A New Year and Another Continent

AFRICA

Jan 23rd 2008- I made it back to Perth Alive!!! As many of you know I had a bit of a scare in Zanzibar but lucky for me, and yes I consider myself lucky, it happened at the end of our trip. while in Africa Simone and I had a jammed pack holiday. We started in South Africa ariving on Dec 30th 2007, the next day we flew to Namibia to visit with Simone's friends. Which is an interesting story, so I will share it, 15 years ago Simone hitched hiked through Africa for 7 months with her friend Michelle, where they got picked up (hitching) by Eric. Michelle then came back and married Eric and has since had 2 beautiful children. It was really nice to be able to bring in the New Year with them. Even if it was early one, in bed by 11pm! On the flip side of that we were up to watch the first sunrise of 2008! With no hangover to mention. Michelle and Eric run a game lodge that has cheetahs, hyenas, oryx, zebras, wilderbeast, buffalo, leopards, giraffes, and lots of other game. The landscape reminds me a bit like Southern California high desert. While in Nambia we took a road trip to Etosha National Park where we stayed at a flash safarii camp and spent the evening at the water hole drinking Amarulla-Mother's Milk! While sitting there we had Rhino's walk up to the water hole which is a pretty big deal since they are almost extinct.

Some of my highlights while in Namiba were: Running at sunset with the game crossing the trail a few times and running side by side for a brief moment with 2 giraffes! they are beautiful creatures, seeing the game in Etosha on the white white sand and eating every kind of game possible. No shortage of meat here. Sunrise walks in the bush, sleepover with Kyra, and feeding the hyena's...

New Years In Namibia with Eric, Michelle, Simone, and Kyra

Going out on our New Years Eve Game DriveClose encounter with a Cheeta

The Hair stood on my neck while Eric fed 6 Hyenas

The Lone Elephant waking across the Etosha Pan

Some locals that came out to have me take their photo while Simone and I watched the sunset.
The lazy male lion drinks water while the female hunts for dinner.


Simone even color coordates with the background!=)






Hanging at the water hole watching animals come and go for a quick drink.

Tanzania

Arrival date: 7/1/2008

After a relaxing visit in Namibia we started our adventure. We decided that we wanted to do some trekking, a safari, and make a trip to Zanzibar to go diving and unwind before returning home and before Simone had to go back to work.

On our first night in Dae es Salaam, we met about 35 American's who were staying at our hotel. Since I have been traveling I have only met maybe 3 American's. It seems that we just don' t travel that much, well, these American's were in the peace corp and had been relocated from Kenya due to the civil unrest there. Thankfully Tanzania is a very cruzie place. The people are friendly and I didn't see anyone with guns. We didn't walk out at night, but other than that we were pretty safe.

The next day we flew to Arusha, which can only be politely described as a 'less than pretty' town. We arrived in the late afternoon, and in a few very 'interesting' hours we organised and negotiated a Safari and a trek up the 2nd tallest peak in Tanzania-MT.Meru, which was to start the following "morning" (which actually means afternoon in Africa time), and I can say that there is nothing like starting a 4500 metre (15,000 ft) ascent at 3 o'clock in the afternoon! Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to climb Mt.Kiliminjaro (Simone was 'secretly' quite pleased about this!). Plus, since we organzied coming to Africa in less than 3 days, we didn't really bring proper climbing/hiking gear. We decided to leave our gear back in Perth and travel ultra light. It sounded like a good idea at the time, however, not such a good idea when you are freezing on the top of a mountain wearing 'borrowed' gear which had a somewhat distinctive odour (bound to bring out the princess streak in anyone..well in Sim anyway, Tomie had mostly her own clothes). After the climb we organised a 4 day Safari-which was plenty of time to see all the game. I don't know if I could do a 14 day safari. I might go nuts sitting in the car that long. To finish the trip off we would fly post Safari to the island of Zanzibar to relax on the beach and do some Scuba Diving, which I had not done before.

Mt.Meru- 4566 meters or 14980 feet
Peter, Simone and myself with our protection from the Game

We awoke at 1am to start our trek to the summit with hopes to reach it for sunrise. I almost made it to the summit for sunrise, missed it by about 15 mins. Still pretty amazing. These photos were taken after sunrise. You are looking from Mt.Meru at Mt.Kilimanjaro otherwise known as KILI.When I first got to the summit all I could see was thick white clouds. I was so disappointed that after all that work I wasn't rewarded with an amazing view...well after about 5 mins the clouds cleared! It was worth the last 1hour of hell to sit atop this peak and look out at the clouds and villages below.

Serengeti National Park

The Serengeti region encompasses the Serengeti National Park itself, the , Maswa Game Reserve, the Loliondo, Grumeti and Ikorongo Controlled Areas and the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. Over 90,000 tourists visit the Park each year.
Two World Heritage Sites and two Biosphere Reserves have been established within the 30,000 km² region. .
The Serengeti ecosystem is one of the oldest on earth. The essential features of climate, vegetation and fauna have barely changed in the past million years. Early man himself made an appearance in Olduvai Gorge about two million years ago. Some patterns of life, death, adaptation and migration are as old as the hills themselves.
It is the migration for which Serengeti is perhaps most famous. Over a million wildebeest and about 200,000 zebras flow south from the northern hills to the southern plains for the short rains every October and November, and then swirl west and north after the long rains in April, May and June. So strong is the ancient instinct to move that no drought, gorge or crocodile infested river can hold them back.
The Wildebeest travel through a variety of parks, reserves and protected areas and through a variety of habitat.

Welcome to the Serengeti

The migration of the wilderbeest

We could see thousands of animals for the length of the horizon. You could feel the earth shake as they ran past us. WE were very lucky in the fact that they crossed the road during this process. The Maasai people of Tanzania

A Sergenti Sunset! The driver was very kind in staying longer than we should have so I could get the shot! Needless to say it made my day. Luckily we made it back to camp without any difficulties. I think they like you back in the camp before dark....

Ngorongoro Crater

The Nogorongoro crater is an amazing conservation area in Tanzania that rightly ranks as one of the natural wonders of the world. There is always wildlife to be seen here because of the permanent water and sweet grassland on the crater floor. Many of the animals travel from the Serengeti to graze and drink and there are over 30,000 of them here forming one of the most dense game areas on earth. We saw 6 Lions, thousands of Zebras, buffalo, wildebeest, Thompson's gazelles and Flamingos, a Black Rhino, Elephants and Hippos. The area covers about 8300 square Kilometres. It is the largest unbroken calders in the world. This was the best day of our safari! Being inside the crater was unreal!! Enjoy a sample of the photos

The photo above was taken just after I had a Eagle swoop out of the sky and steal my lunch while I was putting it into my mouth. Needless to say I screamed and headed back to the jeep to hide out. I was warned to be carefull with my food but I was too hungry to worry about it. Simone and the others seemed to get a kick out me scurying back to the car. Glad I was able to provide some entertainment for everyone.The Lions were right next to our jeep. I am pretty sure that now would not be a good time to get out of the Jeep. Interestingly, Simone dropped the battery for our head lamp out of the car right at this location.. Why she was even playing with the head lamp in the middday sun, instead of gazing at the lions, remains a mystery, however we were lucky enough that our friends had spare batteries. It would have been a dark night back at camp without it.Our bigest night drinking in Africa! This was between 3 people Woo Hoo!. Tusker is the local beer.The People of Africa

Zanzibar

About 40km off the coast of East Africa in the Indian Ocean, about 6 degrees south of the Equator lies two exotic islands Zanzibar and Pemba.The monsoon winds that blow across the Indian Ocean allowed contact between Persia, Arabia, India and the coast of East Africa for over 2000 years. The first European arrivals were Portuguese 'navigators' looking for a trade route with India. They reached Zanzibar at the end of the 15th Century and established a trading station here and other points on the East African coast. At the end of the 17th century Omani Arabs ousted the Portuguese. During this period, Zanzibar became a major slaving centre. In 1840, the Omani Sultan Said moved his court from Muscat to Zanzibar, and the Island became an Arab state and an important centre of trade and politics in the region. Many European explorers, including Livingston and Stanley, began their expeditions into the interior of Africa from Zanzibar during the second half of the 19thcentury.Zanzibar was a British protectorate from 1890 until 1963, when the state gained independence. In 1964, the sultan and government were overthrown in a revolution. In the same year, Zanzibar and the newly independent country of Tanganyika combined to form the United Republic of Tanzania.

The view from the Emmerson & Green (aka "Heaven is a hotel"). This is were we stayed our first night, but they only had the apt available not one of the nice suites overlooking the sea. We booked our last night here before heading back to Perth and after our time on the beach. This hotel is the nicest hotel in Stone Town. We also had reserveations for dinner on the rooftop with cocktails and a culturall performence. Well... instead we stayed in the VIP room at the local hospital and Simone slept on the couch covered in fleas! What a friend. I guess I will just have to stay at this place next time=)

Our favorite drink while in Africa. The color of the water was breath taking! A child looking out of a mosque Locals playing soccer on the beach. There was no women in site on the beach.

A dow- local transportation

Scuba Diving in the Indian Ocean

We took a small boat out about 1 hour from the scuba shop to another island nearby. Since this was going to be my first time Scuba diving, I got a quick lesson whilst on the boat from my instructor. After about 25 mins of instruction we got the gear on and dove in! The water was so blue and so clear! We did a few test before going deeper than 2 meters, but after about 20 mins of being in the water I was flying over a reef at about 10 meters. It was so amazing and so peaceful to be under the water like that. The first dive was for about 1 hour and then we came up. We than went for our second dive which might be one of the major highlights for me! A pod of 8 dolphins swam right by me... amazing!!!!! WOW!!!! I have no photos because Simone had the camera the whole time. I thought it might be a bit much for me to worry about all the new info I was given and trying to manage a underwater camera. Since Simone has her ticket for diving she was off doing her own thing and I think she might have been chasing the Turtle when the Doplhins swam by. If you have never done this I highly recommend it and I will getting my ticket in the near future.

The first day was perfect conditions and the second day was more like the perfect storm which it turned into.. As many of you know and some of you may not know I got sick after the second day of diving. It started while we were on the boat and finished with our first dive. I got motion sickness and lost my breakfest yet again over the side of the boat. I am learing that I am very sensitve to motion. When we got back to shore I was fine and ate lunch. After lunch I didn't seem to feel so good so I went for a lie down before we had to catch our ride back to Stone Town. Well this was the begining of me not feeling well at all. I lost my lunch and then some. Made it back to stone Town but while walking to our hotel vomited again in the streets of Stone Town with a full audience. I think I was too sick to even notice. I then, with assistance made it up the four flights of stairs to our flash room, where I proceeded to projectile vomit all over the bed! NICE!!! Simone,without me knowing, went to search for a doctor to come to my room and have a look... It took her nearly an hour on the phone to track down one of three 'suitable' doctors in Zanzibar and then she had to organise a driver to collect him and bring him to the hotel. As soon as he walked in the door I was vomiting some more, so we headed to the hospital to test me for Malaria. A series of events happened whilst I was there and I have to say I have never been so scared in my life! My hands had gone into a very rigid postion and my face started to go numb and tingly as well. Simone then called my mum to have her get some numbers in case I had to be flown somewhere quickly to get proper care. The hospital put me on heavy dose of antibotics and valium. Still not really knowing what might be wrong with me, the symptoms presented as celebral malaria (not good...requires intensive care...), however the blood work showed negative, which is not unusal if you are on prophalactic medicine for malaria, which I am...so I had to have more blood tests, so for a while there it could have gone either way...however luckily the antibiotics and fluids gave me enough energy to make my flight the next night so I could back to Perth and get tested there. All is well as of now and I am in the clear. I am just grateful for having Sim with me and her getting me medical care quickly. I have been very lucky while traveling. I hope this will be my only instance with a 3rd world country hospital.

Sim doing acrobatics underwater!This is the signal for I am ok... but I think my eyes may say something else ... This was taken after diving and only a few hours before I was in the Hospital. after being in the hospital for a few hours.. I was able to crack a small smile. It might have had something to do with the valium they gave me. saying good bye to Zanzibar's finest hospital and bye to Tanzania!