All that is South Africa: Part One

Hello again... so its been a while, I havent been able to find the time (or the computer) to sit down and keep all of you updated. But here I am, I just published my article from Ethiopia - only a month late... Things have been great - now for the quick run down: I flew into Johannesburg, and from there went to Swaziland for a week, then back into RSA to St. Lucia, Durban, Coffee Bay (the Transkei is amazing - I fell in love with it...), Jeffrey's Bay - the best surfing in SA, and now I am updating you from Wilderness.... wow - lots of travleing in a month but its been a blast!

Okay, now for a little more detail. I started off in JoBurg, spent four days there (honestly far too long - there is nothing to see there.... but thats just personal feelings). I did meet some good people there - a girl from Canada and a guy from England - both of which will be in Austrailia when Im there so Im hoping to meet up with them there. Things didnt start happening until I got to Swaziland.... I took the Baz Bus (a super convienent way to travel from one backpackers to another) with Amylee -the Canadian, and we got to Sondzela backpackers in the evening. This is a great hostel, its located in the middle of a wildlife reserve - this means that as soon as you walk outside you will run into all kinds of wildlife: zebra, impalla, bushbuck... this was a welcomed change from being in the busy city of Joburg. I went out and ventured around the Kingdom of Swaziland on a few occasions - once on public transit to see the capital and surounding cities and the other on a safari. Public transit was a great experiance - and we only got lost once! We were ment to go from the capital city of Mambane back to the hostel - we ended up in Manzini; only 40km out of the way... but thats the name of travel - seeing the sights! The next day we went on an adventrue tour - we were supposed to go ww rafting, but there wasnt enough water (which we didnt find out till we personally looked at the river in the morning....) but instead we went caving and quadbiking. The caving was great, I have never been in caves likes these before. All granite, and not true caves, but more of a giant boulder field and your crawling through the spaces between the boulders. Still very cool. The other super interesting thing about this area is that there is a river which goes under the mountains, then comes out the other side. The river goes through the caves (between the boulders...) but we were able to go down about 80 meters from our entrance and get to this river... very cool. The sound of a rushing river echoing though the cavern was an almost spiritual experiance - lights out and just listen to the sound - something I will never forget. After Our caving we went for a short quadbike ride, which was alright for me, but the people I was with had never riden before so it was quite entertaining to watch them! We had a good day over all: I didnt mention the morning events yet - I got to use my EMT skills! At 7:30 that morning we were going to the river for rafting (which, previously stated, was canceled...) when we came across a Motor vehicle accident. There was one patient, thrown from his car- but no one else was involved. Turns out this guy was drunk... but I was going to help as much as i could any way - which seemed strange to the fire department who showed up. as soon as they found out he was drunk they wanted nothing to do with him. If it wasnt for my persistance he would have just lay on the pavement... as for the ambulance, it never showed up - I found out later that the ambulance works on a cash-in-hand basis... if you dont have the money at the time of the accident than you can forget getting a ride to the hospital. THIS is a third world country... there is no doubt about that. Eventually - after we finally got a backboard and got the pt off the road, we put him in the back of a van and off he went to the hospital (i hope...).

The next adventure was the safari in Makaya Game Reserve, they boast three of the Big Five (no cats, lions, or lepard) but i got up close and personal with the rhino, elephant, and buffalo. There were also loads of zebra, giraffe, impalla, hippo, warthogs, gazelle, even a baboo or two. Check out the pictures on my worldisround.com site.

From Swaziland I traveled with some guys from England - Tom and Ian. We went to St lucia for some warm ocean swimming and beach bumming, then to Durban for a little city life. I have been very fortunate to be meeting so many people along the way. I have been traveling with people for short periods of time, then going our own directions only to cross paths down the road.

Well, Im sorry to cut this a little short but this is only part one - I have been on the computer for far too long. I will up date everyone again from Cape Town, so stay tuned!!

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