africkin' fantastic

so i am on about day 30 something of peanut butter and jelly. but yet with every bite of that tasty snack i think to myself "damn, this stuff is so good." its funny how the international community nearly vomits at the thought of peanut butter and jelly. i am usually pegged as an american when people see me spreading outrageous amounts of the peanutty delight on my bread.

so africa: its been a mixed bag of just about everything you can think of. from seeing dik-diks (haha ok i had to use that as the animal example, its kind of like a small antelope-- and there is actually a variety of dik-diks called "phillip's dik-dik." yeah, that was a funny joke for a little bit) to eating some crazy african food, the past 40 days have been a physical and emotional rollercoaster.

...all in a good way of course.

we started in kenya which is where i left off. we landed in the capital city, nairobi on 12 may. now, the nickname for that place is "nai-robbery" but we found that title couldnt be any more misleading. it was a pleasant city, sure they have their problems, but keeping your wits about you will put you in safe hands. the streets were lined with vendors selling maize (corn on the cob) and a handful of people wanting to sell you everything from back issues of popular western magazines to an adventurous day trip. we left after three days to start our trek southbound.

tanzania was the country we spent the majority of our safari time. the serengeti is africa's largest national park and the place was stunning-- to say the least. i took the oh-so typical photo of our truck passing under the "welcome to the serengeti national park" sign and it was game time: lions jumped out at us, cheetahs roared and the hyenas nearly ate bryan.

not really.

but the place was laced with the most incredible wildlife this old city boy has ever seen. im talking all kinds of beasts: lions (tons), hyenas, giraffes, dik-dik, buffalo-- and entire laundry list of other stuff. seeing these creatures really puts you in your place in the whole spectrum of things. we were lucky enough to actually witness a live kill which about blew my socks off. these hyenas absolutely ravaged through an antelope. as they hyenas backed off the vultures pounced in and literally cleaned the thing up to the point where it was a pile of bones on the ground.

appetizing!

our first night in the serengeti we slept in the park. the sign as we entered the campsite read "do not walk around at night, the animals will attack humans." hmmm. at night when we needed to get stuff out of the truck we would go with the driver as he carried a machete. even more alarming was the fact that the few people working the campsite slept in a caged-in area. seriously, they were pleasantly slumbering away safe from all these beasts outside while bryan and i were clinging to each other in the tent hoping that the hyenas werent as hungry as we had seen the previous day.

having to pee in the middle of the night was just a no-no. i commented the next morning on how i had been pinching a piss off since about 10 pm the night before. not cool, man.

we travelled in these safari days with a group. it was a fun group-- full of irony really. you had an aussie that didnt know how to swim and strictly abided by a "no alcohol" policy. there were even interesting canadians and decent looking brits (haha sorry mark). but all jokes aside, they were a fun bunch to chum with. we had roughly 21 days together, so you had better hope they were ok.

zanzibar-- while i didnt think i would ever be saying this-- was about my least favorite spot in africa. as far as i knew prior to throwing down there, it had been touted ubiquitously as a beautiful haven for sun and interesting architecture. it was a main sea route from the east and so you had a ton of arabic influence in the architecture and spices, etc. sounded excellent!

HAH! coudnt have been any further from the truth. the place was laced with people trying to get you in some way or the other. omri enjoyed the place, so maybe ask him about it (i will say, however, that the northern region and beaches are beautifully secluded and much more pristine).

malawi was my favorite country in africa. it had much more open countryside, a beautiful lake and just a demeanor abotu the people that was so infectious. they were such happy and beautiful people in so many ways. here so many had so little, but yet they carried an uncharacteristic optimism about them that brought me to my knees. i asked a young boy after a soccer match what he loved about his country:

"i love the trees. the trees are beautiful to look at, they are peaceful and they give me the money to run my business one day." (he was planning to continue carving figures from the tree wood for a living later in life)

i mean come on, its almost like i made that up to romanticize about the beauty of life or something. just incredible stuff.

we swooped westbound to hit zambia and zimbabwe. victoria falls, nestled just between the two, was truly a spectactle. the falls are 10 times wider and taller than niagara falls for reference. david livingstone, who "discovered" the falls around 1855 proclaimed that "scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight." honestly though, it was one of those sites that you look at and your jaw just kind of drops a bit and you feel the presence of what stands before you.

the zambezi bridge connects zambia and zimbabwe over the zambezi bridge which cuts through the two as their border. before we crossed, bryan and i took the plunge off the bridge bungee jumping.

...standing on that edge, some 300 feet up i was shitting my pants. seriously, hands were absolutely dripping sweat and i could barely speak from the cotton mouth. who the hell knows what got me over that edge, but the fall was unbelievable. such a cool feeling-- your body is telling you that the current situation is NOT normal, your heartbeat is racing, you cant even so much as mutter the word "oh shit" as you fall. then when you make it safely you are elevated to a mood of adrenaline-induced natural high-- pretty sweet really.

...so sweet in fact that we decided to do it again in south africa-- this time from the tallest bungee in the world at roughly 650 feet. the second time around, i have to admit, wasnt quite AS COOL. it was a more familiar event and as such the emotions werent electricuting your senses.

so let me back track a bit. we left the safari group in zimbabwe and decided to end the trip just how we started it: with a car of our own!

haha, ok we didnt buy it this time but we rented one. a nice little ride-- LITTLE being the operative word. it was an old VW golf-- white in color. it was a very sheek ride, complete with a model name that eventually gave the car its nickname: CHICO.

so we tore ass through the whole of south africa in old chico. south africans drive on the left side of the road, and this car happened to have a manual transmission which was pretty fun. fun for ME to drive, being the only one who could drive a manual. i wasnt going to bear the whole load and bryan was quite keen to learn so we had it all planned (meanwhile omri was scared to death of driving the thing and opted for permanent banishing to the backseat).

the day i taught bryan how to drive the thing was just a hoot. hilarious really. i mean picture this: we are in a small african village. people were all over dipping in and out of the markets, women were carrying loads of fruits and vegetables on their head, kids were scrambling all over. it was certain that we could not have picked a more hectic scene for poor bryan to pick up his new talent. i swear we put the fear of god in at least two peoples faces as bryan sputtered along trying to master the driving. one guy was crossing the street as bryan dropped in to first gear. we lunged forward as he tried to get the clutch right, the tires screeched and the car halted as we stalled. meanwhile the guy thought we had started off very quickly and slammed on the breaks to avoid hitting him. he was scared shitless and apologizing like mad. we all looked forgiving as we tried like hell not to burst out laughing.

good times.

coffee bay was the highlight of south africa. the place was historically a spot where the blacks of south africa settled, and unfortunately as such the whites of south africa tended to not travel. as such, the place has remained an untouched beauty-- free from many tourists, hotel chains, invasive property and the annoyances of city life. think of huge, lush, green hills running on an endless indian ocean coast. villages were scattered here and there, children ran around flashing big smiles and people were... well... happy. its amazing how that mentality is seen so much here. just incredible really. when i come back to south africa some day this will be the first place i go to hide out at.

cape town, our current location has been full of adventures and other happenings. my internet time is about to be out here so unfortunately i cant go in to detail, but lets talk in a few days when i am home.

geez, thats startling. another more reflective blog for the whole trip is on its way.