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#1
12-05-2006, 02:20 AM
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My trip to Africa (6 months later)....
Well, I dont feel like studying right now, although lord knows I should be! So I figured I would make a post about my trip this summer since a few people have asked me to a number of times (I am sure the rest of you could care less so dont even bother reading this).
Ok...basically I was gone for almost 3 months on the otherside of the world, since far TOO much happened during that time for me to sum up I will just do a quick highlights list and if people want to know more about something or care they can ask!! Countries Visited South Africa Zambia Zimbabwe Botswana Mozambique France Now I am sure I will forget somethings and have to add them later seeing as this is a spur of the moment thing months after the fact... Things I did/highlights Paragliding Climbed to the top of Table Mountain Went to the Botanical Gardens in Cape Town Rented a 67ish Cobra for 2 weeks Drove down to Cape Point - where the Atlantic and Indian Ocean meets Went on a glass bottomed boat to seal island Climbed to the light house at Cape Point Got chased by Baboons that were taller than the side of my topless and windowless car!!! Went in for lunch at a resturant and the baboons tried to get in and then walking to my car to find a baboon and his friends SITTING inside it pressing buttons!!! Watching a baboon snatch a picnic basket from a couple and run up some rocks Went to Boulder Beach to see Jackass Penguins Went to Monkey Town Went shark cage diving with the shark lady!!! On a day safari Went to Robbin Island - saw a great white eat a seal!! Went on a Catamaran boat for almost a week Visited various bays along the south coast of Africa from Cape Town over to Durban Whale and Dolphin watching Saw my 1st Rugby Game Went to zulu battlegrounds Went to Drakensburg Hiked to ancient cave drawings Went fly fishing Did another safari Went to Zululand - saw super mean crocs!!! Hung out on Durban beach during the days for almost a month - had a huge surfer competition for a week Went surfing Went on a helicopter ride over the Durban coast and up a river Went to UShaka - the sea world in Durban Ate dinner by the sharks!! Went on a river boat safari - saw hippos YAY!! Flew to Zimbabwe Saw victoria falls Went bungee jumping in no mans land Went to Zambia to go on an elephant ride safari River boat safari in Zimbabwe - sunset cruise all you can drink!! Walked with a pride of lions for 3 hours and into sunset in Zambia (I thought it was going to be CUBS but when it was large lions I was not a bit uneasy and scared) Jetboat ride up the river into Victoria Falls Whitewater rafted back down the river under victoria falls Helicopter ride over Vic Falls Safari in Botswana (finally got to see a HUGEEEE male lion) Camped out and took dune buggies out into the sand dunes Went diving on the whale coast Horseback Riding on the beach Skydiving (watched - didnt go had aleady been before and its alot of pressure on my liver...but ALMOST went again cause I went bungee jumping so I had already threatened my liver!!) Canopy Tour Flew to Pairs Went to all the typical places Louvre Eiffle Tower - had lunch there Notre Dame 29340932492309432 churches on a tour bus line that took me to a ton of places I cant even name without looking at the map they gave me!! Moulin Rouge for a show Catacombs - sooooo cool but creepy!!! Shopped a lot Went to the artist "quarter" - bought a few beautiful paintings I am sure I will remember more to add later..... Went a million various resturants all over that were super awesome and unique...and i AM a picky eater so this says alot Notable things I tried: Ostrich Springbok Hambok Wildebeest Impala (various forms of these in some jerky type material) Shark (had that before but not these kinds!!) Crocodile (had aligator before) Various fruits/vegetables And a ton of stuff I either cant remember or was scared to even ask but gave it a go because I was "IN" africa!! I will add some pictures...but I have over 3000. So if there is anything you specifically want to see let me know cause it is going to be hard for me to pick and choose and will take a good amount of time!! So throughout the next few days I will add some during study breaks!! There was a 1 week period where my camera broke (it started "over exposing" pictures with light), so hopefully I will have what you want to see and if I dont I can get them from someone else that was on the trip with me!! Some of the water things I didnt have my camera because I was scared it would get damaged and since I had 1 gig and 2 gig cards I did not wanna risk losing all my pictures!! Other places were just too dangerous to take anything of value. Just letting you know ahead of time!!! But I do have 3k+ so I am sure I can find something from what you wanna see!!! Hope some of you are interested and ask stuff!! Cause I really really really enjoyed the trip....it was AMAZING!! View of Table Mountain from the deck of my hotel room  The car I had for a few weeks...I was in love...  View from the light house at Cape Point  Sign by the light house  Evil Baboons!!  Hippos!!  Our Elephants!!  Victoria Falls from No Mans Land  Heli view of Vic Falls  Lion Sunset Walk...  Heli ride up the coast and up a river  Sunset on a Safari  Elephant during the night safari  Sunrise during the Safari  Giraffes on the Safari 
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#2
12-05-2006, 02:29 AM
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Re: My trip to Africa (6 months later)....
I am extremely jealous. I've been wanting to go to Africa for a long time. Who did you travel with?
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#3
12-05-2006, 02:35 AM
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Re: My trip to Africa (6 months later)....
[ QUOTE ]
I am extremely jealous. I've been wanting to go to Africa for a long time. Who did you travel with? [/ QUOTE ] I went alone! I did some volunteer work that I arranged ahead of time with HIV+ orphans. I went to travel the summer before alone in Central America and met a TON of awesome people everywhere I went and traveled all over with them, so I wasnt TOO worried about doing it again, and fortunately for me it worked out twice! I meet people all over and traveled and did different stuff with them, and also meet people working at the orphanage I was and they did some traveling with me too! Paris was a lay over on the way back so I decided to make it an extended lay over (to break the flight back up due to my liver) and it was awesome!! Was harder to meet people there because its soooo touristy but I meet a small group of people that I did stuff with alot and an aussie that did some sight seeing with me!!
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#4
12-05-2006, 02:50 AM
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Re: My trip to Africa (6 months later)....
[ QUOTE ]
I went alone! I did some volunteer work that I arranged ahead of time with HIV+ orphans. I went to travel the summer before alone in Central America and met a TON of awesome people everywhere I went and traveled all over with them, so I wasnt TOO worried about doing it again, and fortunately for me it worked out twice! I meet people all over and traveled and did different stuff with them, and also meet people working at the orphanage I was and they did some traveling with me too! Paris was a lay over on the way back so I decided to make it an extended lay over (to break the flight back up due to my liver) and it was awesome!! Was harder to meet people there because its soooo touristy but I meet a small group of people that I did stuff with alot and an aussie that did some sight seeing with me!! [/ QUOTE ] Peachy...how much sex did you have on your trip?
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#5
12-05-2006, 02:53 AM
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Re: My trip to Africa (6 months later)....
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] I went alone! I did some volunteer work that I arranged ahead of time with HIV+ orphans. I went to travel the summer before alone in Central America and met a TON of awesome people everywhere I went and traveled all over with them, so I wasnt TOO worried about doing it again, and fortunately for me it worked out twice! I meet people all over and traveled and did different stuff with them, and also meet people working at the orphanage I was and they did some traveling with me too! Paris was a lay over on the way back so I decided to make it an extended lay over (to break the flight back up due to my liver) and it was awesome!! Was harder to meet people there because its soooo touristy but I meet a small group of people that I did stuff with alot and an aussie that did some sight seeing with me!! [/ QUOTE ] Peachy...how much sex did you have on your trip? [/ QUOTE ] none???
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#8
12-05-2006, 04:21 PM
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Re: My trip to Africa (6 months later)....
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] I did some volunteer work that I arranged ahead of time with HIV+ orphans. [/ QUOTE ] Cool. What was this like? How'd you get involved? [/ QUOTE ] It was awesome...but I loveeee working with kids, and I kinda knew what to expect from working the orphans in Guatemala, and working with HIV patients in Atlanta. The only difference is that these kids were rampant with TB and other diseases as well, which of course again I paid no heed to - I think I have a mental issue with thinking I am invincible! They told us that "some" of the children had HIV and others had various other stuff before we went to the orphanage. Out of the 30+ students I seemed to be the ONLY one with any kinda medical background - apparent by me asking 2934920349234092 questions in a prep session about our various sites we were going to be assigned to. I would ask things such as who pays for thier ARVs and how frequently do they get them? Has the TB superbug been prevelent in Africa? (which freaked some of the other volunteers out because they asked me to explain what this was?) Varouis questions about thier treatment programs for HIV. And a few questions on Euthanasia out of my own personal interest because I didnt know the legal standing on the issue in this country and was cursious of its status because of the high % of AIDs victims (only 2 other people in our whole group knew what Euthanaisa was!!! When I said the world like 5 people turned to people next to them..."what is euthanasia???") blah!!! Anyways...I was with 5 other people at my site, one of the bigger groups - but this was because we were assigned to an orphanage with 100+ children. The first week we were there a group of medical students were also doing some work there and they were from the US. Because the med students were there they had all the files out for them to review so the director offered for any of our group to go through the files on breaks and what not if we wanted too. haha my whole group pointed to me and said that I would!! (cause we would need some of the information at the end of our work for our closing proposal presentation and I was the only one that would remotely understand med charts) Now this place was muchhhhhh nicer than the places I worked in Central America but it was by no means anywhere near our standards. There were far too many kids and sooooo few staff but they were one of the nicer orphanages in the country. We found out that this was because they housed soooo many HIV+ children that they got a little extra help from the government and also alot from private donations from people around the world (which I now also do). Anyways...yes a novel again! The children loved us right off the bat, which I had no doubt they wouldnt, we got bombarded. We were split into pairs, I got paired with a guy friend and we worked with the "older" children, ranging from 5 years old to 13 or so. The other two groups had babies and toddlers. The kids wanted to play NON stop and didnt want to let us go in for breaks, but on my first break the reality of these kids futures sunk in on me reading through the medical files, and it almost brought tears to my eyes because we had learned alot of thier names and kinda had favorites at this point so when I read files on these ones especially my heart broke! Here are examples of things I read: abandoned by HIV mother, father deceased abandoned by grandmother, parents deceased taken from unfit parents found in garabage heep found in public toliet found wrapped in dirty clothes found by river found outside hostital the majority said HIV+ many had TB at some point in time alot of broken bones many gastro and respiratory issues childhood arthritis (which is curable here but there will place the child in a wheel chair for life) I could go on and on... Now for how sickly these kids look on paper you really couldnt tell in person!! They were rambunksious as all get out, and were inquisitive about EVERYTHING! The saddest thing for me was that this little girl had attacked herself to me and I had also fallen in LOVE with her littlest brother and liked her older bother alot - but she was HIV+ (the brothers were not, and this was speculated to have occured b/c the older was born before the mother had HIV and the younger was born after she knew and she took meds to help her during pregnancy to reduce the chances the baby got it). Now once I reviewed the medical files I asked the directory exactly what percent of the children were HIV+, she told me well over 80%. This freaked most of my group out, but come on, its kinda hard to get HIV, but I can understand thier concern since we are working with babies and young children which throw up, pee, deficate, and cut themselves all over the place (I am getting an HIV test next year to be on the safe side but I am not worried at all). Honestly, I forgot that most had HIV by the 2nd day, except when I would hold Lindy (the girl i adored) sometimes the thought that one day she wont be here would cross my mind, never because of the fact I was worried about contracting it. Anyway, on a lighter note, the kids were awesome. For the most part they were enjoyable but of course a few of the boys were completely defiant (because they get little attention there and there is hardly any staff to disipline them and the boy to girl ration was like 10:1) so lucky for me I had a guy paired with me who they would get frightened of more so than me. It was funny though because my partner wore his glasses the 1st day and they called him "HARRY POTTER"!!!! for the 1st week, I thought I was gonna die laughing!!! We asked them if they had read the books or seen movies and they said no they had just seen it on billboards and stuff, so we told them we would get them some harry potter books!! It rocked though when they would yell at my partner in an accent no less "Potter!!! Come jump on the trampoline!!!" hahaha Well, back to them being a bit out of hand sometimes, there was one day where they went over the edge beating on each other so I sat down with one boy and locked him in my lap - of course he sqirmed, hit me, kicked, bit me (which I was thinking Oh please please please dont break skin because you have HIV!! but I didnt wanna pull away and increase this chance!!) but his little friends didnt like this so they came over and began hitting me, I just sat there still holding on to the child I had and called out for my partner. It took him a minute to get them off me because he would peal one off me and go for the other and the 1st one would lock hold of me again and start hitting and scratching! Oh well!! Ill put a few pictures up and if anyone wants to know more about the volunteer work just ask, I was there for over a month so I could write for days!! The saddest part of it was walking out back and seeing the memorial for children that had passed away, and the day I left I told myself I wasnt going to cry (I had in Guatemala) and I think I would have made it but the children followed us out front and kept hugging us and yelling dont go dont go!! It literally took us 20 mins to say bye, and a few of them kept crawling in our van and running to the back (other groups from other sites were in the van waiting so I felt bad but they thought it was cute). I just couldnt stop hugging my 3 favs (the sister and brothers) and promised them Id send them some books for christmas, I told the older brother he had to help me get the kids inside so we could leave (he was kinda the head ring leader while we were there and he was either our best asset or worst enemy at any given time) - with tears in his eyes and started picking up and pulling kids back in and then gave us all another huge hug. I got in the van and was pretty together but then some of the kids busted out the front door and started chasing the van along with the sibilings. I was fine until one of my partners next to be started bawling and then the children started screaming my name out over all the noise and yelled for us not to go...saying we love you we love you!! please stay!! I lost it and just sat there and cried with my girlfriend for about 15 minutes holding each other! What was amazing for her though is she went into this having a genuine dislike and distaste for children, and these touched her so much (and she was working with the BABIES which had minimal recipricoal interaction) that she didnt want to leave and her whole outlook on kids changed. hahaha Ok Ok Ill shut up now...here are some of the pictures... it was hard to take them because everytime you did ALL the kids wanted to see themselves on the digital screen so I would have to get sneaky and say the batteries died because often they would snatch the camera and run!! And obviously in some of the pictures you can see they took an immediate interest in my sunglasse, lip gloss, and face powder!! How could I say no?!?! hehehe The kids being constructive on "making" thier own fun. Its amazing the objects they will make special play toys in 3rd world countries...we are sooooo lucky and dont even know it..  One of our kids wearing my versace sun glasses!! haha like 10 of them wanted a "turn"  The kids playing with my powder!! hahaha  Of course they ALL wanted a turn!!!  One of the babies I worked with one of the days during our "Big" kids break time  Part of the memorial to children that had passed away there  Our kids on the tampoline...basically thier only real toy 
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#10
12-05-2006, 02:51 AM
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Re: My trip to Africa (6 months later)....
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] I am extremely jealous. I WANT THAT [censored] CAR!!! [/ QUOTE ] [/ QUOTE ] Yeah!! What was funny was that I called to rent one from a luxury car place because I wanted something "similar" to what I drive now (my m3) mainly because I was in another country AND driving on the OPPOSITE side of the road...so I wanted something I was used to. They said all they had avaliable was a regular 3 series BMW, a Cobra, and something or another that I cant recall now. I told my hotel I definately didnt want the 3rd one I cannot remember, that I didnt care for a cobra (thinking it was a NEWER mustang which I could care less about) and said I guessed Id take the regular 3 series. She stated that she would send up the fax the rental place sent over but I told her it wasnt necessary, but she insisted. I am SOOOOOOOOO glad she did, because the second I got that handed to me I picked up the phone and called and said I WANT THE COBRA!!!!! Them delievering it was amazing!! And it made me feel so horrible!! Everyone in the whole hotel was staring, guests, bellboys, the staff, etc. And it was a VERY ritzy hotel for the area!! Well the dealer looked kinda hesitant at 1st when he meet me...quite frankly I guess because I am a girl and I look so young!! He said that he had not had a girl rent it before and inquired on my age again, which is 26, and did not believe me until he saw my lisence! As he got to talking with me about the car and took me outside to show me what buttons did what, etc. his whole demenor changed, I guess because he found out I knew quite a good deal about cars. I eventually told him that I owned an M3 back home and that my friends dad had restored an old cobra so I was familar with the inside, etc. He told me he had a jag suspension on it and I started talking about "well good, itll handle such and such a way now, etc" and he laughed and handed me the keys saying that he had never felt so comfortable handing the keys to a client before, that usually he had hot headed out of town young business men who wanna hot rod around for the week who dont know squat about cars!! Everywhere I stopped in it people were asking questions about it and locals wanted thier pictures taken with it, at times it made me almost ashamed because some of these people had sooooo little. I stopped on a cliff to take a few pictures (actually its the picture I posted of it above over the cliff) and an Indian family asked if they could get a picture of each of thier children in front of it, i said of course! The girl that was riding with me that day got irritated...but how can I say no?? Im used to getting looks in my m3, being a girl and all, but stepping out of that thing was a whole new ordeal!! Espeically over there!! It was an awesome car and I never thought I would want anything over my m3, but I think when I get a house soon I am going to buy an old cobra and work on it myself. I dont like the handling near as much as I do on my m3, they arent even comparable, but it sure is a fun car to take out for a joy ride now and again!! Only thing that sucked about it there was remembering to stay on the OTHER side of the road, the baboons constantly harrassing me in it (and scaring me), and attemtping to stay out of bad parts of towns in it at stop lights!!
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Hybrid Mode
