Blogs from Africa - page 2688

And so the traveling begins Africa » South Africa » Cape Town By erin_e July 16th 2007 Erin Enderud So Marnie and I arrived safe and sound in cape town at about 9 am local time (9 hours difference for those of you in calgary). The flight was not as bad as we thought a 12+ hour flight would be. We both amanaged to get some good sleep and we fairly rested when we got off the plane. Once we got off the plane and through Customs we headed over to baggage claim where Marnie was able to get her bag and I was left with just my carry-on. My checked baggage never came out of the shoot.... Thankfully I had been able to take my hikers back pack on the flights with me, or I ... read more

we're in arusha now after a surprisingly uneventful bus ride, we took local bus and u hear lots of stories ablout it but surprisingly it went well, 9 hours but it was good, no bags stolen arusha is the hub for tourist as its close to serengeti and kilinminjaro and everywhere u walk ur harrassed by discount safari operators and people selling stuff, its annoying but u just walk like there isn't 3 people following u and talking with u we leave for manyara ranch 2moro so there will be no posts for a week cuz , well we not sure where were going but we have to bring in all the food we will need and i don't think theres power, were not sure exactly what were doing something with cows, hopefully well get to ... read more

Morocco was rife with a wide variety of challenges...physical, cultural, mental, olfactory, gastrointestinal. You name it, we did our darnedest to beat it. Despite the tale of woe, hardships, climatic extremes and projectile vomit that you´re about to read, Morocco was one of the most rewarding destinations in our travels. Our ascent of Jebel Toubkal, highest mountain in north Africa was perhaps the highlight. The excitement builds...we´re bound for heights almost twice the altitude of the top of Australia, and it´s a challenge that we can´t wait to face. We´re travelling with our Swiss friend Andreas, and we´re grateful to have him and his mountaineering skills along for the ride. We make it to the tiny mountain village of Imlil (1600m) by the only way we can find from Marrakech - taxi. It´s the longest taxi ... read more

What can I say, apparently life is never going to be boring here!!!! I guess I should start from last Sunday, and my church invite. I was invited to the church by Joakim (project coordinator), so that he could introduce me to the community (and I was introduced as principal of course!). I took a few other volunteers along with me - Sally, Jenny & Nicki. I managed to fill 5 pages of my journal for the time in church alone so I'd better summarize a little bit. We are all glad we had the experience of attending the church service (all 4 hours of it), and it is definitely something I will never forget, but it was very emotionally disturbing, traumatic even. The church was really small & the floor was just regular gravel. ... read more

OK … I bet I have your attention, but yes, that’s right, earthquakes in Tanzania!! We have had, not one, but three earthquakes in the last four days. The first one, we didn’t feel, was on Thursday. The 2nd was on Saturday. I was napping on the couch, (I’ll tell you why in a minute), and woke up thinking that Anthony was shaking me awake. When I looked around, no one was there, but the couch was still shaking!! Honestly I thought I was just dreaming, but then Anthony said he felt it and John came from across the street and said he felt it too. We looked it up on the internet and it hit northwest of Arusha and measured 4.5 on the Richter Scale. Then today after we had gotten home from worship services ... read more