More pics from Africa....

tina has posted her pics from our african adventure. yipeeee!!!!

 

http://picasaweb.google.com/tina.hsiung/DubaiAfrica808#

Packed-filled adventure in Livingstone

We are heading to capetown today via joberg. Hit our first snag with our RTW ticket cuz apparently my name disappeared from the manifest list. Am hoping this will sort itself out. (Post: tickets are all good!)

We have spent five adrenaline packed days in Livingstone and saying our zambia leg was awesome would be the understatement of the year.

1. White water rafting on the zambezi river - falling out of a class v rapid (no. 8) and cruising down the rapid sans raft was quite exhillerating. As I fell out, all I could think of was simba one of the guides saying, "you have a life jacket. You will pop back out from the rapid". Good thing I also grabbed on to alan and cruised down with him. Fell out a second time but with less dramatic as I grabbed the safety line.

2. Lion walk with mukuni big 5 safari - spent a morning walking with two lions (moshi and saka). As it was early morning, both were very playful and chased each other quite a bit. Was also able to pet them and walk quite close to them. Both were beautiful lions. Def walked away with an even greater appreciation for the lions even though I was already obsessed before.

3. Bungee, gorge swing, and zip line - We went on the freedom bridge between zambia and zimbabwe and jumped off the bridge overlooking the zambezi river and victoria falls. I had no intention of bungee jumping, but watching priscilla, alan, mike, and vas do it made me want to do it also. I'm glad I wasn't deterred after joel who looked quite blue from the jump. Of course, it was already lunch break for the bungee guys but they fit me in. I also didn't have any money with me so vas was kind enough to lend me the moola. Her payment was two position switches in the asshole card game. Good bargain in my opinion. bungee was way scarier than I even expected and not sure I was the fan of being upside down. The gorge swing was way better because after the five second freefall, you hang off the bridge and enjoy the scenery.

4. Swimming from Livingstone Island to the edge of victoria falls. We all agree that experience was the most unique and special of all our activities. Right at the top of victoria falls, there is a small pool called "devil's pool" where we all jumped in. We were literally one foot from the edge of waterfall. Quite unbeliveable!!

Our evenings were packed with a-hole and beer. I introduced trivia and plaw introduced the "wild 4". We also tried taboo and finger game. Nate, you will be sad to hear that no one has taken to the finger game. So sad. I am still an avid believer and will hope to convert some folks.

Stone Town/Zanzibar

Am finally opening a book to read and savoring a diet coke which has been super hard to find in zanzibar and tanzania. Didn't realize I was feining (sp?) for one.

We said our goodbyes to Bernice, tina, vicky and jess as they left for dar today and its just me, sila, and alan in stone town. Bernice's fav part in zanzibar was prob stone town.

Even though we've been on a beach for five days, I feel like our days have been chop full of drama and activity in zanzibar.

1. Alan on his first day in zanzibar gets strangled by a jellyfish and goes into shock. Jess saves the day with her swahili and finds a doctor. Well, alan also saves the day cuz I would imagine a worse situation if one of the gals got bitten instead. He now has battle scars.

2. our last night was spent at a full moon party in which much alcohol was consumed. Bernice proved to be a "kai lee" like aggressor and egged everyone to overimbibe. Jess proved to be a casualty and proceeded to throw up from the van on our ride home. She barely was able to get up for the ride into dar.

3. Day was full of activities consisting of a spice tour with the fruit man, all day snorkeling at mnemba island with best lunch ever, and dolphin swimming which proved a bit sketch

4. Tina catches the flu at the end of our trip and misses full moon party

All in all we had a successful trip with some minor mishaps. He he.

On to zambia!

Heading to the beach...

So we have finished the safari part of our tour and are heading to zanzibar for some well-deserved r*r.
Loved the safari (read priscilla's blog so all the amazing sights we saw!). I think we really lucked out with our guide mosses from safari makers who has superman eyesight and found a ton of animals for us including lions mating! My fav were the cheetahs and their cute bird-like chirp and the lions. We saw two lionesses stalking and one was super up close to our jeep. While we only saw four of the big 5 (rhinos are hard to spot), I wasn't that disappointed given all the other animals we saw!

Just landed in zanzibar!
Beach time!

Africa, part deux

After our ten hour bus ride on the dar express bus, we finally arrived in arusha and were greeted by bernice, tina, and vicky. I guess we were the suckers since we got there at 8pm and the other gals arrived at 630 and they also had some nice chats with locals. Bernice and vicky learned how to count in swahili and tina found us a local restaurant kahn's with yummy bbq. Vicky now has a new pen pal, miki, who attends university at moshi. Priscilla and I were the losers who slept the whole way. I was super tired. Can u believe we left on the 3rd and our safari started on the 6th??!!

So in the morning, moses our safai guide came and picked us up. We also met our cook juma. Of course on our way to lake manyara, the belt holding the fuel tank of our jeep broke. We stopped at a nearby village rest stop to fix the fuel tank. We were instantly approached by masai women selling trinkets quite aggressively. Prices were also exhorbitant! I gave away my canadian flag to some dude. I'm not canadian anyways. what started as a 15 minute fix became about three hours. We were all quite crabby at the end as we were hungry and itching to see animals. Moses told us we would head to manyara twice to make up for our bad luck.

So our excitement begins! We head to lake manyara. Some highlights:

- a tree climbing lion sleeping in the tree (check on big fice sighting)
- an elephant herd (around 10) including baby elephants play fighting
-close up elephant about five feet from bernice's window. Its a matter of debate whether tina's red shirt or giggle caused him to "charge"
Oh yeah, the elephant had a fifth leg. When erect, can weigh 27kgs
-hippos resting at the lake. Check on one of priscilla's must see
-dik diks (looked like baby deer) were adorable. Vicky and I want them as pets
-babbons on the street. I said hi to one and it screamed at me and then ran away along with his whole crew
-giraffes - totally cute and awkward. Vicky thought its neck would break off as it ran off
-storks nests right at our camp site. Nests were quite large. Also made funky noises at night
-impalas, zebras, wildabeests, cave buffalo (vicky calls them george washington hair buffalo) grazing along the marshlands
-flamingos - priscilla wanted to see them up close and personal but alas, too far
-vervet monkeys reminded us of marcel
-birds of difft colors although I was the only one not too excited about it
-warthog - looked like pumba!
- bernice has yet to see her bush baby

We've discovered vicky is obsessed with anything deet, bernice is obsessed with sun facial supplies, priscilla is our resident photographer. Tina steals toilet paper for us. I am supply woman with my swiss army knife for our guide and I guess the nerd too since I brought my hp12 calculator.

Campsite...included a performance by a fire eating dancer man. That was impressive and we felt quite guilty that our money was back in our tents and we couldn't pay him.

So we are off to serengetti today and have to say, minus our detour from the fuel tank, the trip has been exceeding our expectations. Food has been decent, animal sightings good, guide/cook informative.

Too funny, our fuel tank problem has arisen again...saga to be continued.

Africa...at last!

So after a 30 hour trip (including two flights, a 12 hour lay-over at heathrow in which we stayed at the ever so cool yotel!), we finally arrived in dar es salaam. Am on an 8 hour bus ride heading to arusha. Bernice, t, and vicky took another bus and me and priscilla got an air conditioned one. Suckers!

We are totally psyched to be on this adventure and being the only non-tanzanians on this bus, we feel almost like locals...almost.

We've even learned some swahili. Habari means how are you in swahili.

Ooh...priscilla and I even found a misu mascot who will be travelling with us. But I do miss the real misu!!