http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/SayLittle/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from SayLittle en-us Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:19:12 +0000 Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:19:12 +0000 I have been in Bangkok for the last 6 days and I have to admit I have not truly taken advantage of the city until the last couple of days.For the first four days here all I did was read eat sleep and I did manage to go out one night. It was very relaxing and just what I have needed for a break. It was nice to vacation from my traveling. Finally I forced myself to become a traveler and touri http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/Central-Thailand/Bangkok/blog-455702.html Turkey has been a country that I will truly never forget and I might want to live in someday. I love the food the landscape the people and the culture. I have been blown away by everything.My first stop was in a same town called Goreme which located in the heart of the Cappadocia Range. This is very small town based on tourism. To start with this is one of the coolest hostels that I have st http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Turkey/Marmara/Istanbul/blog-453379.html When we arrived in Damascus the tour ended for part of the group. So we all had a little party around the truck to say goodbye. I spent most of my time in cities while in Syria. Damascus is said to be the oldest city in the world. It is very large and the people there are very friendly. I spent most of my time wondering around Old Damascus. I saw one of the largest mosques that I have ever http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Syria/North/Aleppo/blog-451174.html Our first stop in Lebanon was in Baalbek where we saw what was claimed as the largest rock in the world. The guide said that this was not true but it was still in the top 3 largest rocks. We then went to some ruins which were pretty cool. The guide did share a lot of really confusing facts with us which at this point I canrsquot remember any to share with you. We then had lunch at this caf http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Lebanon/Beirut/blog-451163.html Jordan was amazing not only for the history but also for the landscape. The first stop in Jordan was Wadi Rum which is an old caravan route and is mostly famous for Lawrence of Arabia. We spent about four hours in the desert climbing hill sand dunes and exploring the terrain. That night we bushed camped in the middle of the desert and passed the time by making pyramids and doing other stupid http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Jordan/South/Petra/blog-449718.html We saw the Namibian Desert. Our first stop was at Dune 45 which is located on Sossusvlei Road. The Dune is 150m tall and is 45m from Sesriem and Sossusvlei. Again the walk up the dune was painful. The wind was blowing so hard that the peoplersquos tracks in front of me were covered quickly. This is really too bad because walking in other peoplersquos tracks make the hike up a very tall http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Namibia/Sossusvlei/blog-431615.html Because Mount Sinai is a very common tourist attraction it is best to hike up the mountain during the night and sleep up there until sunrise. We began our hike up the mountain at 930 at night. The hike was not that bad especially when Monica a fellow traveler got a camel and took my 8 pound pack off of me. The hike in total was 7km most of which was switch backs. The only really challengi http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Egypt/Sinai/Dahab/blog-449714.html On Oct 7th we left Aswan floating up the Nile on a Felucca which is sort of like a small sail boat. We spent 2 days floating up the Nile just relaxing eating sleeping and having bon fires during the evening. The boats crew would sing and play drums and teach us to dance around the bon fire. The felucca ride was a very easy 2 days of travel. From the Nile we went to Luxor. My impression of http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Egypt/Upper-Egypt/Luxor/blog-449712.html I had a very busy 2 additional days in Cairo. My first roommate to show up was American that had been doing peace core in western Africa for the last 2 years. I ended up going out my second day in Cairo with her and her uncle. Our first stop was the citadel which happened to be my first mosque that I visited as well. The view was very impressive sort of. Cairo is very polluted and it is ver http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Egypt/Lower-Egypt/Giza/blog-449476.html Arriving into Egypt was a pain in the butt. To make it through immigration it took me over an hour very ruff dealings for five in the morning. When I finally made it to my bag it was the only one left on the carousal. Good news was that my airport transfer was there.I arrived very early on Friday morning which is a holy day for Muslims so the city was very calm. I was overwhelmed by how unbe http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Egypt/Lower-Egypt/Cairo/blog-449466.html Only being in Jo'berg for 2 days I experienced a lot about the history of South Africa and how the Apartheid happened.The Apartheid Museum was very good and provided a ton of information on the history of South Africa. If you are interested about the history you can read more facts about it below.I also visited Soweto which was a large township in the world. This tour basically just consisted of http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Gauteng/Johannesburg/blog-448103.html So after my emotional drunk 3 am decision to go home to Ohio. I had the challenge ahead of me to get to the airport to fly home. I woke up early in the morning to see Tiffany and Jen off and then I started to realize what a choice I made the night before. I took a cab into town to book a bus ticket. The first 2 places I went said that the systems were down and I had to go somewhere else. I fi http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Ohio/Cincinnati/blog-441313.html On August 27th we took Tiffany for her first game drive in Addo National Park. This national park is famous for the number of elephants that you can see there. We found this watering hole just in time to see a large herd of elephants walk up to drink. There were many females with a number of young babies with them. I later learned in a book that because the elephant gestation period is so lon http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Eastern-Cape/Addo-Elephant-National-Park/blog-441308.html NAME HEREOn Monday August 24th Jen Tiffany and I rented a car. We decided to see South Africa with our own agenda. Renting the car was one of the hardest things that I did since being in Africa. We set up reservations with one company to get an automatic car and a gps. When the car company picked us up they took us to one location to pay for the gps then they had to take us to a completely d http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Cape-of-Good-Hope/blog-431621.html From Cape Point we continued onto Hermanus. A small town along the coast of Africa that is famous for whale watching. August and September are supposed to be the peek season for seeing the Southern Right Whale. We spent the afternoon having lunch at a very over priced seafood restaurant watching whales jump. These whales were so big that you could see them while they were swimming under water. http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Oudtshoorn/blog-431623.html The next day we started our final leg of the trip which was supposed to be a 45 minute drive from Stellenbosch to Cape Town. About 5 minutes after we left our last hostel a spring in one of the tires broke and we all had to get out of the truck on the side of the road and sit in the rain for almost 3 hours while the truck was fixed. We did finally make it to Cape Town by the late afternoon.For o http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Cape-Town/blog-431620.html Finally we entered South Africa the final country in our tour. Our first stop was this amazing little vineyard called Highlanders which is located in a small area called Trawal. It is so beautiful. I LOVE WINE COUNTRY Sparky was our wine guide for the tasting and the wine here was very good. South Africa is supposed to be famous for the pinot age grapes however so far I have not found http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Stellenbosch/blog-431619.html We have spent the last 3 days in a small town that is just like Leavenworth or a small German town. The town is located on the coast of the Atlantic and it takes only 10 minutes to walk from one side to the next.The ocean waves are huge here. I would never go into the water it is so cold the weather reminds me of Ocean Shores not at summer time.Since I have been here we saw the movie Hangover http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Namibia/Swakopmund/blog-427535.html From Cheetah Park our next destination was quote ldquoThe best campsite everrdquo On the way there none of wanted to go for a couple of reasons 1 we thought it was just another night of bush camping and 2 we had to leave Cheetah Park.The drive there was through a long bumpy road in a bunch of desert with small Acacia trees every where which means thorns in the feet I really thought I a http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Namibia/Spitzkoppe/blog-427280.html We visited this place called Cheetah Park located in the middle of Namibia. This place is a family farm that has cheetahs and other animals. The house pets are 2 adult cheetah one baby cheetah 4 dogs and a giraffe. We were only there for one night but it was an evening not to forget. We went to the main house to pet and play with the cheetahs. I was scratched by one that was more playful. http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Namibia/Cheetah-Park/blog-427266.html