I am slightly annoyed with the internet.

February 22nd, 11:37

CAPE TOWN, South Africa

Okay this was going to be a much better post, but I have now spent more than 4 hours writing various posts that have for one reason or another, been erased during, or immediately following their writing. I just had about 5 pages of stuff and it all got erased somehow. Additionally, I can't get my pictures loaded...so those will...at some point be up...until then...

ARGH!!!!!!!

Therefore, the previously well written post that you were about to enjoy, which had funny descriptions of things I've done and places I've gone is now replaced with a slightly less comprehensive picture. Sorry folks, blame the media.

Here are the countries that I have been to since I last wrote:

Botswana
Zambia
Zimbabwe
South Africa

I have now tried to type up my experience on the safari about 4 separate times, only to see all of that writing lost, destroyed or otherwise made inaccesible. The trip was fantastic and as soon as I get to a computer that 1. won't crash constantly on me and 2. can load pictures, I will have some great stuff to share.

Until then, I will try to recount the last week or so as to what I've been doing.

Currently, I am in Cape Town, South Africa, which, if you have been watching the news, is experiencing city-wide blackouts pretty much every night, for the entire night. This has made life very interesting (read: difficult) for everyone from grocery store owners to tourists who can't use ATM's. Still, Cape town is beautiful, which is of course why I'm leaving.

ZAMBIA

This is a beautiful, wonderful country and I wish that I could have spent more time there. The people kick butt and when they aren't trying to sell you the Fanta that they were just drinking, or telling you to give them the boots that are tied to your pack since you are already wearing a pair of shoes, they are great. (actual conversation that I had with a Zambian kid:
Kid: hey, give me your shoes! (referring to the boots tied to my pack)
Me: no! I need them
Kid: no you don't! you're wearing shoes
Me: (mouth hanging open at his flawless logic...run away!)

My time in Zambia was mostly spent in a town called "Livingstone" (as in "Dr. Livingstone I presume?") I ended up staying about 3 days longer than I had planned, mostly because of the superb place that I was lodged at, a friendly hostel called "Jolly Boys" which is run entirely by women...known locally as the "Jolly Girls." Without boring everyone with the lazy days that I spent in hammocks, by their pool, in their crows next which overlooked the spray from Victoria Falls and the huge cushioned reading area in the center, suffice it to say that the place was spectacular. The town, and the sister town across the border of Victoria Falls town, are essentially set up as tourist centers. Thus any crazy adventure activity where in you can fling yourself from great heights, ride down nearly unnavigable rivers and do things that generally make people gasp in fear and astonishment can be booked on a near-hourly basis. I ended up rafting the "Mighty Zambezi!" (quotations and exclamation point courtesy of the Zambian National Parks comission), the adventures of which will be written about at a later date (I promise).

A quick note about it though: In my rafting group was a clusterf*ck of 16 year old Irish students (and yes "clusterf*ck" is the appropriate way to refer to a group of high schoolers) who, if possible, are harder to understand sober than they are when drunk. I have no idea how anything ever gets accomplished on that island. Also, coming from an island surrounded by freezing cold water did not make our Irish friends very accomplished pirates, as several near take-overs of our boat, followed by an absolute massacre/boat flipping of their boat proved.

Victoria falls...it's very large


Same view...but vertical!





A sideways rainbow. What do you say to that kermit?




While in Livingstone, we were fortunate enough to witness what you can only experience in about two other places on earth: a lunar rainbow. This occurs only during a full moon, and is made possible because Victoria Falls are so high, and the pressure of the water landing below is so great that it throws up a near constant spray over everything. Standing in front of Victoria Falls is exactly what it would be like if someone were to hold you upside down during a massive thunderstorm. The water breaks on the cliff in front of you and then comes up, causing it to rain up at you. Anyway, this spray is highly reflective, so on a clear night with a fully moon, you can see a complete rainbow, colors and all around midnight, which we did. Now, they like to charge you 12 dollars to get in, but being the savvy and world-experienced travelers that we are, we met a guy in town who worked at hotel near the falls, who snuck us in to the park through a VERY small window, so we were able to see this phenomenon for free, and away from the other gawking hordes.

Thanks trevor.

Moving on...

After meeting two Candians (eh?) who were traveling the same way that I was, I crossed over into the Zimbabwean side of the falls.

Zimbabwe will also be an additional post, because it is a very strange, interesting place. It is almost as some shadowy cabal of evil...maybe...the US government (?) decided to see exactly how badly a country could be run, and then on top of that, decided to make it so poor that it will take decades for it to ever get back to a semblance of normalcy. If that had happened, you would get present-day Zimbabwe.

Because of that infrastructure...I was a millionaire for Valentines day, with nary a valentine in sight. Zimbabwe's currency is such that if you are "in the know" as I came to be, you can exchange your 1 monstrously powerful US dollar for 140,000 Zimbabwean dollars.










This represents about 2 days worth of money in Zim




Let me try, if I may, to recount for you the experience of getting these buckets of money. For reasons of security for a number of parties, I will be using pseudonyms (I'm not joking, I could actually be putting people at risk).

First, upon entering Zimbabwe, you have to find a place, which we will call "Shady-dealings zone" at which you can find a person who is, as discussed before, "in the know (INK)." Upon finding this place and person of that sort, the person INK calls, uses smoke signals, or otherwise gets the attention of another person who we'll call "money-bags-mcgee (MBM)." When MBM arrives at the shady-place, both you and that person (whose gender pronoun will also remain anonymous) retire to a quiet back room, at which point MBM produces an enormous satchel, literally stuffed to overflowing with cash. It should be noted that in Zimbabwe, the money has expiration dates, because apparently, sometimes they just decide that the money that you were formerly holding is no longer worth anything...not that it was really worth anything anyway.

Anyway...

MBM lights up a cigarette, and as you produce your single 20 dollar bill, MBM heaves an enormous sigh, gives you a look, then pulls out a calculator. After much button-pushing, the cellophane wrapped bundles of money come out and the counting begins. Much time later, after the last bit of ash gets tapped off of the cigarette, I emerged back into the bright sunshine, which practically blinded me as I'd been in the dark so long. MBM slunk off through a side door from the "shady-place" and I had to do my best to conceal the bulges in my pockets.

Not exactly a trip to the ATM...

If you have never walked into a movie theater, after paying 80,000 dollars for a ticket, and then had to count out another 80,000 for popcorn, leaving yourself another 7.8 million dollars in your pocket, well then you haven't lived. And yes, I had upwards of 8 million dollars on me throughout most of my time there, not much more than 40 dollars.

And this is fairly standard.

One or two other little things about Zimbabwe:

Apparently, in Zimbabwe, the guys who drive the trains don't like to move at consistent speeds, so the train ride from Victoria Falls town to Bulawayo took 13 hours, a trip which I have subsequently learned takes about 4-5 hours in a car.

Rodney and Prosper, my righteous Zimbabwean travel companions on the train.









Bunk on the train. Kendra, fast asleep.





If you live in Zimbabwe, it is well worth it to 1. live with at least one other person 2. have an enormous, frightening, electrified and barbed wire fence around your house and 3. have an armed security service on constant alert should anything happen to you. Of course, none of that is very helpful, when, as my friend Jenny experienced, the woman who was her housekeeper told her uncle all about her security arrangements, leading him and his friends to break into her house with machetes, knives and guns, tie her up and rob her of everything that she owned. Her only commentary on the events were "at least they didn't rape me, so it wasn't so bad." This is not an unusual occurence in Zimbabwe.

Still, I greatly enjoyed my brief time there and will try to go back someday.

After Robert Mugabe dies.

There is something very strange and exciting when you are at a bar, and you wish to speak about the current political situation of a place, and before you start, everyone involved literally scans the room for several seconds to be sure that noone is listening, and then leans into your ear and speaks very softly to be sure that noone will come to your house in the night and kill you. A very interesting country indeed.


And a quick by the way:

-Border crossings suck big time. Trying to get three huge busses full of people from countries all over southern africa, with different entry requirements for each, through a border post manned by people who are going to be there all night and couldn't care less how long you are there, is somewhat taxing on ones patience.

Which brings us, roughly and with great omissions, to today...

As it turns out, when I tell people how many days that I have left in a place, with each day that passes, you should say that you have one less. Unfortunately, I have neglected to do this. Therefore two weeks ago, when I told people that I had three weeks left in Africa, I may have been correct. However, by never updating this number, now, when I have...oh, say 10 days left, the three week mark is a bit inaccurate.

Having met some interesting blokes, we have rented a car and will be careening wildly up the coast of South Africa, stopping along the way to test our luck (well...at least one of ours) at the worlds highest bungee jump, and then with a stop over at a place called "the wild coast" which could range anywhere from awesomely extremely wild, to fairly wild. It remains to be seen.