My Travels Part Two!

Hello hello, this post is picking up from Part One. This is the part where I travelled from Victoria Falls up to Nairobi!


A day later we met our new group for the second part of our tour. We were doing a 42 day tour but it was broken in half. So the first half was Cape Town to Vic Falls and the second was Vic Falls to Nairobi. It was so sad saying goodbye to Jabulani and the new group were certainly very different from the first. We had a huge mix in this group. Canadian, English, German, Swedish, Spanish, Aussie and us Kiwi’s!

This part of the trip was a lot harder. While we made some good friends on this tour we didn’t all click as a whole as we had with Jabulani. We also spent most of the week days driving. And I mean long drives. 14 hour days. We were getting up at 3.30am for breakfast at 4am and would drive non-stop until 6pm where we’d set up camp, have dinner, go to bed and do it all again the next day. It really wasn’t that enjoyable to be honest. However there were some stand out points.

We went back to Chobe and did the overnighter again which was good as Jesse got a chance to do it the second time! I had a nightmare that night that I was getting attacked in my tent by the animals that wandered free through the camp. I’m a bit of a sleep talker and on this occasion I became a sleep screamer yelling “Oh my gosh please, get off me, help me” etc etc. I woke most of the camp. Except for the guides who had said ‘call out if you get in trouble’. No one came to check on me! But I got a lot of flack for it in the morning!

In Zambia we went to the South Luangwa National Park where we saw more hippos, impalas, another leopard – this one was super cool and walked in front of the safari truck for ages! We also had a hippo walk through our camp and spent a long night playing pool. We saw plenty of Cape Buffalo too. Funny looking animals. They almost look like they have pigtails don't you think?

This is the amazing and beautiful leopard that walked with us for a while. Isn't her coat beautiful? She didn't seem to be on the hunt but was just having a wander around, didn't seem phased by the fact we were right there. Stunning creature!

We spent several nights at Malawi beaches where we sunbathed, had prediction readings from a witch doctor (newsflash, they were pretty much all the same… right down to the things he was saying, so it was kind of silly but a cool experience.) We also had the option to do snorkling, diving and boat trips on the river. 




We all did a walking village tour through one of the villages in Malawi which was heart breaking. Some of those children are so unwell and so desperate for attention. They mostly live on cassava root as that is what their main export is. They spend all their days picking, drying and beating into powder the cassava. It's food but it means the children are severely malnourished. Their clothes are dirty, clean water is a luxury they don't have and any drinking water they want needs to be pumped into buckets and carried home.

One 5 year old girl… she looked like she was about 2, that’s how small she was. She fell asleep in my arms, desperate for attention yet too exhausted to keep her eyes open. She was just so sweet. I wish there was some way I could've helped make her life just a little bit better. 

Another little girl clung to me, even as the old boys tried to pull her away (I think they were scared the white people were going to take their kids away….). This girl was so unwell. She had an awful cough and was clearly miserable. I desperately wanted to help her…. But how could I? I asked a local doctor about her cough, he said her mother would have to bring her in and she’d have to take pills. Which she probably wouldn’t take. It was horrible and so sad.

The beaches in Malawi, however, were beautiful, although it did get a bit much all the local young boys trying to sell you weed or force you to buy their handmade goods. 

Zanzibar was BEAUTIFUL. What an island! We all had to cover up, particularly during our time in Stone Town so hit up the local markets to get some awesome baggy trousers to cover our skin (It's a Muslim country).  It's lovely though, so many tiny walkways, cobblestone streets, little market shops, lots of restaurants, and very cool cafes. A great vibe! Plus you can see Freddie Mercury's House! He was born here - crazy right!

There's a really awesome food market in Stone Town which we all checked out. Careful though as many of the fish and meat that they don't sell they just roll over to the next day. It's REALLY easy to get sick in Zanzibar. They have lots of different foods though - seafood, meats, BBQ corn, breads, fresh juices, fruits, fries... almost everything you could image! A very cool vibe down there too. Be wary of locals trying to sell you alcohol. It's illegal!

After a night in Stone Town we headed up north to a place called Nungwai. We stayed in a little resort and wow, it was incredible. We were in paradise. The beach was stunning, the resort was like a little village with salon, shops, restaurants and bars. The pool was huge and warm… It was honestly perfect. 

There were a number of beaches we could use which all had volleyball nets and plenty of room for sunbathing!

The only problem was there were tiny invisible jellyfish in the ocean that stung you when you swum (we swum anyway, they stopped stinging within an hour) and almost all of us got stomach bugs either from the ice they put in the drinks or from the food itself – I suspect a mixture of both. We were all sick for the next week at least!

One cool thing we did in Zanzibar was swim with the turtles which was very cool although one of them did bite me!! It hurt a lot! A lot of the others swam with dolphins as well which they said was amazing. I swam with dolphins in New Zealand a few years ago so opted not to in an attempt try and save some money! Zanzibar was very cool though!

After Zanzibar we stayed a night on the beach by Dar Es Salaam. My gosh that city is SO busy. So much litter, so much craziness and the traffic.... wow. It took us three hours to get from the outskirts to the centre of the city. It was madness! But the beach was beautiful and the water warm and the sunrises.... oh my goodness. I've never seen so many sunrises in my life but the ones in Africa.... they're unrivaled.

Finally we headed up to Arusha – the gateway to the Serengeti. The trip into the Serengeti was an extra $500 USD so we had been umming and ahhing for the whole trip about whether or not to do it. So many people said we should just do everything to ensure we didn’t regret it. Everyone said it was amazing and the tour leaders said it was the highlight. Eventually we gave in. I’m so glad we did. I wouldn’t have wanted to stay behind at the campsite! It was the highlight of my entire Africa trip. It was beyond incredible!

We started out by getting some supplies in Arusha and visiting the store that sells Tanzanite. For those that don’t know Tanzanite is a beautiful blue/purple stone that is 1000 times rarer than diamonds and is mined in Arusha. Because of that it’s much cheaper at the source. Prices of Tanzanite are rocketing worldwide so we figured it was too good of an opportunity to miss. Sam brought Jess a Tanzanite engagement ring and proposed when they were in Thailand a few weeks later which was exciting!

After the Tanzanite store we headed back to camp and checked out the snake park. I held a snake. No kidding. It was small and terrifying but I held it. And then I had a baby croc. I felt bad about that though as he seemed really distressed whereas the snakes were pretty chilled about it.

Then we packed up our gear and were picked up by the crew from Bee Eater Safari’s who drove us out to the starting point. We had the evening to relax and then was served an incredible dinner by the Bee Eater cooks. I have awful food allergies and hadn’t been fed particularly well on the second half of the trip (the chef on the second half really didn’t get it. He would only manage to process one thing eg. Oh she’s allergic to gluten. Good. And then serve me onions which I’m highly allergic to. Or he’d serve me beef despite me not eating red meat. 

Or he’d serve the vegetarian girl a plate of eggplant. Or he’d just give us rice. It was pretty crap! But in the Serengeti… oh my goodness! Heaven. The food was SO good. And there was so much of it! Honestly, huge kudos to the chef with Bee Eater because he was amazing. The next morning we headed out very early making it in good time to the Ngorongoro Crater. It’s stunning beautiful and absolutely packed full of animals. We saw so many wildebeest, gazelles, another black rhino, flamingos, cape buffalo, elephants and of course the lions. We hadn’t seen that many lions up until this point so we really wanted to see lions.

Well we saw them. They were busy mating. It was quite amusing. Then we saw a pack of female lions out on the prowl trying to take down wildebeest. Then we saw hyenas and more zebras…oh man it was so incredible. We had lunch by a beautiful lake which was filled with hippos. We were eating outside but then hawks started swooping us trying to steal our food so we had to eat in the trucks! 

After lunch we headed to a Masaai Village which was really interesting and gave me ideas for my book! Their culture is very interesting and the way they live is very basic. Their huts are tiny and usually fit 5 or more people. They’re made out of cow and goat poop and grass plus flax. They retain their traditional dress and their orders of rank and we were welcomed with a jumping ceremony. We all had to jump while they sung. 

The boys jumped first, holding the sticks and the girls then had to wear necklaces and jump. Then we looked around the village and market, the guys showed us their homes and told us about their lives and then we visited the school where the kids sung for us and showed us how they could do the alphabet! Pretty cute!

After that we headed to the Serengeti. I’m sure you’ve seen the Lion King? This is where it’s set. We even saw what should be Pride Rock, except it’s called Lion Rock and they all hang out there! So cool. Saw plenty of Wart Hogs running around too! Lots more wildebeest (it was their migration season), and zebras, hippos, giraffes, antelopes, dik-diks (a type of antelope – SO CUTE!), and lots of lazy sleeping lions. 

Even better, as we were heading to the camp for the night we saw a serval! Most people don’t know about servals but Jesse LOVES them (they’re like really big house cats) so it was awesome to see one in the wild, although the baboons were trying to corner it and eat it! We also saw two leopards sleeping in the trees. One of them had a dead gazelle strung up which she’d obviously killed earlier that day.

That night we had another delicious dinner and took some epic photos with the amazing stars that were on display. We had to grab something out of the truck at one point and Jesse and I were actually pretty scared…there were lions and hyenas roaming. One of our group had spotted a hyena near the kitchen so it was a little scary! We went to bed early that night! (Actually since we were up before the sun almost every day and there was no internet or TV we were usually in bed by 10pm at the latest!

TIA This Is Africa

That night the hyenas walked around our tents laughing and calling to each other. They went right through the rubbish we’d left in the bins and scattered the remains all over the ground. Scavengers! I’m glad I didn’t need to go to the bathroom during the night!

The next day was our final game drive. We saw our two leopard friends again, they were together this time feasting on the gazelle and at the bottom of the tree sat a hyena (they’re actually very cute animals). We saw another serval and more elephants, hippos and giraffes. I was still desperate for some good lion action. Everyone didn’t think it would happen but hey, according to our guide on both Cape Town – Vic Falls and Vic Falls to Nairobi, we were the luckiest group (the common thread was the four kiwis, clearly Me, Jess, Jesse and Sam brought the luck! Haha!) 

We were driving along a dirt path and in the middle of the road lay a lone young male lion. He stood up as we approached and we turned off our engine. Over the next five minutes, 12 young lions, mostly female surrounded our truck. Some lay in the shadow of our truck trying to get a break from the sun, others just wandered around. It was AMAZING. 

After about half an hour the lions wandered off and climbed a tree, keeping a very close eye on a nearby elephant who was wandering alone. We watched those lions for about an hour and I reckon we would’ve watched way longer if we hadn’t had to get back to camp! It was an incredible experience!

So close!!!

Here's some pics of the other amazing animals we saw in Serengeti....

Baboon

Serengeti

Serval!

Giraffe

Dik-Dik

Female Leopard

Male Leopard

Jackal

Elephant

Eagle

Ostrich

Gazelle

The Crater

Wildebeest

The next day we headed through the Kenya border and up to Nairobi where our tour ended. That evening the four kiwis jumped in a taxi and headed out to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. My mum is a HUGE elephant lover. Her house, the house Jess and I grew up in is FILLED with all things elephants. So for Christmas we adopted her an elephant from DSWT. The work these guys do is really incredible. They rescue baby elephants (or any other animal) who has been orphaned or injured and help them recover slowly allowing them time out in the nearby national park and interaction with other elephants. 

 As the orphans grow they learn how to be a wild elephant and are eventually released back into the wild. In order to do the work they do it costs them 900 USD per month per elephant. And to adopt one of these beautiful babies is only $50 USD per year. We gave mum a booklet of all the baby elephants they had. She wanted a little girl elephant who was still very young and chose Kamok. Jess and I made it our mission to go and see Kamok when we were in Kenya and we were worried it wouldn’t happen. But it did. 

Kamok

She was so tiny and so beautiful! She was sleeping
under her blanket when we arrived but her keeper woke her up to say hi to us. She played with a ball and a blanket for a while and came up to us, wrapping her trunk around our arms. It was amazing. The keeper literally lives in her pen, sleeping on a bunk bed, being there all the time for Kamok. Kamok herself has become a little matriarch amongst the baby elephants. It’s very cute. I highly recommend checking out the work they do. It was incredible to see!

The next day Sam and Jesse swapped photos and then in the early afternoon we said goodbye! I’m not sure when I’ll see my sister again but it was really nice to be able to spend that time traveling with her! Jesse and I flew off to Egypt and Sam and Jess flew off to Thailand. 

More soon - stay tuned for part three, the final chapter :-)

My Travels Part One!

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a long time and I’m sorry it’s taken so long. I guess I haven’t

really known where to start. My travels…. They were so incredibly meaningful and life-changing that it’s hard to sum up the most amazing experience in a blog post. But I’m going to try…

In February of this year my sister (Jess), her boyfriend (Sam) and me (Sam) and my boyfriend (Jesse) flew to Cape Town, South Africa to start out overland adventure. Now the name thing will probably get confusing…. I guess if I’m speaking about myself I’ll just say ‘me’. Jesse will always be my man, Jess will always be my sister and Sam will always be ‘boy Sam’, Jess’s man. It is rather confusing.. sorry! We had booked a 42 day tour with Africa Travel Co who I should point out were absolutely amazing. We had one short day on arriving in Cape Town to look around the city. Jess and Sam were too jetlagged to come up to Table Mountain with Jesse and I to see the sunset which was a shame but we’re really glad we made time for it. It was incredibly spectacular! Table Mountain – such an amazing landmark. Simply beautiful.

The next morning we set off on our tour. We had a reasonably small group – us (the four Kiwis), an Aussie girl, a Spanish guy and two Swiss guys. It was a very cool group. On top of that we had three amazing African crew – the tour guide and the driver who were from Zimbabwe and the chef who was from Namibia. Then we also had three trainees. Two very cool South African girls who were training to be chefs/tour guides and one South African guy who was training to be a driver. We were a very tight knit group and honestly, being with those people made the tour that much better.

Our tour started on a Township Tour of Cape Town. This was heart breaking. I had no idea the huge divide that existed between the rich and the poor in South Africa. We met a family that lived in a tin shack just off the highway. I remember so vividly one thing the father said – “We fear for our lives every day. A car could crash off the highway flattening us all, or if a fire started, the whole township would be gone. We have thieves who spray fumes into our homes to knock us unconscious and then they take everything we have.” Then he said, “We wouldn’t want to leave though. This is our community. These are our friends and our family. We wouldn’t want to leave our people.” It was very humbling to see. They have so little, yet they’re very happy, very kind hearted, they will give whatever they have to make someone’s day a little brighter…. 

On this township tour we also visited a witch doctor, tried homebrew beer and were taken to the Township’s “food hall” where we tried sheep’s head/tongue and played pool with the locals. I should point out at this point given I don’t eat any part of sheep or cow in usual circumstance there is no way I was going near the sheep head. Jesse said it tasted like beef. Jess said it wasn’t too bad, yet she hasn’t eaten meat since. Eating that sheep head turned her into a vegetarian! Ha! 

Once our township tour was up we started on our journey, driving up into the Cedarburg region of South Africa. This was basically just a pit stop but a great chance to get to know the rest of the group. The following day we headed toward Orange River on the border of South Africa and Namibia. Such an incredibly beautiful location, the camp we stayed at was right on the river, we could jump straight in from the floating wharf and given it was the middle of summer it was hugely refreshing. That night ended up being a big party night, getting to meet the Nomad tour group who were taking a similar route from Cape Town to Vic Falls. 

Most of the group woke up the next day with extremely sore heads (I’m not really a drinker so I was right as rain!) yet they still were up bright and early to go on a canoe trip down the river. Once they returned (I decided to stay behind and sunbathe!) we jumped back in our truck and headed further up into Namibia. It was hot. Namibia is hugely a desert country and oh my goodness. It was the first time I have ever experienced 52 degree Celsius heat. We were using fast melting ice cubes to try and cool us down! It didn’t help that we were stopped at a road block in the heat of the day for over an hour!

Namibia was by far my favourite country on our trip. On our first days in Namibia we watched the sun set over Fish River Canyon which is the second biggest canyon in the world after the Grand Canyon and we swam… a lot! The first animals we saw were zebras… that was exciting! Oh and then an Ostrich! I love the way they run! One of the highlights of this point was the Namib Naukluft National Park which is full of brick red sand dunes. They’re incredible. We hiked to the top of one and caught the end of the sunrise which was amazing. It was so hot though! We had brunch sitting at the base of the sand dune and it truly felt so peaceful. We were even visited by a sprinbox and a jackal! Both really beautiful creatures.

After brunch we headed out to Sossusvlei and in particular the Deadvlei– my gosh what an incredible sight. The Deadvlei is a clay pan right by the “Big Daddy” sand dune. The ground is entirely white and the trees have been scorched for hundreds of years and their skeletons remain. The blue sky and the sun reflects on the white ground and everything seems like it’s hyper-coloured. The sky gets so blue, the brick red sand is so red… it’s amazing.

After the desert we headed to the coastal town of Swakopmund where we could do some shopping at the markets, Jesse and I did a township tour which was even more heart-breaking than the first one, especially the orphanage where we met a small boy with a giant tumour sticking out his head… and no money to get it removed L. I spent SO much money at the township craft store which they were very thankful for… Jesse was so confused why I came out with a maraca…. I’m sure it’ll come in handy some day! We also went sandboarding and quad biking which was very cool. Such a fun place! Our two Swiss boys ended their tour here which was sad and they were replaced by two more Aussies.

Our awesome Jabulani group at Tropic of Capricorn

Our faithful truck!

Being schooled on how to dance by the local kids on the Swakopmund Township Tour

Over the next few days we headed north and stopped over at a Cheetah farm where the owners were

rehabilitating injured cheetahs. We got to pet them which was so incredible. I did slightly freak out at one stage when one went for my shoes! But they were lovely and beautiful animals. Following that we headed up to Etosha National Park… and oh the things we saw! The giraffes were actually my favourite. Incredibly graceful creatures they are. Although the lions were pretty cool too. There were plenty of springbox, impala, zebra, oryx, wildebeest, dik-diks, antelope and so much bird life. There were three big highlights for us in the park. The first was seeing a black rhino (they’re super rare!) and a white rhino go head to head over territory at a watering hole. Normally a black rhino would win but this was a reasonably young black rhino. After staring at each other for a while the white rhino claimed the territory and started to drink. Black rhino wasn’t so happy about that, so they stared each other down a bit longer then decided to become friends and drunk side by side. No kidding!

The second highlight was seeing a zebra give birth!

 It was such a beautiful thing! We watched the whole thing right from mummy dear pushing with all her might to the first steps taken by the baby zebra. We even named it, it was so cute! Unfortunately this is Africa… and you know, circle of life. Half an hour later a lion got a bit hungry and dragged the new baby zebra off for a feed. It broke us!

The third highlight came early the next morning. We took a drive through the park and came across a giraffe hanging out with an group of impala. Suddenly the impalas went on alert and started making this clicking noise. The giraffe bolted and then out of the hedges came a leopard! It walked around for a while before realising there were too many impala to make a move so it stalked off. In its wake came a pack of hyena. Those lazy hyena are too lazy to make their own kill so they follow leopards around hoping to steal whatever they’ve killed that day. 

The hyenas then faced off with some wildebeest but decided not to make a move. It was VERY tense!

Family photo! Jess and I at the salt pan

After our crazy nail biting morning we did something a little more low key and visited the salt pan of Etosha. The Salt pan forms part of the Kalahari Basin (Speaking of Kalahari, YA author Jessica Khoury has a book coming out next year set in the Kalahari region. Funnily enough it's called Kalahari. I can't wait, it's going to transport me straight back to this incredible place. In my head of course! Add it to your 'to read' pile, now now now! So anyway, the salt pan forms part of the Kalahari Basin and is a 120km long lakebed which is pretty much completely dry... well sort of. It's like dry mud coated with salt (which means you do sink straight down into the ground as you walk on it. All good fun! Anyway, it's quite a sight, some of the girls even got down and gave it a lick to see if it tasted like salt. Verdict? Yes it did. But had a slight after taste of mud.

Jabulani at the salt pan

Magestic giraffe taking a drink!

After Etosha we headed up to Botswana where we took a river cruise and saw some hippos. I really don’t like hippos. Do you know they’re the most dangerous animal in Africa? They will charge at you, snap you in half and then drop you to let you rot…. They’re vegetarians. They’re not killing you because they’re hungry.

They’re just killing you because they see you as a threat. Pretty awful. One walked through our camp once, was pretty scary. There are funny though. They ‘laugh’…. I don’t know how I can describe the noise they make but it’s like .. meh..he..he..he….heeee. It’s hilarious.

From there we headed to the Okavango Delta. Oh my goodness the beauty!! We were taken into the delta in mokoros which are dug out canoes, poled by locals. It was so relaxing. Every single one of our group managed to fall asleep in the hour and a half journey. We were guided between the reeds ….. it was just magical. We spent the next few nights bush camping under the stars. 

We kept a fire going at all times to keep the animals away from our camp (although we’ve heard stories of lions, elephants and hyenas all visiting the camps!) and by night we watched the fireflies dance. We did quite a few walking safaris through the Delta which was awesome – saw more hippos, a giraffe (including a giraffe skeleton), warthog (PUMBA!!!), Zebras, wildebeests, and lots of birds. I saw a hyena too. Eagle eyes they called me. (Only me and the guide managed to spot him). On our final night the locals performed some songs for us around the campfire and we all performed songs from our home countries. It was very cool.

After our time at the Delta we headed up to Chobe National Park where we did another overnight bush camp in the middle of the park. A little scary to be honest! We had an elephant visit us for dinner which was an experience. I love elephants but if they feel threatened …. They’ll charge! Luckily she was just wandering past. 

We saw a lot of elephants in Chobe. It’s the place to be to see elephants! We also saw Cape Buffalo meaning we’d seen all of the Big 5, a plenty of baboons. The Lilac breasted roller was my favourite bird, and we saw lots of hippos, eagles, giraffes… so many animals honestly it’s hard to remember all their names!

Chobe was awesome, a great place to visit. From there we headed on up to Victoria Falls. Such a beautiful place. The falls are incredibly impressive. We also went elephant back riding (it’s safe for the elephants, not like the ones in Thailand that really hurt the elephants). 

 Earlier that morning we'd gone walking with lions (they’re lions that are part of a breeding programme to help get the dwindling population of lions back up. All money raised goes to the programme) and zip lining – oh my gosh I was so scared! It was a lot of fun though. We had quite a few nights of partying as well as it was out last time with our amazing group. We’d called ourselves Jabulani, which was the name of our truck and means happiness in Afrikans. I miss them all terribly!

You can see the sheer terror in my face!

Jesse got really sick in Vic Falls. He’d been sick for a while after eating dodgy chicken at KFC in Kasani,

Botswana. He didn’t get to come to Chobe with us the first time around, spending all his time vomiting instead which was crappy. By the time we got to Vic Falls he was still quite unwell. We ended up having to go to a doctor in case he’d picked up Malaria –he hadn’t. It was scary though… and those third world doctors, wowee it was an experience. Especially the chemist where we picked up the medicines, it was like a back alley drug deal, so crazy.

Meanwhile my sister dances across the flying fox like there is nothing to fear....

So that brings us to the end of the first part of the tour. Stay tuned for part two next week! :)