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Published: February 2nd 2006
And so the adventure begins...
SOUTH AFRICA 19th October: London>Doha>Johannesburg Arrived in J'burg about 5am-was so bloody tired cause couldn't sleep on the plane. Took a chance and got a taxi to hostel where I met mumma & her friend Bev. Had some breaky and then slept!! Got up round lunch time and went into Soweto, a township in J'burg with a pop. of 4.5 million blacks-it was only in 1992 that white people were allowed to enter this part of J'burg. Heaps of cute children. While we were there visited the Hector Peterson Museum-in memory of the named,a 13yr old student, who was shot dead during a rally of students protesting against learning Africaans on 16th June 1976.
Day 1: 20th Oct. J'burg>Bergendal Met with our tour group and departed J'burg ~0730,headed thru Nelspruit where we breaked for lunch,then a short while after we entered Kruger National park and we had our first sighting of wildlife,first we saw elephants,then a crocodile,impala, white rhinos & a giraffe. Shortly followed by a herd of buffalo, a lepoard-though quite far away, and kudu-which reminded me of the donkey from Shrek! The campsite had a swimming pool-bonus! so went
for a swim and walk around the site. Didn't close our tent flaps that night so ended up with a mini desert in our tent-there was dirt & dust everywhere! in my sleeping bag,in my hair & in my mouth-yuck!My teeth felt like they were being exfoliated.
Day 2: 21st Oct. Bergendal>Satara Loads of vervet monkeys @ breakfast this morning. Left camp about 0730-heaps of animals -Warthogs, elephants,giraffe,hippo,a spotted hyena,impala,buffalo,wilderbeast,waterbuck,kudu,black-backed jackel & ground hornbill. Made it to satara around 4, set up camp and then headed off on safari from 5-8pm. Saw lions!! It was amazing,only about 2m away from our vehicle-2x female & 1xmale,and I seriously thought one of them was going to pounce into the vehicle!. I was so annoyed that I couldn't get my camera to do justice to how extroidinary it was. Also saw white rhino,zebra,steenbok & a genet.
BOTSWANA Day 3: 22nd Oct. Satara>Itumela Headed out of Kruger National Park today, on our journey out saw quite a few animals-including some we hadn't yet seen-zebras,hippos & an african wildcat, and hurrah!!...we were able to drive faster than 50kph!!The showers here were beautiful-I now wish I'd taken a picture-they had a thached roof
& a linen curtain and cold water-felt so close to nature it was lovely!
Day 4: 23rd Oct. Itumela > Nata A fairly uneventful day according to my journal-drove until 2pm,played volleyball in pool @ camp ground,had a few drinks-oh and I remember that one of the guys got us drinks-the barman poured the spirits and gave us the mixers-and somehow I ended up with Gin and coke and the other guy with southern comfort & tonic (poured mixers into wrong spirits)-both tasted like shit but... we drank them anyway!
Day 5: 24th Oct. Nata>Kasane(Chobe National Park) Left camp round 8am after someone dropped a bottle of beer on the bus-woops!Arrives to Chobe lunchtime and mid arvo went for a river cruise on the Chobe river-saw elephants & loads of hippos,one emerged under the boat and made a massive thud-it was pretty funny-poor hippo! Along the way also saw a crocodile which was apparently sitting on her nest and had been for about 3months,also passed by a dead elephant-vultures were all over it and man did it have a stench!Although i do admit it was quite amazing to be witness to such a process of nature.
ZAMBIA Day 6: 25th Oct. Kasane>Livingstone Another boarder crossing and it took forever!Took a ferry across which took only 10mins then waited for near 2 1/2 hours! Eventually made it to our destination-Victoria Falls,however because it was not the wet season, the falls weren't falling as much,in fact there was a mere dribble of water over a small section of the escarpment! I was trying to convince myself that we were lucky to see the falls in a different light to what is seen in all the tourist brochures...however.... yes it would have been nice to actually see them falling!!Had a brief browse around the markets outside and was pestered by the usual irritating shopkeepers trying to tell you that what they were selling was better than the next man-as a result of that I bought nothing!That night we went on a sunset cruise-aptly aka the 'booze cruise'-free dinner & drinks-think there may have been some hippos somewhere along the way?? but no one was really interested-the focus was on the drinking games-Stupid drinking games then continued into the night involving someones great idea of daredevil shots
INSTRUCTIONS-take a bunch of drunken idiots,a large pinch of salt,a slice
of lemon and a shot of vodka-next block one nostril and snort the salt,then drink the shot of vodka,then get someone else to hold your eye open and squeeze the lemon into it! Then yell 'what a stupid idea that was'! repeat procedure as much as tolerated!
I did it twice and afterwards was snorting water to try and clear the awful taste from my nasal passage-Hannah-that was a really DUMB idea to join in with boys drinking games!
Needless to say there were a few sick people the next morning-and one didn't even last till morning and chucked overboard during the cruise!! no it wasn't me thank goodness!
Day 7: 26th Oct. Livingstone What a day this was-Up @ 7 for a full cooked breaky,then headed off to the mighty Zambezi river round 9am for white water rafting. Walked down a gorge for about 15mins to reach the Zambezi-were split into groups of 8 + 1 guide then went off to tackle 10 rapids of grade 4 & 5,and for those of you who don't know grade 1 is basically flat river-grade 6 is pretty much unraftable-so these rapids were pretty massive! Our raft flipped on one of
the grade 4's and this is the closest to death I think I have come-I swear I was stuck under for about 6seconds-these seemed to last forever-I couldn't breathe,I didn't know which way was up,and i didn't think I was going to come up-I was thinking-would anyone notice I was missing-how would they contact my family if I died...anyway I did resurface,eventually,and then continued on rafting! The rafting was for about 2 hours, then we climbed ~700m back up the gorge on this ladder type thing made from bamboo&wood-yes it was a little dodgy I must say! From there we headed on to do abseiling,go on a flying fox over a gorge and do a kind of bungy swing over the gorge-it was a little scary-but good to get the old adrenaline running!
BOTSWANA Day 8: 27th Oct. Livingstone > Kasane (Chobe) Started with new group today,our group split-some were continuing upto Kenya, others finished in Livingstone. Headed into a small village called Mukini,population 7000 and this was the real Africa-all dirt,clay houses, only one tap with running water for the whole village. Saw some of the locals making what they call beer, out of millet-tasted it
and it was nothing like what we call beer-to be honest it was disgusting!
Day 9: 28th Oct. Kasane Up early for a game drive in Chobe National Park,learnt alot of interesting things about some of the animals there-for instance-the giraffe has 7 cervical bones in it's neck (same as humans);they dislocate their shoulders when bending down to drink, the warthog uses it's snout to dig,and they walk on their knees alot of the time as they have sucha short neck so this makes it easier for them to eat! Spent the rest of the day lazing around the pool which was lovely.
Day 10: 29th Oct. Kasane>Maun Spent most of the day driving-left early and arrived around 7-Garth, our truck driver went over a log which slashed the trucks tyre-and we were only about 2km away from camp!So the boys took great delight in acting all manly and managed,eventually, to get the spare on!
Day 11: 30th Oct. Maun (Okavango Delta) Today was unreal, up early and went out in mokorros to the Okavango Delta. The mokorros are similar to canoes and are handmade from a tree and take about 3-4weeks to
make. So with just a day pack and our tents we spent about 1 hour being paddled along the stream by an african lady-2 people in each mokorro, and set up camp on a bit of land in the Delta,we then went for a swim in the delta and the water was so beautiful and clean-you could drink it. There was an elephant only meters away from our campsite which was a little worrying,but it didn't stampede us thank goodness! That night we sat and...'hows the serenity' would be the best way to put it!-minus the bloody mozzies! laying and looking at the endless aray of stars-truely an amazing & beautiful place.
Day 12: 31st Oct. Delta Camp > Maun Up @ 0530 for a game walk,walked for about 1 1/2 hours but unfortunately sdidn't see much besides a few warthogs,our group of 7 did however have the pleasure of wading through almost waistdeep marshland in an attempt to go and see some at hippos in an area where they often were-they were there but as they were in the water we couldn't see them very well-was lots of fun wading through the mashlands,even if my legs were
itching to the shithouse after! had some breaky and then headed back inland to Maun, by the time we arrived back it was time for lunch and then went in a little 6 seater plane over the delta,my goodness-AMAZING-I can not explain the experience,this was one of the most amazing things I have seen-just seeing the animals from above,doing what they do-it really made me think. what a huge world we live in- we,as humans, are so insignificant in the scheme of things.
NAMIBIA Day 13: 1st Nov Maun > Windhoek Once again,another early morning, Vicky my tent buddy while we were putting the tent down managed to flick herself in the mouth with the tent pole-she ended up crying but I had to laugh,just the day before she almost knocked herself out-she dived into the pool and smashed her chin on someones head! some people are just accident prone!! Today we spent 11hours-yes 11hours driving-and eventually,after crossing yet another boarder made it to Windhoek-and yes as we were all corrected it is pronounced 'Vindhock' not wind-ho-ek!
Day 14 Windhoek>Etosha Headed off reasonably early and arrived at our new campsite about 5pm- and
what a wonderful campsite-pretty much complete dirt!! But an amazing floodlit waterhole-that night most of the group spent hours just sitting and watching the various animals come to the waterhole for a drink-It was unreal to witness them in their natural habitat just doing what they do-we saw herds of elephants with heaps of calves & even witnessed one elephant trying to mate another-however it was unsuccessful-and my goodness what a big....! Also during the night we saw a lion & 2 lionesses,giraffes and zebra.
Day 15 Etosha Up and at it early for a game drive-saw hartebeast,zebra,lion and springbok, lazed around the pool during the day and drank beer & gave massages to one another-my what a hard life!
Day 16 Etosha > Cheetah Park This morning when taking the tent we saw 2 scorpions-which we had been warned about-they were right under our tent along with a rather large spider-ewww- It was weird I had seen a scorpion before but this one was green! The Cheetah park was lovely,we went on a drive on the back of a ute and the owners fed the cheetahs- They made the most bizarre call-it was kind
of like a high pitched yelp-very strange-and you should have seen the agression between the 13odd cheetahs when the meat was thrown out to them-a little scary indeed.
Day 17 Cheetah Park > Swakopmund On the way to Swakup we stopped at a seal colony-and it seriously stunk,but was fascinating-I could have stayed there all day just sitting and watching. There were so many baby seals just by them selves, crying, it broke my heart. Then we continued on and stayed in proper indoor accomodation which was very exciting considering we had been camping for the past 2 and a bit weeks. That night was a crazy one- Went out with some of the girls and guys from our safari, first a nice dinner,then the drinking began- To entertain ourselves we were going up to people we didn't know in the bar and practicing dodgy chat-up lines on them-it was bloody funny-one of the guys ended up buying drinks for one of us,then we headed onto another bar and were out dancing and drinking till about 5am-we had no idea how late it was,and then some guy gave us a lift home-luckily he knew where it was
where we were staying cause I had no idea how to get back there!woops-along the way home we found some of the others that started the night with us and they jumped into the back of the ute-one of the girls when climbing in fell out-bloody drunken lunatics.
Day 18 Swakopmund Feeling not on top of the world but very excited some of us headed for the sand dunes to go quadbiking for a few hours-It kicked-ass, up and down, round and round flicking sand all over the joint, going over jumps and I almost stacked it doing doughnuts and had the bike up on 2 wheels-was so much fun. Following that went and watched 2 of the girls go and do skydiving-was very cool-one of them was screaming in the plane before it even took off-sook!
Day 19 Swakopmund Today was the day for sandboarding in the dunes-had afew stacks but nothing too major, and also tried lydown boarding which was basically really slippery boards that u layed down on and hooned down the dunes-one of the dunes we got upto bout 80km/hr- sweeeeet!
That afternoon went on a township tour and it was
great-I wanted to steal so many of those little kids-man-CUTE! We tasted some traditonal real african food- mupane worms-which tasted like and had the texture of sand, spinach,beans and some weird ass beer before it had fermented-not nice at all!
Day 20 Swakopmund > Sesrium Stinking hot today and thankfully the campsite we arrived at had a pool,however....it had about 50cm of water in it! They were in the process of filling it up, but most of us just got into it anyway. Had a good ol' game of truth or dare ad made lunies out our selves doing foward rolls and dance routines around the pool-good laugh. Few beers in the little bar that night and a couple of games of pool on the wonky pool table-met some guy who was a pilot, and we tried our hardest to try to convince him to let us have a drive of him plane-but to no avail-Bastard!
Day 21 Sesrium > Sossusvlei Up at sparrowfart 4:45am and on the truck to go and watch the sun rise on dune 45-it was gorgeous- I attempted to slide down on a piece of cardboard, and with no success
then tried sitting in one of our washing up containers and sliding-that did not work either. Some of the othr group went for a bushwalk-I was going to but ended up staying at our meeting point and playing soccer and cricket-with hot guys-my what a tough chore that was-they even had to take their shirts opff cause it was so hot! how unfortunate. literally camped on the side of the road this night-Vickie (my tent buddy) & I couldn't be assed to put our tent up so I slept in the open in my sleeping bag and she slept on the truck.
Day 22 Sossusvlei > Fish River Drive for bout 6 hours,set up camp and then headed to the fish river canyon to watch sunset-this place was gorgeous, the Canyon was 167km long, 27km wide & 150m deep.
Day 23 Fish River > Orange River Arrived at Orange river (and no it's not actually an orange river) and it was so wonderful to see grass again-chilled out,played some cricket,had a braai(BBQ) and an early night.
Day 24 Orange River > Hot springs The hot springs were heaps different to what
I had expected-It was just like a big swimming pool-that was naturally hot!The showers here were as natural as you could get- it was literally a pipe hanging out from a tree with a fence around it-so most of didn't even bother showering-stinky bums!
Hot Springs > Capetown Bout a 2 hour drive and the tour was over! Checked into our hotel and had a real shower! oh it was luxury- went out for dinner and then got on the piss-another wild night which for me didn't end until 8am the next morning-well worth it. Following that I stayed in capetown for 5 days and did typical touristy things and then went to Durban where I did my volunteering (see my CROW journal)
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Vicky also known as lucky!!
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Excellent you dirty stop out that was great to read brought back lots of memories that i will cherish and thanks for making me sound lika cry baby... i actually thought i was hard core after all i did take a beating that holiday!! only joking! :-) xx