Laura JohnInAfrica

February 4, 2006 - New Group We left Livingstone with our new group, a great bunch of people from Australia, England, New Zealand and the States. We had 8 people from our original group continue on, and added 10 from another group, and 2 new girls who joined in at Livingstone. It seems like an excellent group, a great group of people to travel with! Other than getting to know each other, we had a relatively boring day, driving from Livingstone to Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. We stopped in Lusaka for a few hours, to shop for groceries for the next few days, and use the internet and get supplies (like mosquito repellant!). It was surprisingly developed...there were really nice shops, tons of tubabs everywhere, and really nice facilities. I was surprised by the level ... read more

January 26, 2006 Our first day of the safari. The night before we spent re-packing our stuff, doing laundry and getting ready. We left the hostel at 8:30am, and headed on our way to Greater Kruger National Park. Our tour leader, Charlie, seems really nice and incredibly enthusiastic. She's full of energy and information! Our group seems really great...mostly Aussies, with two Kiwis, a Brit and an American. We're 18 in total, plus Charlie, Dzingi (our driver) and Heinrich, whose learning to be a guide. Heinrich is hilarious. He's pretty young, from Namibia, and is really enthusiastic. This is his very first trip, and he doesn't seem to know what's going on at all, but that doesn't stop him! The group itself is great, lots of really fun people, which is great. A horrible group would ... read more

January 12, 2006 On monday we spent the entire day on the Baz Bus, traveling from Cape Town to Storms River. The entire drive was amazing, with beautiful scenery all along the Garden Route. It was really interesting seeing all the stops along the way, getting a feel for each town. Before stopping at Storms River, our driver took us to the highest bungee jump in the world. It’s 216 meters high, over a huge gorge. We drove over the bridge, and that was enough excitement for me. I would seriously have to consider it, even if they were going to pay me. I couldn’t believe how much people would pay to jump off that platform. We arrived in a sleepy Storms River. It was beautiful, with mountain views at our doorstep. It was tiny though. ... read more

January 4, 2006 Our last day in Dakar. Probably the longest day in the history of our lives. We were so excited to get going on our trip that the 12 hour wait for the flight was torture. We purposely left our packing until that day, and I needed to go into Africare and finish up some loose ends, and yet, at 3:00 in the afternoon, we still found ourselves on the couch, completely ready, waiting for 11:00 to roll around so we could leave for the airport. Dakar is a bit backwards in this way. While every other city has flights all day long, and closes between midnight and five in the morning, this is when the Senegalese like to travel. We learned this quite well, living in the flight path of the airport for ... read more

Alex and I were keenly waiting to see what basketball was going to be like in Tambacounda. We first found a court outside of a primary school, which we thought would be the best thing around. Unfortunately, only little kids would come to play. One day when we were walking up to the court, a guy on a scooter saw our basketball, and told us that we should play at the stadium. We thought that the stadium must be the place that we were looking for, where all the older guys went to play. We went there and started playing around. There were a few good guys there, and as we played, more guys kept showing up. We thought we had found a great spot. Unfortunately, these guys were waiting for their practice to start, so ... read more