Hello from Sri Lanka! Our trip here has turned out quite well actually. After a fairly slow start at the beach town of Unawatuna we ended up climbing Adam's Peak or Sri Pada. It was the top of the mountain where Adam, when thrown out of heaven, landed and left his footprint atop a 7500 foot mountain. We started hiking up it at 230 in the morning as the sunrise is supposed to be amaazing. The only thing we saw however was the cloud we were in. Also the 15 kilometer climb has nearly 6000 steps so my legs are still killing me. Also Laura had several leeches stuck to her leg and I had one as well. It was great exercise and the photos that have been produced from this peak are amaazing. The next ... read more

TIME: Well Ethiopia has been the most out there place we have visited yet. We were even here for Ethiopian New Year's celebrations which were on the 11th of September this year. We left year 2002 and entered 2003. The fireworks went for 15 minutes and were really world class. Also they have their own time system too. 6am is their 12oclock and 8am is their 2oclock and so on. Then 6pm is 12:00 again and 9pm is "3oclock in the night" ...its totally confusing when you try to get public transportation and they convert the time for you. Its always hard to tell if it is Ethiopian time or "European" aka regular time. TRANSPORT: Another strange thing is all the transport in the country (besides planes) leaves at 3am, so you have to get up ... read more

Hello! Well a lot has happened in the past week or so. Firstly my filling from Zanzibar fell out after less than a week so that was pretty annoying. Additionally it came while flossing of all things. I have since spent 12000 shillings and went to the US Embassy dentist here in Nairobi. Since leaving Zanzibar as far as major events we spent a few days in the Ngorogoron Crater/Serengeti area of Tanzania and a few days in the Masai Mara section of Kenya. I am one folder behind in my photo posting as all of the photos in this blog are from Malawi or Tanzania. Also my super cool braids or "plats" fell out after around 10 days. While on safari we saw some amazing things including a cheetah killing a gazelle. He moved as ... read more

Hello from Malawi! It looks like about half of my photos uploaded but there are some good ones in there. In Victoria Falls, Zim(babwe) and in Livingstone, Zam(bia) I did a lion walk in a lion conservation center. In a 4 phase process they are increasing the lion population in Africa. Phase 1 which we participate is walking with the lion cubs which are age 6 months to 2 years. We provide a valuable revenue source for them. In phase 2 they are released into a 500 acre environment with minimal human contact but no natural predators. At age 5 they are released into a 1500 acre environment with natural predators. Their cubs born are totally wild. A lot of the money goes towards purchasing the land from the government so I was happy to play ... read more

Well the start of our trip has gone great! Please take a look at our truck. The carcass is more like a bus, but in in Africa it is more prestigious to drive a “truck” so we are not allowed to call it a bus in front of the driver. There is the driver/mechanic and the chef, then the tour guide leader, and 30 of us. We are Americans, Canadiennes, Dutch, German, Aussie, English and Korean. All in all, it is a pretty nice group. The first day we set off in our truck and made it to a South African vineyard. Nothing of note, except we had a nice wine tasting and the campsite was nice. It took some time to adjust to putting up and taking down our tent (named Anne by the way) ... read more