another few days on the truck, driving, listening to ipod tunes andswapping seats to talk to other members of the truck or playing cards on the table at the front of the truck we were soon heading into Botswana, our first border crossing of the trip. We were warned not tot ake pictures, not to wear hats or sunglasses and not to look the security in the eyes. As we entered the immigration building, which was more like a hut, we were faced with a sign that said no littering, keep Botswana beautiful, which seemed hilarious considering the amount of rubbish surrounding us. The immigration officer stamped us through and into Botswana we drove.
The landscape dramatically changed from green flora to a dry and dusty Botswana. Women walked along the side of the road carrying all sorts of necessities on their heads and children played together in the dusty landscape. We drove steadily towards the Chobe river and the Chobe National Park. After another night of bush camping, with scorpions surrounding our tents, we safaried in the biggest park in Botswana. The heat was intense, our hats were shielding us from the midday sun and they intensity of looking for animals helped us to forget the burning sun on our skin.
After a nights drive to Zambia, we crossed the border and headed to the Zambezi river, our next camp site. This campsite was a lot more commercial then the others and we were surrounded by a lot more people and other trucks doing similar things to us. This is where the fun begins.
The adreline junky side of us comes out to play tomorrow. We are going white water rafting in the morning (not sure why i am as the lady who was talking about it told us someone died last month, don’t tell my mum lol) and then in the afternoon we are doing gauge jumping, swinging on a bungy over the victoria falls. This is a tad too crazy for me but hey you only live once and I have always wanted to white water raft ever since I saw the movie The River Wild with Kevin Bacon! Just before we are about to embark on rafting the great Zambezi, we took a walk around it to check out its roar. Its majestic, huge and powerful. We were hounded by men wanting us to sit down by their market stool so they could make us buy there crafts. We came away with a few wooden crafted elephants.
South Africa, Botswana and Zambia have been incredible so far. Nothing can prepare you for the complete culture shock that you experience. Toilets that are holes in the floor with a family of flies living around them, thats if there is even a toilet, food cooked by the side of the road in the blistering heat, elephants marching with their families to the nearest water, lions taking shade whilst thinking about their next catch, camping down with the threat of large animals trying to get into your tent, the sound of the animals coming alive during the night, playing with their own kind and the water we have to drink being near boiling point. We swap trucks on Thursday and join a different group of people as we are heading back through Botswana and then to Namibia. Our truck is heading North into Zimbabwe.
Everyone, we are having the best time already, there is so much to say but havent got any more time on the net. This has already cost me 400,000 the currency is crazy here in Zambia!! We will attempt to upload the pics but the computers are dead slow!
Love to everyone x x
The campsite is equipped with its own cabin, where we all eat together and share our travelling stories. The cabin is decorated with laterns and bamboo tables as well as a nice little internet suite, well one computer and a chair to be exact but does the job, however it is as slow as a dead mosquito. The computer is facing out onto the majestic Zambezi River so i am watching the storm as i write to you.
Things are going well for us so far. We met a big yellow truck in Johannesburg that was to be our home for the next month. Johannesburg was a tad intimidating as we arrived to our first city on our travelling tour. Hot, sunny, barbed wired colourful city that has the higest rate of car jacking in the world. Great place to start we thought. Our first night here was spent in a hostel that was full, we had to stay in their overflow room, just 15 minutes walk away from the main hostel. Not far I hear you say, but in a place where you are warned to not leave your houses after 3pm this was a tad daunting for the both of us. We literally ran to the meeting we had that evening in the main hostel as it was dark and there were a lot of gangs hanging around the streets. In the night, we were quite unnerved, hanging our towels above our heads to dry then soon fell on us in the night, making us awake to what we believed to be an intruder!
The next morning after an unusually cold shower, we met a whole truck load of mates, 23 of us all together. All from varying backgrounds and lifestyles, it was great to finally meet who we would be spending the next 30 days with. We began our long journey together, heading out of Johannesburg and into Kruger National Park gaining our first real view of South Africa. It seemed very vast, but with lots of houses crowded together and lots of colour and vibrancy. We drove through the day out of the main cities and into the surrounding areas of Kruger National Park, taking our first glimpse of wildlife as we saw gifarres along the route.
It was amazing to think just a day or two before we were sat in our homes in England watching TV and as we were driving to Kruger, we were hot, sweaty, thirsty and in the South Africa safari bush looking out for the wildlife we had only ever seen on TV.
Our first night of camping approached as we were shown a tent ‘putting up’ construction. Easy enough we thought, as we were trying to work out what went where. The green dome shaped tents sat nicely in a circle as we all strecthced our legs to a game of volleyball whilst the cooks as the campsite were preparing the fire and the food for the evening. Once we had set our tents up we soon started to see why it was named Elephant camp as the footprints that we slightly larger than human prints began to emerge. After a lovely meal and a great camp fire we were treated to a dance by the family that owned the campsite. The family, of around 15 members of all ages, played the drums and danced in the shadows of the fire as we sat on and listened thinking how amazing Africa truly is. The children of the family danced merrily for hours, with their huge smiles and happy faces so I joined in and gave my English hips a chance at dancing African style.
Once the family left, we were on piled onto 4x4 trucks for our first safari in Africa. It was pretty dark by now so we were using head torches to spot wildlife. We were so lucky to see elephants and a hyena. The next day, after a pretty good sleep in the tent we packed up and headed to Kruger for one last safari in the park. We saw so much our camera ran out of its 3 batteries. We were metres away from herds of elephants, giraffes, zebra and even a lion decided to come and take a rest right next to my seat in the 4x4 as it watched the hippo in the river in front of us.
Another few days on the truck, driving, listening to ipod tunes andswapping seats to talk to other members of the truck or playing cards on the table at the front of the truck we were soon heading into Botswana, our first border crossing of the trip. We were warned not tot ake pictures, not to wear hats or sunglasses and not to look the security in the eyes. As we entered the immigration building, which was more like a hut, we were faced with a sign that said no littering, keep Botswana beautiful, which seemed hilarious considering the amount of rubbish surrounding us. The immigration officer stamped us through and into Botswana we drove.
The landscape dramatically changed from green flora to a dry and dusty Botswana. Women walked along the side of the road carrying all sorts of necessities on their heads and children played together in the dusty landscape. We drove steadily towards the Chobe river and the Chobe National Park. After another night of bush camping, with scorpions surrounding our tents, we safaried in the biggest park in Botswana. The heat was intense, our hats were shielding us from the midday sun and they intensity of looking for animals helped us to forget the burning sun on our skin.
After a nights drive to Zambia, we crossed the border and headed to the Zambezi river, our next camp site. This campsite was a lot more commercial then the others and we were surrounded by a lot more people and other trucks doing similar things to us. This is where the fun begins.
The adreline junky side of us comes out to play tomorrow. We are going white water rafting in the morning (not sure why i am as the lady who was talking about it told us someone died last month, don’t tell my mum lol) and then in the afternoon we are doing gauge jumping, swinging on a bungy over the victoria falls. This is a tad too crazy for me but hey you only live once and I have always wanted to white water raft ever since I saw the movie The River Wild with Kevin Bacon! Just before we are about to embark on rafting the great Zambezi, we took a walk around it to check out its roar. Its majestic, huge and powerful. We were hounded by men wanting us to sit down by their market stool so they could make us buy there crafts. We came away with a few wooden crafted elephants.
South Africa, Botswana and Zambia have been incredible so far. Nothing can prepare you for the complete culture shock that you experience. Toilets that are holes in the floor with a family of flies living around them, thats if there is even a toilet, food cooked by the side of the road in the blistering heat, elephants marching with their families to the nearest water, lions taking shade whilst thinking about their next catch, camping down with the threat of large animals trying to get into your tent, the sound of the animals coming alive during the night, playing with their own kind and the water we have to drink being near boiling point. We swap trucks on Thursday and join a different group of people as we are heading back through Botswana and then to Namibia. Our truck is heading North into Zimbabwe.
Everyone, we are having the best time already, there is so much to say but havent got any more time on the net. This has already cost me 400,000 the currency is crazy here in Zambia!! We will attempt to upload the pics but the computers are dead slow!
Love to everyone x x
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