Lions, Flyers, and Beers Oh My!

Hello Friends and Readers
It was quite the week spent here in South Africa. I am not exactly sure what I was expecting, but all my expectations were greatly exceeded. We landed in a port called the Waterfront which really just looked and felt like a miniature version of fisherman’s wharf in San Fran. We arrived early on Valentines Day and the entire town was enveloped in fog with the only thing standing out being the grandiose Table Mountain shining in the reflection of the sun rise. After that there was some delay due to fog which caused some chaos for the plan on the day. Unforunately my trip to Robyn Island, to see the prison where Nelson Mandela was jailed, was cancelled. This ended up being an ok thing because it was really the only chance I had to walk around the nice little town. That evening we visited a township, which is like the slums, to hear them put on a musical show. We played some bongo’s, had a delicious home cooked meal and then danced for a while before heading back to the ship.
The second day included a beautiful bicycle ride through the mountains and the winelands of South Africa, before sitting through a couple episodes of wine tasting at these vineyards. (Speaking of one or two wine collectors should be expecting a phone call in a couple of weeks from the airport) I also visited a great place called Mitchell’s Brewery, so if you see me sporting a new hat in a couple of the piutres, you’ll know why.

At five in the morning, we woke up and made our way to the airport to begin our safari. I wasn’t sure quite what to expect, but it was Celeste, Tracy, Danielle, and me which was the smallest safari group by far so I knew we’d all get individual needs met for seeing animals. We arrived at the Kapama River Lodge and I must say if you do a safari, do it this way. The lodge was beautiful and pretty plush, and the food was delicious and the staff was amazing. Our guide Liezle, was a young woman who probably knew anything and everything about animals and their habits. We took two game drives a day, everyday from 5-9 no matter if its AM or PM because otherwise its too hot/dark and it would be a miserable experience. First night we crossed off the Amazing rhino’s, and the numerous bufflo. The second day we were greeted with a friendly greeting from the Giraffes and the Elephants. We some zebra and hyena and other things intermixed, but it wasn’t till the last day we were able to finally see our lion. The only thing that eluded us was the shy Leopard, which is the hardest to find. On an amazing note, on the third evening there, we were able to arrange an elephant ride which is kinda like riding a horse only slower and higher off the ground. My elephant was named Jimmy, and Owen my driver told me a lot about Zimbabwe. The advantage of riding an elephant is that most the animals aren’t afraid of them like they are the engine of a 4 x 4 jeep. So they will act more natural and walk right by you. This is when we the majority of baby zebra and giraffe. The safari was unbelievable and it was very painless and I recommend going here to anyone willing to go on one. It was definitely different than I had imagined cause there were trees everywhere and a large network of roads. These dirt roads actually help them track the footprints of game, but it defiantely wasn’t something I was expecting.

It also extended my streak of someone mentioning they felt like they were in Jurassic Park to all 3 countries.
The next night I finally took a nap and decided to spend my last day in Cape Town sky diving. When we awoke in the morning it was raining and there was fog everywhere. Luckily by 3, the clouds wore off and we were given the ok by the company. I was the very last person to go which I now count as a blessing because I got to just as the sun was beginning to set on the land. Yes sky diving is crazy, but it’s also a lot of fun. There were a lot of clouds when I went up but I told one girl who was concerned, clouds are better because without them you can’t get the feeling of flying above them. Which I thought was a good mantra for life as well. The plane ascended to 9,000 feet before my tandem guide opened the door and we leaped through. What took 5 minutes to scale by plane, took 30 seconds by free fall. Falling above, through and under the clouds was unbelievable and the view of Cape Town and Table Mountain were astounding. Cape Town was a beautiful city, and I think this is an A plus vacation spot. It was nice because there was no language barrier, and so we tried hard to take advantage of this and do everything while our guides still understood us.
A couple of last minute notes, cause of sky diving delays I wasn’t able to get postcards sent out, so to those who have sent a letter, it will be sent in 6 days when I reach Mauritius, to those who haven’t sent me a letter, I guess you don’t want a post card. We also had an 80’s party on the ship which some people actually dressed like they came on the ship prepared for this. We learned one thing from this party which was there will be no more alcohol nights and party nights at the same time. Lastly, we have something called “special questions people ask” which are really “dumb questions people ask”. I will leave you with a few of these:
“When we are in china, and we want Chinese food, do we just ask for food?”
“Is lobster so expensive because they are extinct”?
“If we keep losing an hour, will we miss the sunset?”
“Does the sun set in the east now that we are in the southern hem.?”
And in spirit of South Africa
“Is table Mountain, the flat one?”

Hope you aren’t nervous about the future of America, See you after Mauritius.

Wow... we are in the Amazon...

Hello Travel Fans,

There has been a lot going on lately, and even a lot more that I can’t talk about here, but that doesn’t it make any more or less intriguing. The ship has stopped rocking for the most part, either that or my mind just rocks along with it, I am never sure which is true. Along those lines, class is still rocking, sometimes amongst all the things going on here, it’s hard to remember it’s all just another day at school here. At the end of the day the books still need to be cracked just as often as they are at home, the only difference being that here we have 3,000 nautical miles of ocean around us to stare at. Truthfully the ocean never gets tiring, I can still look at it and be in awe as I watch the never ending tail our boat leaves behind. It makes for some nice dinner outside on the back of the boat with the sunset. Fortunately, I do sometimes get more done than nap and eat outside on the deck, and now is one of those times. So starting with the oldest events, here we go.

Things had become pretty routine as far as ship life goes until January 29th. On this day we officially crossed the one and only equator of earth. This is officially called Neptune Day by the ships elite, though I liked to call it wept tune day, for reasons that shall be revealed shortly. For those of you who are sailors, you may be somewhat aware of the initiation process that rookies go through when they cross the equator for the first time. Well for this ship, it was tamed down… somewhat. If you wanted to partake in this event, your first objective was to be dumped with fish guts. I am not really sure what was in the fish guts besides the most rotten smell known to man. After jumping in the now very yellow pool, I climbed the ladder only to be greeted with the task of kissing a fish, and the King Neptune’s ring to the joy of his raucous followers. Here’s where the fork in the road came and I chose the road somewhat less traveled which was to not shave my head. However many boys and girls chose to do so and I respect their bravery and wish them luck on finding their hair again. Thankfully, we had the rest of the day off and nothing else happened that is worth reporting.

Which brings us to the real meat of this article. It was on February 1st that I became an official member of the fellowship of the sloth. 14 of us boarded a 8 hour plane that stopped 5 times on our way to Manaus in Brazil. I must say, I was very impressed with the service on the airlines in Brazil. It was also here at the airport tha we discovered our first real hiccup. Which is, Portugese is not Spanish, and contrary to my ability to get by with Spanish, a lot of people don’t know it. I guess I assumed if you knew portugese Spanish really wouldn’t be that hard of a jump, but there was quite the language barrier. We did know a little and it seemed to be just enough to get by. In Manaus we stayed in a small little hotel that was about as white and bleak as one can get. The next morning we headed into the Amazon jungle which was pure amazement. The water seemed reminiscent of black ice back home it was so smooth. Soon after this I realized my biggest folly yet. I began to feel a few rain drops and it was at that moment I realized I had forgot my RAINjacket for the RAINforest. I wasn’t sure how much it would rain at the time, and my qualms weren’t eased when the guide said it could last for a week. It soon subsided though… and somehow rarely rained again. We arrived at our cabin and hooked up our hammocks to the roof and did what came natural to us… napped. After that, a few of us decided it would be a great idea to go swimming in the river. The only tip the guides gave us was… don’t urinate in the water or else it attracts something… which you really don’t wanna know about. Swimming in it was really nice and the water was actually warm. Our cue to leave the water came when people started fishing and catching pirhana at the end of the same dock we were swimming at. That afternoon was spent searching for wildlife, and only did we see wildlife, we ambushed wildlife. After seeing a few monkey jump back and forth we soon found a sloth. Our leader Frank had now accomplished one of his life’s goals. However our guide’s felt life they had not sufficed our groups appetite. 60 feet later, our guide was towering above us looking like the monkey’s we had seen not to long ago. A short poke and jump later and we all became witnessed to a flying three toed sloth. Well.. a falling one. Somehow this lazy herbivore managed to cling to another branch, to which our guide seemed more than happy to drop him 30 more feet into the waiting Amazon River. At which point Frank the sloth dreamer, dropped all his possessions and plunged into the water to rescue his dream. And yes, it was one of the ugliest things I have ever seen. After exchanging pictures it was onto the next event which was Caymen hunting. For those who don’t know, caymen’s are tiny alligators. Our brave guide of no fear jumped into the water and wrestled one to the ground. After passing that around, suffice to say we all passed out in our hammocks very satisfied with the days events. The next day was full of hiking through some of the most beautiful environments of the world and badgering my friend Kim who is in fact a victim of the recently swept Wisconsin Badgers school of thought. One night we slept in the jungle and it was really loud cause of these howling monkeys and talking girls. The rest of the trip was relaxing and full of pictures but nothing as exciting as our ambush of the sloth.

The town of Manaus I found to be quite nice. It had an opera house in the center and everyone seemed really friendly around town. Don’t have any malaria yet which is a good sign, although after eating fish for 3 days straight, ship food didn’t exactly settle in my stomach too quickly. Although ship life is getting pretty repetitive, it’s defiantely worth it for the onland adventures. Our last adventure was a surprise. We ended up going to a local Brazil game and it was division 3 professional so it wasn’t that great, but the arena defaintely filled up. One thing that keeps people coming back is 2 Reia’s beers which is 1 american dollar. The crowd was basically divided up into two sections one cheering for Bahia, the other for Vittoria. There was tons of chants going on and lot of people in the crowd lighting flares and playing any drum they could get their hands on. It was one of the more festive experiences I had seen. The game ended in a 1-1 tie and everyone went home slightly bitter but slightly happy. Then dock time quickly approached as a few people who tried to catch the start of the super bowl wandered in late. Groundhog’s day and the super bowl went by without so much as a thought in my mind and I didn’t miss it too much. Well this long post has finally come to an end, we are now on our way to South Africa and this is our 3rd 23 hour day in a row which is a little rough if you have an 8 am class. Hopefully you’ve made this far into the post and I would do more pictures but unfortunately they take a while to download and I don’t have that much internet time. Hope all is well and smiles are finding their way to your faces, thanks to Hank and Melissa Claude for letters in Brazil, there are postcards on the way! A letter for a postcard, fair is fair.