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So I guess I've been a little slack with the updates. When you think of what africa is all about you may think of poverty, lions, a few gun toting kids, but it's all about the rythem. It's all about going with the flow and doing things as slowly as possible. You couldn't rush a local if you tried. Staying here the extra month was the right decision. It's under my skin and I love it.�
So what have I been up to? Well around the start of May I few back to joburg to catch my flight to Nepal. I got to Klipkop where I was going to stay for a day or 2 before catching my flight and was completely tramuatized about leaving africa, my friends and th ocean (I had been traveling up the coast for the past month).� I made the big decision to put off Nepal for another month and fly back to the coast. I met up with Maud, Duncan and Tom in Coffee Bay. One of the coolest places in south africa. I made a djambe drum here with a local drumming legend. It took four days and I made it from a tree stump! I worked on it from sun up to sun down. The first day I sanded it for 5 hours! So yeah, I'm pretty proud of it. It's my baby. I also bought a smaller one in Cape Town so I am now backpacking with two djembes! The hostel that we stayed at in Coffee Bay was called Bomvue Paradise, and it was just that, a paradise. Hammocks were spread out in the trees, including some bigs ones and the four of us would all lie in it together...good times. There was a big emphasis on drumming here and the atmosphere was, to put it no other way, very chill. After coffee bay the 4 of us made our way to Umzumbe, where we stayed for a few days. It's nice to see different beaches and different surfs. This hostel also had tree houses!
From there we went to Durban (didn't like it, just a big, dirty and dangerous city). We spent a few days there (duncan, maud and I) while Tom did his diving course down the coast a bit. We then headed to Swaziland.�
Swaziland is within the borders of South Africa but is a separate country (kind of like alaska attached to canada). It's actually a kingdom. It was amazing. Very authetically african in every way that u think of Africa. It was really nice too because there isn't tension in the air like there is here in south africa, especialy between white and black people. It was awesome. We felt very safe and the Swazi people are sooooo friendly! We picked up a few words in Swazi, most of which I've forgotten, but it was a great experience. It's too bad we didn't get to stay more than a few days. Our main purpose for being there was to get our visas for Mozambique. You could get them at the Moz. border but they are really cheap in Swaziland. So we did all of that and then headed to Kruger. I didn't think I'd be back at Kruger on this trip!! Maud, Tom and Duncan hadn't seen it yet so of course it was on the itinerary. I was game. We rented a car for 3 days and stayed at Gecko Bushpackers, the same hostel in Hazyview I stayed at last time I did Kruger. Again it was an awesome experience.
The first day we're there at the gates (they open at 6am in the winter) at 6. It was cool to have a car...I prefer it over doing the tour thing. We drive around for a bit and within the first hour we've seen giraffs (play fighting), rhynos, lions, impala...etc. The lions we really cool. We were the only ones around and suddenly we see something come out on the road like 200 feet in front of us and we're all thinking that looks like a lion, but no, that'd just be too cool! Sure enough, it's a lioness. We all like OMG! It was really cool because there were no other cars around. A minute later some more females come out of the bush and they all start walking towards us. It's obvious that they are going to walk right along side the car. We start saying how cool it would be to see cubs. And sure enough some cubs pop out of the bush behind another female. They were about 3-4 months old. We all pretty psyched as you can imagine and they are all walking right to us! At this point some other tour trucks show up but they can't get as close as us because they may scare them off. So all th tourists are snapping pics from afar and wishing they were where we are....we must be in all of their pics lol So yeah, the cubs were awesome and adorable and we start thinking it'd be cool to see a male as all the ones of the road were females. Sure enough a male pops out of the bush and starts walking down the road as well! But then of course we think it'd be cool to see some more cubs, and sure enough..... 2 more cubs pop out behind another females, tiny ones! The must ave been only about a month old because they were still fuzzy! Omg, postcard adorable. I'll upload pics of them when I get them (my friends have them on their cameras). So yeah, Kruger was awesome, didn't see any cats (other than lions) or african wild dogs....but I guess we can't always have it all ....
The next night we also did a night drive which was really cool, saw lots of Rhyno and water buffalo (2 of th big 5). And then again the next morning we went back for a few hours. Crazy, I've been to Kruger 4 times now!
After Kruger we headed to Mozambique.� It's another world. So beautiful, so poor. I saw this baby, only a couple months old strapped to his brother back (his brother was 12) and the baby was a skeleton. There was nothing to his legs, his knees where the biggest part of his legs, aweful looking and he just lied there moaning, not crying, moaning. The most awful sound and from an infant. His brother (who we bough bracelets off of) was swatting away the flies that are forever attracted to his brother. I'll never forget it.�
I spent about a week in Mozambique before coming back to SA to figure out my Nepal flights. You can't do any planning in Mozambique because you can't phone anywhere and you're lucky if you can get online when you want and you have to travel for an hour to get to a cash point....and hope that it's working.� It's tiring spending days on end trying to get the simplest things done. The infrastructure has room for improvement. What an experience. I have to go back. You all have to go. Come to africa, you'll be blown away. Mozambique is one of the poorest countries in the world. It shows. Our backpackers was on the beach. So beautiful. White sand, beautiful blue waters, lots of marine life...dolphins, sharks, whale sharks, rays... It was also the best surf since Jeffrey's Bay. It's also a major dive location but I'm not certified...something I'm planning on doing on my next trip.�
So yeah, it's hard to do the experiences in my head justice by sitting down at a computer and typing some words so that you can all get an idea of what its like. There just aren't words and you just don't know until you know.�
So, here I am in Joburg, enjoying my last day in Africa because I fly to Nepal tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't believe 3 months have gone by already. So I leave tomorrow and will get to Nepal early the next morning with a stop over in Doha, Qatar. I'll get to see my prof from STU in Kathmandu for a day before he takes off for canada, which is pretty cool considering I fell in love with Nepal because of him and his class. Then I'm volunteering at an orphanage for a month and if I have any money left I'll go to Tibet and Europe before heading home in July. But I've given up on making plans. I'm just going with it. We'll see where I end up.
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