Jaclyn and James Abroad!

Welcome one and all to the last email in our year long adventure. Some of you will be happy and others will be sad, do not fear we will get through it together. 

Last I left off we had finished our time on the Thai island of Koh Phangan and were now headed to Koh Samui. It is such an incredible island. We had 5 nights spent living the life, relaxing on the beach and exploring the vibrant island. We rented a motorbike for three days and explored various parts of the island. One day we went and checked out this wonderful waterfall where we swam in the pools beneath the water cascading down the rock wall with such grace. We spent time visiting some of the temples around the island which had enormous statues of Buddha, one had 18 arms. We ate more fantastic Thai food, oh the flavours and spices are just delightful, and drank fresh coconuts. There was so much to do in Koh Samui that we were always entertained. The main draw was the town of Chaweng which is the heart of the island and where most of the action is. THere were great restaurants, and lots of bargains to be had in the shops and stalls that lined the streets. 

One night we had dinner on the beach and then lit lana lanterns. They are used to bring the person good luck. They are like mini hot air balloons, you light a coil which burns and fills the large tube made out of a type of papery material with the hot air. Then you release it up in the air and watch it take flight as it catches the wind and thermals. It was beautiful to watch as it glowed this yellowy orange hue that carried off into the night sky.

We had some interesting experiences in Chaweng. After getting caught in the pouring rain on the motorbike we arrived and went to this unique massage place called Dr. Fish. For half an hour you submerge your legs up to your knees in this massive tank where hundreds of tiny fish nibble away at your feet and legs. It was such a strange sensation at first. It was very ticklish and also felt like one was getting this weird light electric shock. The fish clean off dead skin and help to stimulate circulation and give energy. All in all it was fun and ended up being quite enjoyable. That night we ended up going to one of the local stadiums to watch the Muay Thai (Thai Kickboxing) matches. It was a small stadium that was filled mainly with tourist, one side was were the locals stood and cheered, while in the other corner the Muay Thai “band” played the traditional thai music. There were a few fights which began with some very young teenagers that looked they should have been at home doing homework, not beating each other. There were some amazing fights which were so entertaining, two ended with knockouts. Surprisingly Jaclyn really enjoyed herself. 

We spent some time checking out the little fishing village of Bo Phut and Jaclyn did some yoga to pass the rest of the time on Koh Samui. Our last night was spent chilling on the beach sitting on the thai pillows at this awesome bar.

From Samui we went to Phuket, somewhere I was not really looking forward to going to and once there I realized how much I disliked it. It is full of big resorts and does not really have a thai feel to it. It is also very dirty and seedy with the main beach area of Patong filled with prostitutes scantily dressed and people saying, “ping pong? Ping Pong?” as they try and lure you into their bar so you could see one of the ping pong sex shows. Phuket did not represent Thailand at all to me and is somewhere I would never go back to.

The highlight of our time in Phuket was the day we spent going on a boat tour of Ao Phang Nga Marine National Park. It is a stunning setting of hundreds of islands that are made of limestone with all these lovely limestone karst islands rising out of the water. Many had steep faces and you could see where the ocean had worn away at the limestone at sea level. The sea had worn away some of the limestone to the point that the bottom of the islands had chunks taken out of the bottom and all that remanded was some scraggly pieces and some areas even looked like limestone had almost dripped down to the ocean and stopped. It was quite fascinating to see nature having made its mark on the islands. The islands were covered in greenery wherever the vegetation could find somewhere to attach, which was pretty much all over except for the parts of sheer vertical limestone walls. We went to visit James Bond island which is where the movie, ‘The Man with the Golden Gun’ was filmed and this is the place where the villain, Scaramanga had his lair. James Bond Island has a very famous limestone Karst pinnacle that appears conical in shape and its base gets narrower to an almost point as it nears sea level. The sea has carved away the base of this pinnacle which stands in the water like a pen jabbed in.

The best part of the day was when we were taken in inflatable kayaks around a few of the islands We were taken around and through some areas where the ocean had carved openings into the limestone of the island, thereby allowing us to paddle inside. Some of it had such narrow openings that we had to fully lay down in the kayak so that we wouldn’t hit our heads on the rock above. It was beautiful paddling around the islands and so close to the edge of it to see the work of the ocean on the limestone. There were all sorts of patterns and shapes carved by the ocean. Our last island we paddled around we were taken into this long tunnel. Yet again there was a narrow, low opening. The ceiling height kept changing as we went further in. Our guide and all the others in their respective kayaks had headlamps on because it got quite dark inside. Then we started coming towards daylight and came out in this little lagoon in the middle of the island. It was magical. In the middle of the lagoon were a few mangrove trees with their roots forming triangular patterns as they spread out from the trunk. We got to get out of the kayak and walked around in the shallow water. There was another area that we walked to that had a tiny opening and had another little lagoon off of the main lagoon. All around were cliffs rising straight up above us to the blue sky at the top. It was so beautiful, I’d never been in something like this and was quite amazed. Some of the lower laying rock had become jagged as it too had worn down.

Our last night in Thailand we went to Fantasea which was a huge Thai style Disneyland. It was quite amusing to wander the comical storybook walkways. We ended up going to see this Las Vegas style show and before hand we got to hold a baby tiger and feed it milk from a baby bottle. It was adorable and such a special moment to have. Then we went into the show and were shocked by how good it was. There was lots of singing and dancing, the scenery kept changing, they had trap doors and circus style acts as well as lots of elephants that performed. It was very well done. And with that ended a month in Amazing Thailand.

Then it was time to leave Thailand. We had had such a remarkable time in Thailand. It really is one of the easiest countries in the world to travel, and it is such  pleasure and so beautiful. From the amazing waters, beaches and islands to the kindness of the people, the fruit shakes, and Thai massages to the awesome food it is wonderful in every facet.Thailand has everything. We really were sad to be leaving but the adventure would now continue in Indonesia. We landed in Bali and went to the beach resort where we would stay for 5 nights to celebrate our one year anniversary. Amazing how quick the last year had gone by. We allowed ourselves to be pampered and spoiled and it felt great. We had romantic dinners on the beach and just really relaxed without any touring.

Lombok was next on the agenda and the Gili Islands where we relaxed on the beach and I did a bunch more diving. The diving was superb, some of the best visibility I’d ever had. The fish were quite large and the coral was marvellous. Jaclyn joined me for one dive and we had quite the drift dive which moved us quite quickly past the sights of the underwater world. My last dive ended at a wreck of an old barge called the Bounty. It was huge and lots of soft coral and other plant life had attached to it, all over were lots of fish life too. Jaclyn had lots of little surprises planned for my birthday with the hotel where we stayed. It was very special of her to do all that.

From Lombok we returned to Bali. We had a few nights chilling on the beaches of Nusa Dua before heading inland to Ubud, the cultural capital of the island. Ubud was a lovely quaint town filled with tiny narrow streets bustling with shops, dance performances and restaurants. One day we ventured up to the eastern side of the island with a driver we had hired. He took us past lovely countryside and to the shores of Tulamben where Jaclyn and I did two dives on the USAT Liberty wreck. The Liberty was an old WWII cargo ship that was struck by a torpedo from a Japanese sub but did not sink. It was towed to shore near Tulamben and was unloaded and stayed on the edge of the shore. In 1963 the volcano Mt. Batur erupted and the lava pushed the wreck back from the shore and beneath the surface where is remains to this day. The wreck was astonishing to see. It was 120m long vessel but much of it had been ravaged by the pounding waves and was split open. On the second dive our divemaster took us into parts of the wreck which was amazing to get to swim through some large opening in the broken apart hull. We saw some more incredible fish and corals living on and near the wreck. The end of the dive was the highlight as this huge school of Jackfish swam past us and then all around us. It was amazing as there were so many of them. Jaclyn seemed like she was in heaven as she twirled around in the water kind of in the middle of a vortex of jackfish. It was awesome to see and I could tell how happy she was. 

On the drive back to Ubud our driver Mokra took us to his hometown of Jasri. We got to see where his mum loved and his brother and his four children and some other cousins. Morka hadn’t seen his mum in a month and a half and I saw her face light up with joy when she saw him, it was such a great moment to witness. His mum made us some Balinese coffee with sugar and then his brother came back with some fresh young coconuts for us to drink. They were also very tasty as they were so fresh. Unfortunately Morka’s older brother had lost his wife a little over a month ago. It was amazing to see just how happy they were despite what had happened. His brother had such a wonderful genuine smile on his face as did his children. 

Jaclyn and I ended up giving the family a bunch of pens, some gum which they all took and started chewing right away. We also gave some toothbrushes and toothpaste to everyone except his mum who didn’t take it or the gum because she didn’t have any teeth.Then I gave the youngest nephew, Ketut (which is what the fourth born is called in Bali) a little toy I had left over from my kinder surprise candy. It was a little toy truck and he was so excited with it. He was an adorable little boy. A little while later I did some high-fiving with him which he also really enjoyed.  We got to see a bunch of the items that she made which included a bunch of pottery, Morka showed me the wheel and little kiln which was around the side of the house. I think we spent about an hour with Morka’s family and it was such a pleasure. I truly valued the time we had with them as they were such genuinely kind, warm and gentle people who have so little yet have such huge smiles and warmth. It was such a wonderful experience that we were lucky to have because it was something so very different and off the beaten path. It was a great cultural side that most don’t get to see of Bali. On the drive back to Ubud we passed through Amlapura where It seemed like the whole town was out lining the streets to watch as tons of school kids were in uniform marching down the street. The were separated into sexes and it had a very militaristic tone with chants, yet it wasn’t.

The next day we ventured to the north of the island. The drive through the eastern and northern parts of Bali were beautiful as we passed through little towns, many of which had their own crafts that they each specialized in. Some did stone sculptures, or woodcarvings, batik, jewellery and so on.The landscape was full of crops, mainly rice, which in the hilly parts was grown on rice terraces that were cut into the side of the hills forming rice paddy steps. 

We stopped to see one of the Hindu temples, Pura Tirta Empul. Bali is the only island in Indonesia that is Hindu, the main religion in the world’s fourth largest population, is Moslem. The temple has these springs that come out in this large pool where you literally see it bubbling under the surface as the dark sand near the holes moves around like a sandy lava. It was really fascinating to see. The springs are considered holy and from the main pool where they come out they are channeled into a bathing pool where they come out of waterspouts in the shape of Hindu figureheads. A number of local people were bathing and praying in the waters. Inside the main complex area of the temple some other prayers were taking place and people were sitting down getting water poured on their heads and then into the hands to drink. Nearby the temple was a massive hill with a modern building and a bridge connecting two sides of the hill. We wandered around the temple and were pleasantly surprised by how much we enjoyed it. The springs were very interesting to see and it was cool getting to see a massive eel swimming around in the main pool.

Morka took from there past more lovely vistas before taking us to a plantation that specialized in coffee and tea. We walked around and got to see a bunch of the coffee plants, cocoa plants and some of the many other spices they grow. We also saw two civet cats who were sleeping in cages. These animals go out and eat the ripe and raw, red coffee bean. Inside its stomach the beans goes through a chemical process and then they poo it out. The locals collect the poo and take the beans out and clean them. Then they roast it and go through the roasting process. The coffee is supposed to taste better and it is called Luwak coffee. We walked past one of the workers roasting the coffee beans (normal ones) on a wok shaped pan over an open fire, it smelt quite good. Then they took us to a nice lookout over a little valley surrounded by hills with all sorts of crops. There we got to sample five different and tasty drinks.

Our day took us to the town of Batur and Kintamani where we were afforded wonderful views of Gunung (Mt.) Batur. This is the volcano that erupted in 1963. You could see the path the lava had taken years ago and you could also see where part of the volcano had broken away. Further away to the south was Lake Batur. We couldn’t completely see the top of the volcano because of the cloud cover but every now and then it would peak through. There was amazing views of the volcano and the valley surrounding it from the town. We left town and drove down to the valley floor and towards the lake. Once we reached the bottom we found ourselves amidst all this volcanic rock as the road wound through it. Hear and there were little crops dotted amongst the volcanic rock, tomatoes, chives and other stuff. We wandered down to the edge of the lake and looked across to the south to the rising mountains and hills. It was really pretty. Behind us Mt. Batur was almost entirely covered in clouds. The lake was fascinating and on one side were a bunch of things or little fish farms being produced in the waters. Nearby to the east was a bunch of little fishing canoes and boats. We stopped to check out the lava rocks as they were so fascinating to see and to think that they had come from the centre of the earth and had come out as molten lava. I was so intrigued with the rocks and kept looking at a bunch of them closely to see the remnants of the air bubbles and unique shapes that had formed when the lava cooled. 

We stopped off at another temple on the way back. This one was called Gunung Kawi and it was wonderful. We had to walk down a street lined with more souvenir shops. Some were selling a bunch of coconut shell carvings which were quite pretty while others had intricate carvings into cow skulls, all this along with the regular souvenirs. Once again we donned sarongs and walked down these long flight of steps that took us past more stands and then we arrived amidst a number of rice paddy terraces dotted with palm trees and other vegetation. There in front of us was the temple, spread out on either side of the river, the same river with its source from Pura Tirta Empul where we were in the morning. Gunung Kawi was a fascinating temple in that it had these massive candi (shrines) cut into the solid rock embankment. There were five candis on one side of the river and five more on the other side, each an impressive 8metres high. There were some huge banyan trees with their numerous branches looking like string coming down. We wandered around and explored the temple which was so unique and different. We really enjoyed our time there and the lovely setting in which the temple was located. 

We returned to Ubud where we took in a marvellous local dance performance. It was a traditional Balinese dance performance by this woman’s group. They had 8 different performances and dances all accompanied by the traditional music with a fairly large musical group. They played on these unique instruments which had a very tinny sound to it from xylophone shaped instrument. The costumes were very intricate and beautiful as was the make up they had. Some of the dances were quite beautiful as there was a wide variety of dances performed. I distinctly remember the facial expressions and movement of their eyes in some of the dances. The last one ended with the Balrong dance which is a mythical spiritual creature which had this massive costume with two people controlling it. It was most enjoyable.

Next up, the nearby island of Nusa Lembongan with its magical white sand beaches and turquoise waters. There was a very chill vibe on the island. I did some diving there which on the second dive I witnessed some of the most phenomenal corals I’d ever seen. It seemed to go on and on forever and covered my entire view.

Our last stop in Bali found us back on the beach, this time in the central district of Seminyak. We spent our last remaining days eating awesome meals, doing some shopping and lots of beach time. The waves were quite strong an crashed to shore with such power. There was a really strong undercurrent which even caught Jaclyn and I one afternoon where we struggled back to shore. The next day we saw the lifeguards rescue two separate groups of kids that were caught in the current. The town was tourist central as everything catered to the masses, most of whom were Aussies. It too had a fun atmosphere and felt alive, even though there was nothing really cultural about it, we still had a blast. Seminyak was a perfect end to our time in Bali.

I am now sitting on our flight to Jakarta looking down as Bali passes beneath. In 40hours we will be touching down back home in Vancouver to have our lives return to some semblance of normal, at least as normal as we want it to be in our own way.

Our last portion of the longest honeymoon - ever! , found us arriving in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta with its population of over 20 million people. We hired a driver who had told us that traffic would be “hellish” because of the countries independence day the previous day and the normal gridlock traffic in the city. He offered us a police escort for our entire 8hrs we would be there, all for a very nominal fee. We could not pass up the opportunity. We waited outside and immediately knew which car was ours as it arrived with a flashing light preceded by two police on motorbikes. We hopped in the vehicle and were driven away being led by our two police officers who had lights flashing. It was one of the coolest experiences that I’ve ever had and one I will never forget. We felt like royalty and our motorcycle escort parted the traffic for us like it was the red sea. 

We were taken to visit the old port where we were shown around and got to go on one of the traditional indonesia cargo boats. The scene looked like something out of the past as they were all large wooden vessels being loaded mainly by hand but some had simple cranes with rope nets to haul the load. We visited a few of the other well known sites throughout the city like the old Dutch historic building, and the national monument, all the while being led by our formidable escort. It was so cool to have them and it certainly made such a difference in how quick we got through the gridlock traffic. It was quite amusing getting to see the passers by looking into our vehicle to try and see who we were. The police led us wherever they wanted and in whichever lane or not, that they chose. They constantly blared their sirens to alert the upcoming traffic we were coming and then got the cars to move aside for us to get through. They had a unique procedure they did by weaving their motorbikes from side to side they could get the cars to move apart to make enough room for our vehicle to pass, all the while waving their hands and directing the traffic. They certainly were great at what they did and our driver told us that these two cops were  the main ones used for big political and royal visitors to Jakarta, so they definitely knew what they were doing. This was an unbelievable end to our trip. I couldn’t stop smiling the whole time we were in the vehicle as it was priceless. We were taken back to the airport with our boys of the badge leading the way one last time before boarding our flight home via Hong Kong.

Well that closes up the final chapter of the trip to Thailand and Indonesia, as well as closes the book on our year long adventure. Indonesia was yet another warm and beautiful country with more stunning beaches and waters and a vibrant culture in Bali. It felt very surreal that the year was over and we certainly had mixed emotions. It had been one of the most incredible years of our lives and one we would never ever forget. We had learned so much about the world we had seen, the cultures, the sights, the people as well as our own personal journeys we had gone on and the ones as a couple. We were now one year going on seven in our marriage. Spending that much time together speeds up the marriage seven-fold, but for the better. It will certainly take some time for everything to really sink in about the scope and depth of what we had just completed and accomplished The memories will last a lifetime. I am speechless and blessed to have had the opportunity to do a trip like this with my wife. We are so lucky for what we did and what we experienced. Where to begin and where to end?

I would like to thank everyone for taking the time to read my emails, especially those who have read them in their entirety. I sincerely hope that you have all enjoyed them. I have enjoyed writing them as we have now concluded our phenomenal year abroad.

Until the next trip.

Signing off for the last time,

Here is Thailand in all her beauty. 

Jaclyn and I arrived in Bangkok on Canada Day in which the Land of Smiles quickly reacquainted us with her heavy rains as we ran from between train stations. FInally settled and quite exhausted from almost 29hrs of travelling we were in our hotel in the heart of the capital. We wanted to go and see the cities nightlife but didn’t even make it very far from the hotel, with Jaclyn fast asleep in the taxi and me on the verge we packed it in. The next day we headed to backpacker central, Khao San road to pick up a few necessary supplies for our journey before we flew down to Krabi for our first taste of the beaches. We spent our next three nights on Tub Kaek beach just north of Ao Nang and Railay. We ate some awesome Thai food and sat on the beach staring out towards the limestones karats rising from the turquoise ocean. These islands make up part of the famous Phang Nganational park in which the Bond movie, “the man with the golden gun” was filmed. It certainly was quite a picturesque setting.

After some good relaxation we were off to the next chill spot on the island of Koh Lanta. Its low season this time of year and the ferries weren’t running so we had to take a minivan taxi. We arrived at Phra Ae situated on a gorgeous stretch of long beach. Once more our days were filled with relaxing, swimming, chilling and getting amazing Thai massages for so cheap. Unfortunately the second day we were there a strong current had brought ocean garbage to the shore and covered the beach in rubbish. It was quite sad to see as this is just a minute portion of the garbage that we dump in our beautiful seas. The staff told us that they even found bottles from as far away as Singapore and the Maldives. 

One morning we rented a motorbike, Jaclyn hopped on the back and we whisked off to the middle of the island to seek out Mai Keow cave. We arrived at these little shacks in the middle of the forest and waited for a guide to take us on our venture. We had a lovely hike through the jungle clambering up dried up waterfalls until we finally arrived at the entrance to the cave. We donned our headlamps and descended into the darkness, making our way down rickety makeshift wooden ladders. It was an impressive cave with such variety. We splunked through the cave for about an hour checking out the interesting spiders and crickets that call the cave home, along with a few little bats, some of which we could hear and feel as they flew past our heads. The cave had some stalagmites and stalactites throughout and the rocks were a mixture of red and yellow colours, some points with earth’s artistic in full view in streaked patterns on the rock wall. One part of the cave was like we were walking through a long man made tunnel, while other parts had us clambering over bamboo that bridged drop offs into the black. There were two areas in which we literally had to get on our belly’s and crawl through narrow openings to make it to the other side, all the while sweating profusely and longing for air that wasn’t so stagnant. At last we got a glimmer of light that got brighter as we neared, the exit. Our guide took us back on a different path through the jungle, this time we passed a small rubber plantation. The rubber trees had their bark peeled off in rings and then a spout was hammered into the trunk to allow the white sap to drip out into small bowls that collected the liquid which then solidified into a “rubbery” white mass.

From Koh Samui we took a speedboat across to the nearby island of Koh Phi Phi Don. The wind unfortunately picked up just before we left and gave us an very bumpy and scary ride across. Our next five nights were spent chilling on the white sands of the islands north east coast. One day I went across to Koh Phi Phi Ley, the smaller island neighbour to the south to do some diving. The diving was awesome, the first dive we went around one of these limestone karst pinnacles that rose from the ocean floor about 20 metres below. Coral and life abound on the vertical wall of the limestone. The second dive we had poor visibility but managed to get a great sighting of a Hawksbill Turtle feeding on bubble coral, the dive ended with an awesome view of a magnificent Leopard Shark. We watched it for a while as the shark just lay on the sandy bottom, its gills pushing the water and oxygen into its body. It was a unique looking shark, firstly, its clour was like a military drab green and secondly, its fins were longer, slender, less pointed and angled back more than the average shark. Hanging onto its bottom lip was a large remora, one of the cleaning fish, a lovely symbiotic relationship.

The next day Jaclyn and I decided we were going to do the tour of the area by boat. We were taken down to Koh Phi Phi Ley where we were shown some lovely bays before arriving at Loh Sameh bay. From there we swam to shore and ascended a sketchy contraption of ropes and wood to get onto the island. We walked a little bit before walking out of the jungle at Maya Bay. Maya Bay is THE beach from the movie “The Beach”. It was quite stunning to see as the limestones surrounded the entire bay except for a tiny opening to the ocean. It was obviously packed with other tourists as this is one of the main attractions on the island and in Thailand’s Andaman Sea. We got back to our boat and were taken back to Koh Phi Phi Don where we stopped at monkey beach. We got off the boat and saw a whole bunch of monkey’s, Long-tailed Macaques to be specific, running around. A few of them were quite interested in these two ladies who were wearing sarongs. The monkeys kept playing with the sarongs and looking up the legs, little perverts. It was quite innocent. I was taking some photos and noticed a large male chilling on the rocks. I began photographing him when another smaller monkey jumped in-between us. It looked at me as if it were jealous or annoyed. I didn’t really pay much attention to it. All of a sudden a bunch of other monkeys gathered around my feet, looking for food or something. The jealous one jumped down and then out of nowhere I felt a very sharp pain in my leg. I looked down to see a monkey looking up at me with possessed eyes with its mouth firmly placed around the side of my calf, little bastard. I quickly shook it off and the captain of our boat came over to get the rest of the monkeys away from me, they had all become quite aggressive.

From there we ended up going just down the beach a bit to do some snorkelling before returning to our hotel. Once there I went to first aid and found out that I would have to go to the hospital for a rabies vaccine. We took a longtail boat into the main town of Tonsai and went to the hospital where I was given a rabies vaccine and found out I would need four more spread out throughout the next month. Upon returning to the hotel we found out from our friend Jeff who’s a doctor in Toronto, that I would need to get another injection of rabies immunoglobin. The next day Jaclyn and I went back to Tonsai and went back to the hospital to ask if they had it, which they did. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. It turns out it is quite expensive which is why they don’t’ give it to most people in Thailand, whereas in the Western World it always accompanies a rabies vaccine. It turns out I needed to get a ridiculous amount of immunoglobin injected into me. First they tested to see if I was allergic to it by injecting a little bit under my skin on my forearm. It stung so much and the skin bubbled up, all normal. Then I had to wait 15minutes, no reaction. During this time I was quite nervous about getting two of the biggest needles I had ever seen before, with 18cc’s of immunoglobin injected into the bite and both butt cheeks. It turned out that it didn’t sting and hurt at all, it just felt uncomfortable feeling the pressure of that much liquid being injected into my body. The staff at the hospital were amazing and very professional, I was so impressed with them. We then walked through town checking out the nightlife and vibe of Tonsai, the main backpacker hangout on Koh Phi Phi, all the while feeling like my rear end was twice the size it had been an hour ago. We ate some amazing thai seafood bbq and ended our time on Koh Phi Phi.

Next day we headed back to Krabi to fly over to Koh Samui. We had hoped to catch the last ferry up to Koh Tao but didn’t make it till the next day. i got to visit another Thai hospital of vaccine number two, at least I’m getting to see another side of Thailand. Koh Tao is a tiny island in the Gulf of Thailand and certifies more divers than any other location in the world. The island is less than 7km long and 5km wide yet it has over 50 dive shops. Needless to say I would needed to do some diving here. I did two awesome dives the first day before deciding to do some extra specialty course. Over the next two days I got certified in Nitrox EAN40 and deep diving. The nitrox is a different air mixture that helps with no decompression limits and gives added safety and the deep diving just gives me added confidence. The last day was my two deep dives and the first one I went out to Chumphon Pinnacle, Koh Tao’s premier dive site. My instructor was an awesome dude from Montreal. We ended up getting down to 38.7metres, 126 feet. By far the deepest I had ever gone. Once we hit 34metres on our descent we entered the thermocline, the visibility went from about 25m to about 1m. It was as if we had descended into a murky cloud. One of the coolest feeling was when we emerged from it. It was as if we had taken off on a plane on a very overcast day and then we broke through the clouds to reveal the blue sky, except it was crystal clear waters with huge schools of fish swimming all around us and around the pinnacle that is Chumphon. It was such a huge boost of confidence for me considering I’ve had a few issues with diving that rattled me a little. I felt like I was on cloud 9 aftern doing that dive. I was so impressed with JP and Scuba Junction who I dove with. In all my training I’d never been with such a professional company and had such an awesome instructor. I was certainly very lucky, and I also rocked it on my theory exams for the courses. Jaclyn did two dives on Koh Tao which she really enjoyed. The visibility had been quite good and the coral and marine life were also enjoyable to check out. That quickly ended our 3 days on Koh Tao. 

The afternoon after my deep dive we took the ferry over to the island to the south, Koh Phangan. We had arrived in perfect time, that evening was the world famous Full Moon Party where thousands of people descend to party till the sun comes up. We arrived at Haadrin beach, aka sunset beach via boat and were blown away by the scene. The crescent shaped beach bookended by cliffs was alive with lights and the sound of base. It was quite a sight to behold. As we disembarked we entered into one of the funnest parties I have ever seen. The atmosphere and vibe were incredible. It was such a happy place and everyone was there to just have a good time. Jaclyn and I wandered up and down the beach checking out the different bars and accommodation places that had opened onto the sandy beach. Lining the beach were about a hundred stalls all selling different types of alcohol and some with a variety of food. Each location had their own individual scene going on complete with their own DJ’s and music. Some had firedancers twirling their sticks with the ends emblazed with fire while others Thai firedancers swung little balls of fire attached to chains around in a mesmerizing trance. It was awesome to watch. Further down the beach another bar had taken a huge thick rope and set it on fire and swung it like a skipping rope in which many tourists attempted to skip the flaming rope. Nobody seemed to get burnt quite surprisingly, unless one got really entangled in it. Later they brought out the ring of fire where people dove through it onto the sand. Another place had a waterside set up from the second story roof down onto a large air mattress, smaller females flew down and bounced right off the mattress onto the sand or into the legs of an onlooker. The scene was alive and people were dancing everywhere, many were decked out in neon paint, which does not come of clothes, as hard as one may try. We wandered through the streets of the town which were filled with more people. The remainder of the night we spent chilling and dancing on the beach. My night ended with me having one last bucket of Sangsom thai whiskey, red bull and coke. Something I didn’t need but polished off anyway. Needless to say that ended my memory for the night as I succumbed to the blackouts associated with Sangsom. All in all an amazing experience at the Full Moon Party. We heard rumours that the Thai’s were saying it was one of the largest they had ever seen. By the end of the night the beach had become so packed that it was getting hard to move amongst the people. The evening was awesome but the next day was not, I felt horrible and had to return to get rabies vaccine #3 at the hospital in Thongsala. We ended up checking out the town after and enjoyed some awesome street food in the market before returning to our abode. The remainder of our time on Koh Phangan was spent chilling on the beach. I spent one day going diving to one of the premier dive sites in the Gulf of Thailand, Sail Rock. It was incredible and was teething with life and a plethora of schools of fish. I even saw some very funky boxer and anenome shrimp.

That brings us to Koh Samui where we are presently situated for our last 5 nights in the Gulf of Thailand. Jaclyn and I are loving our time in the Land of Smiles. This is certainly the perfect end to an incredible year abroad, with the lovely, warm people, delightful food and glorious beaches - Thailand really is a little slice of paradise.

This is the final catch up email to get you all up to speed. 

I left Madagascar and had a long journey through Joberg to finally arrive in Amsterdam to meet my parents. A few hours later Jaclyn met us after her journey in Cape Town and Switzerland. At last the full Dayson clan was reunited.

We were all pleasantly surprised with Amsterdam and the lovely buildings and canals that give the city its uniqueness. Our days were spent wandering around and visiting places like the stunning royal palace followed by the Ryksmuseum. We had a lovely relaxing canal ride which took us to see the various corners of the city via boat. That was followed by a bus ride which culminated in a trip to the Heineken experience. The Heineken factory is like a museum that tells the story about the beer, the brand and the making of it, all done with some Dutch funk and flash to it. The experience ended with a lovely sample of some excellent Dutch Heineken which yes, even my parents indulged in. We sampled de Dutch pannekoek, yummy and had to avoid the hoards of bikers that take over the streets and bike lanes. It was great to see so many people biking, I’ve never seen a city with so many bikers. Even business men in full suits were on bikes.

Our short time in Amsterdam ended during  the famous Queen’s Day weekend celebrations. It began on Friday night and carried on to the climax of Saturday and night. It seemed like everybody in the city was out celebrating and all were wearing hats, scarves, and clothing that was brightly coloured orange. The streets were closed off to allow the hoards of people to wander amidst the smells of chocolate waffles, other food delicacies and beer stands all accented with the vibrant orange colours. It was a wonderful vibe and the streets were full. Canal boats were jam packed with locals drinking and dancing to music, the city was alive and it was like that for our last 36 hours we were in the city. 

From there we flew off to the Czech Republic to visit the capital, Prague.

It was a gorgeous city but was so cold while we were there, I almost froze after being used to the 30 plus degrees in Madagascar and arriving with about 10 celsius in Prague, brrrr. Prague was a beautiful city with such history and character to it. It is fortunate that it was one of the few cities in Europe that didn’t get severely damaged or decimated during WWII and we were thankful as we gazed upon the many heritage buildings. We spend a few days touring the various sights including the impressive Prague Castle which overlooked the city and the Vltava river. Over the river crosses the famous Charles bridge. In the middle of the old town was the old square which on our first night had all these food stands selling local food. I especially loved this great pastry that was rolled on a stick and cooked and then sprinkled with sugar. 

We went to visit many of the beautiful churches and cathedral with the Church of St. Nicholas being the most impressive with marble everywhere, dad even pointed out that these hundred foot columns were made from single pieces of marble. Jaclyn and I ventured up the numerous towers that adorn the city skyline, affording great views below. 

Prague had a very vibrant Jewish community prior to the Holocaust and there are still many beautiful synagogues that remain. The Nazi’s intention was to have Prague’s synagogues preserved and at the end of the war they would have museums in them to show the world the artifacts and history of the extinct Jewish people. Thank god good prevailed. Today Prague has lovely old synagogues with lots of different beautiful Jewish artifacts that were collected after the war

, some of the synagogues are now turned into museums, one of which has a very old cemetery. They started to run out of room in the cemetery so they began building the cemetery up, creating different layers. Today the cemetery is literally bursting at the seams with some areas over 19 layers deep. Gravestones were crammed next to each other, some had fallen down and were half buried in the grass, while others had moss growing in the carved name of the deceased on the tombstone. The atmosphere was like something out of a surreal ghost movie, with a lovely rock wall surrounding the cemetery and large deciduous trees breaking up the sea of tombstones. We went to a small service at the oldest of the synagogues which had a very rustic ancient feel to it. Dad and I were inside while Jaclyn and Mum had to peer through the almost arrow slit holes in the wall behind.

Our evenings were spent going to some`lovely classical music concerts with varieties of string quartets, some of which had an opera singer, and some had the melodious sounds of the church organ accompanying the music. One was in an old church, another the lovely Spanish synagogue and the last in a monastery in a room with lovely frescoes adorning the ceiling. Our time in Prague finished off by visiting Petrin park and taking the funicular railway up to see the tallest Eiffel tower in the world, the only thing making it higher, and only by 2 metres is its point above sea level. It also is tiny in comparison but a funny joke in Prague. 

Prague was a delightful city to wander the little alleyways and streets, all the while being able to enjoy a cold beer if one wanted too, which I certainly did because there aren’t many places in the world you can walk around and drink a beer, certainly nowhere in North America - boo.

Next up was the romantic capital of the world, Italy, and the old Roman Empire’s capital, Rome. Our time was spent visiting the ancient sites of the proud Roman Empire. We visited the Colosseum, my first time back to Italy since 1994 and I was even more impressed with the Colosseum. One afternoon we wandered around the outside of it looking up and imaging what it would have looked like when it was built during the height of the Roman Empire, the next day we went inside it and pictured the battles between the gladiators and the raucous crowd cheering them on, it must have been quite a sight to behold. Later we entered the old Roman Forum, then the Pantheon where Mum wasn’t allowed in, because she missed the last entrance while Dad and Jaclyn were inside, somehow they let me in but not Mum, sorry Mum. The Pantheon used to have the world’s largest domed roof. Everywhere you walk around Rome there seem to be some ancient ruins dotted throughout the city. You turn a corner and see a stunning, intricately carved column rising up hundreds of feet in the air and built around 2000 years ago, incredible. One afternoon we spent visiting the famous Vatican Museum and seeing the breathtaking Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basillica. The art in the Vatican i some of the best you can see in the world and such gorgeous rooms and collections of wonders from around the world. 

One evening I headed to Stadio Olympico to get my first taste of European Club football (soccer).  i went to see AS Roma host AC Milan. It was an old stadium filled with crazy fans. The section to my right was the rowdy Roma fans who were separated from my section by this large plexiglass wall, on the other side of them was a line of security guards and then another plexiglass wall and beyond that the visiting AC Milan fans. Shortly before kickoff they began throwing red flares into the Roma section and then they started letting off incredibly loud bangers that echoed throughout the stadium. Through the game the tension between the opposing fans built with each side egging each other on and yelling nasty chants back and forth. Finally midway through the first half the AS Roma fans charged through the line of security and rushed the plexiglass. Both sides were yelling and hitting the wall. At the bottom of the wall a few individuals were trying to hit each other by whipping sweaters from side to side but to no avail, that was amusing to watch. It wasn’t the most entertaining game as it ended 0-0 and AC Milan were crowned Champions of the Serie A league for the season’s best record. The celebration was most enjoyable to watch.

Rome seemed to have everything for the senses, good food, art, wine, amazing monuments and ruins. Our days were totally full touring around as we went from site to site and visited popular areas like  the Spanish steps, piazza navonna, VItor Emmanuel monument and the Trevi fountain. I was so impressed with my parents, they were like the energizer bunny duo, they just kept going and going, at times I felt like it was hard to keep up with them, it was awesome.

We took the train up to Florence and spent a few days checking out the beautiful city. We began by checking out the monstrosity of a cathedral, the Duomo followed by one of the most beautiful synagogues I’d seen. We spent more time going to some of the famous museums of Florence such as the Uffizi, which was a little disappointing. Then mum and I went to visit academie museum which house some of Michelangelo’s famous sculptures including David.

The next day we took a brief side trip by train to Pisa, it was Dad’s excellent suggestion to go and it was such a wonderful call. We went to see the famous leaning tower of Pisa and we were all shocked how much it actually leans. There is a 17ft difference from the position of it from top to bottom to give you some perspective. Jaclyn and I climbed up the tower, it was quite weird as we walked up it, some parts it seemed like one was walking up stairs that were flat, while the other side of the tower a few steps ahead seemed much more difficult due to the angle of the lean. The view from the top was amazing as we looked across to the lovely white buildings of the cathedral and basilica all surrounded by lovely manicured green grass.  The lean was very evident and became quite difficult to walk in some areas. I was a little scared due to my fear of heights but it was still awesome. Pisa was certainly one of those unexpected highlights of the trip.

From Florence it was off to see the water city of Venice. It was so beautiful to wander the streets amid the quaint canals that make this city so famous. It was so picturesque. We of course had to do the gondola ride, no trip to Venice is complete with out it. Jaclyn and I did one and sent mum and dad to have some romantic quality time on one of their own. Jaclyn and I went to this fancy restaurant where we got adventurous and decided to have the ten course surprise menu. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. We had some very interesting food such as pigeon, foie gras, duck, venison, scampi and some very funky sauces, all with beautiful presentation. We were put over the top by an incredibly delicious desert tray that was divine. 

Venice was awesome as we walked around checking out some of the sites like San Marco square, Rialto bridge, the old Jewish ghetto and its 3 synagogues, and the Doge Palace which was so impressive and gorgeous inside. Many of these famous palaces and some museums have so elaborate decorations in the rooms. One evening we went in search of a restaurant and were taken by an elderly lady who was walking so briskly through these little alleyways, we had trouble keeping up with her as she wound her way through the streets, past little coffee shops, churches and courtyards before showing us the spot, which in the end we didn’t eat at.

That ended our time in Italy as we flew off to jolly ole’ England full from the pasta, gelatto and wine. We began in Manchester so that I could take Jaclyn to nearby Liverpool to see my favourite team play. We hopped on the train and made our way to one of the most iconic and famous football stadiums in the world, Anfield. I was ecstatic to be there, it had been 30 plus years in the making for me to get there. I browsed the gift shop for a while like a kid in a candy store, wanting everything. Then we checked out the awesome museum before walking through the gates and into the coveted stadium. I was on such a high being in there and when the teams were announced and the fans began singing the renowned song “You’ll never walk alone” I sang along so proud and happy. It was such an amazing feeling to be there, it was like a dream come true for me, unfortunately Liverpool lost 2-0 to Tottenham. I didn’t mind that they had lost I just would have loved to have seen them score a goal - oh well.

Jaclyn and I returned to Manchester and the next day the four of us headed south. 

We stopped off to visit those weird rocks, that nobody know how they got there, 

Stonehendge. When I had last been there when I was a wee lad, you were allowed to walk right up to the stones, now it is roped off but had a lovely audio tour. Next stop was Bath where we strolled the streets and checked out the old Roman Baths which give the city its name. 

We stopped in Chichester for a few nights where we spent time in nearby Emsworth to see where my parents first lived after they got married. We walked up to see the house that they lived in which was wonderful to see the two of them reminisce about the past. Some of their good friends live there and we spent some time with them hearing stories about Dad and Adrian causing trouble together and starting their first jobs with one another as engineers.

We stopped in Portsmouth to visit the port which was home to one of the oldest warships in the world, the HMS Victory. When I was little I was very into Lord Admiral Nelson, a famous captain who led the British Armada to victory over the combined French and Spanish fleets. He commanded from the HMS Victory and unfortunately was mortally wounded. I had visited the ship a few times prior to 1987 but it was my first time back and I loved every minute of it. It was such a wonderful feeling to be back somewhere that had such fantastic memories for me.

Next on the agenda was London. Jaclyn and I ended up staying with our friends Dan & Emily who we had met a few months earlier in the Maldives. They were such awesome hosts as we stayed with them for ten nights. London was so incredible as we toured the sights with my parents and by night went for fabulous meals and drinks with Dan & Emily. We also met up with two other friends from back home who were now living in London. We spent a fair bit of time visiting old family friends of my parents, it was great to see them again, many of them were friends from my parents youth or when they were in their twenties. It was lovely  to see them reminisce with each other as they told funny stories as they reconnected.

We obviously did many of the sites in London as there is so much to see and do. London truly is a marvellous city. We hit up St. Paul’s, Big Ben, PIccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square,  Tower Bridge, the Tower of London, museum of nature, museum of science, V&A museum, boat ride down the Thames to name but a few. It was awesome. London is such an easy city to get around with the double decker buses and the Underground.

One of our first afternoons in London I took my dad and Dan to a football match in Fulham between Fulham and Arsenal. it was an absolute cracker of a game. It was the first time my dad and I went to a football match together in England, surprising considering we lived there for 8 1/2 years. It was definitely worth the wait and was priceless to see how much dad really enjoyed it, as did I.

One of the highlights of our time in England was getting to go back to Hadley Wood, just north of London where we had lived. It was exciting because we were going to show Jaclyn where I had grown up for the first time. We arrived in the train station and walked up the brick walled staircase up to the main street. We took the short stroll to our old street before arriving at 2a Lancaster Avenue. The house looked the same the only difference was MY tree. When I was around 5 years old I took a conker (chestnut) and planted it. It began to grow and before we left we planted it in the front yard. In 2008 I had an 8hr layover and went up to see my tree, now 3 years later I was just as happy to see it. It is now a gorgeous oak tree that is about 30 feet tall, standing proud and making me proud that I helped to give this tree life. It was so nostalgia for me to see my tree and be back in Hadley Wood in front of our old house. There were so many wonderful memories coming back to me. 

We continued to walk around town and went to visit my old school. We walked around the back and managed to find that the office was open. The lady let me go inside which was very overpowering for me. I walked into the old gymnasium and distinctly had a flash of memories come back to me.  I remembered sitting at my table that was set up in there at lunch time, eating my peanut butter and honey sandwich having burping competitions with friends. The wooden climbing frame on the wall looked the same as did some of the classrooms on the main floor. It was so cool getting to go back into the school where I had attended as a little british school boy.

Our adventure took us down some more streets where we crossed the little brick bridge where I had a bike accident and smashed my face, ouch. We headed back to the main street and went to the candy store where Dad bought me Maltesers and Rolo’s like he had done when I was young. From there we walked through town and across to the nearby town of Barnett. Visiting Hadley Wood was amazing. It was such a lovely town in my memories and was still very much the same nowadays.

After a morning of touring the museums, dad and I headed off on our own for a trip down memory lane. As a child one of my favourite places to go to was the RAF (royal air force) museum in Hendon.  I was very excited to go back with dad as it was a regular occurrence for us while we lived in England. Much had changed but a big portion of it was as I had remembered it. 

The time in Hadley Wood, RAF Museum and HMS Victory had brought such a wash of emotions. It is such a unique feeling as one walks around trying to remember something and at the same time not really being sure you do remember it, then all it takes is turning a different angle or seeing something else and a flood of memories come crashing back with such overwhelming feelings and emotions, it is awesome. 

It was so refreshing to be back in England. It was only the second time since we had moved back to Canada in 1987, that  I was back and it was wonderful to see all the lush greeness of the the countryside. 

The nostalgia of England especially Hadley Wood, RAF museum, HMS Victory blew me away. Many of the places we visited were quite emotional for me, in a positive way. I was impressed by how much I remembered of the various sites we went back too, especially since I was not even 9 when we moved back to Canada.

Jaclyn and I left my parents in London as we flew off to Amsterdam for one final night before returning home. Part II of the trip had flown by. Africa had been incredible as had Europe. It was so amazing to get to spend such quality time with my parents as we travelled with them for a little over a month. It is definitely something special that I will always treasure fondly and I look forward to the next time that Jaclyn and I will be able to travel with them again. I would like to thank my parents from the bottom of my heart for their generosity and kindness and for travelling with us through Europe.

That now gets you all up to speed with Part II. There is one last email to come from Part III.

Thanks again for those reading.

Until next time,

Well I know I’m a quite behind on writing this email but it is better late than ever.

Madagascar was a country that had called to me for years. The imagines of natural beauty, a people so kind yet so poor and most importantly those furry little creatures that bounce from branch to branch, the Lemurs. This land had been like  a magnet to me, I yearned to be there and now…

Finally I arrived on the island, the 4th largest in the world, in the capital, Antananarivo. Try saying that ten times quickly. I landed on a bright sunny April afternoon amidst the rolling hills and rice paddies. I was on my own for the first time as Jaclyn was staying behind in Cape Town. I was met by my driver, Popo, who for the next 11 days would take me to the sights in the south of Madagascar.

We quickly headed south with a stopover for the night in Antsirabe. The next day I went to visit a small place that made a variety of artwork from cow’s horns. It was quite fascinating to see how they made it. They made a lovely bird in about five minutes. From there we headed south to Ranomafana National Park.

Ranomafana was a beautiful lush rainforest that was home to many different species of Lemurs and Sifaka’s, relatives of Lemurs and slightly larger. I had 3 days that I spent hiking through the park with a local guide and his nephew, a guide in training. My first morning I was so eager as we headed out on the trails, I anxiously awaited my first sighting of a Lemur. Within the first hour of hiking up and down the trails we came across one. It was such a thrill for me as my heart began to race with excitement, I looked up on the trunk of the tree and there hanging on the edge was an adorable little ball of brown fur and wide eyes gazing down at me with these little cute almost Gizmo, Gremlin ears. It was a Golden Bamboo Lemur and its fur seemed to shimmer with different colours depending on how the light hit it. I was shocked by how small they were, I was expecting them to be much larger but their bodies, without the long tail, were no longer than the length of my hand to elbow.

My days were filled hiking in search of the various primates (Lemurs & Sifaka’s), birds and reptiles. Late afternoon, into early evening we headed out in search of chameleons. Around this time they come down to the edge of trails to find thin branches to sleep on, this makes it hard for predators to get them but easy for us to find them. Chameleons are incredible reptiles that can move their eyes 180 degrees and have the ability to change the colour of their skin to blend in with their environment. They are very slow moving creatures that seem at times to rock back and forth as they creep forward. We managed to find quite a few species ranging in size and colour. 

Madagascar is a nature lover’s paradise as it is home to such a wide variety of endemic (only found here) animals. The primates in Madagascar are all endemic, there are over 300 types of birds with majority being endemic and then there are all the other funky insects and reptiles, especially the huge numbers of chameleons, snakes, frogs etc. I was certainly in my element here and the clicking of my camera became a part of the noises of the jungle. 

My time in Ranomafana was amazing as we ended up finding six species of Lemur and one species of Sifaka. The sifaka was one called a Milne-Edwards and they are very black with a white patch on their chest. They are much larger than the Lemurs and have a rounder even cuter face. They are even more impressive to watch them leap about as they literally launch off a tree trunk and move through the air sideways but vertical and snag on to the next trunk or branch with such ease and elegance. They are incredible to see in flight. One of the cutest of the Lemurs I found was a type called a Sportive Lemur. They are mainly nocturnal and in the day are found nestled in the hollows of tree trunks. They are so tiny and have these adorable wide orange eyes that stare at you in complete wonder. We also found a nice Tree Boa rapped up around a branch and then I got to see one of the most bizarre insects I’ve ever seen. It is called a Giraffe necked Weavil. It is a tiny little insect about the size of a thumbnail. They have a red body with black legs and a funny looking long black neck, about three times the length of the body hence their name. My last afternoon we went to find the world’s largest chameleon, Parson’s Chameleon. They were massive with a light vibrant green colour and yellow on the top of the body. They looked prehistoric and this species is well over two feet long plus the tail.

From Ranomafana I went to Fianarantsoa. I explored the town and went to visit the market. I became quite the attraction after asking some children if I could take their photo, they agreed and then I showed them the picture. Soon enough I was able to take all sorts of great photos in return for showing them what it looked like. So many of the children were so excited to see pictures of themselves. A number of them wanted me to keep taking photos of them as they posed in a variety of ways. It was such a pleasure to see the true innocence of these kids who were living in one of the poorest countries in the world, yet they, like the adults were so happy. As long as they had food and shelter this population was happy, they didn’t know any better or what they were missing. It was such a pleasure to be in such a happy country, one that was so clean and so beautiful in a plethora of ways. I left the market and headed off to get a much needed haircut. I found a tiny little shack that just had enough room for me and the barber and his seven different hair clippers. 

That afternoon I headed up to visit the old town called Haute-ville. I walked up the hill and was swarmed by a whole bunch of school girls trying to sell me their cards that they had made. I decided to get one from five different ones but didn’t have enough change so i paid one to split the money with the others. I continued along my way and then a few minutes later some of the girls came up to me saying that the one I paid was not sharing the money. I went and got the money and then went to a shop to split it 5 ways. Oh the trouble with little school girls is the same the world over. I ventured around Haute-ville and saw a monument stating that this was on the monument watch as one of the world’s 100 most threatened historic sites. It was a gorgeous old town with quaint buildings built around these narrow walkways that climbed up the hill. I was taken around by a young boy named Daniel who spoke amazing English as well as a few other languages. He didn’t ask for money, instead he wanted me to buy him a school notebook which I did. We continued on our tour andI were shortly joined by another school girl and then a university aged man. They too wanted me to buy them school books. It was quite refreshing to see them ask for things to help their education as opposed to money and I happily obliged. They were all so happy and appreciative of my gesture.

My next adventure took me through such an incredible variety of countryside. It began leaving Fianarantsoa and going though some hilly areas filled with lots of rice paddies. The homes were made of brick and most were very basic two storey structures. Then we dropped down into a valley where I was surrounded by massive granite boulders and mountains a few hours later we were driving through a grassland plateau with absolutely nothing around for miles and miles. This place seemed rather void of villages, there was the odd one dotted here and there but overall much less than I had been seeing on my drive to this point. I was shocked how empty it was yet there were still people wandering around on foot, some of them literally in the middle of nowhere and had huge distances to cover to get to the next form of “civilization”, it was crazy to see how many were wandering in the grassland abyss. 

A short while later I entered my fourth type of landscape within a span of no more than 200km, as the grasslands gave way to these incredible sandstone mountains that seemed to rise out of the nowhere. It was amazing. Such a stunning country with such diverse landscape in such a short distance. My next chunk of time was spent amongst the sandstone mountains that make up Isalo National Park. It was some of the most stunning rock formations I had ever seen.

The next morning began early, like they all were, to maximize time in the park. We began in the grasslands and hiked towards the towering cliffs of sandstone. My guide showed me a ledge high up on the vertical cliff and told me that the local tribe place the bones of the deceased in these small coffins. He explained the situation that after an individual dies they place the body in a coffin and leave it in a small cave for it to decompose. When it is time they take the coffin and bring it back to the village where there are days of ceremony and celebration. The bones are taken out of the coffin and are cleaned till they are completely bare. The bones are then placed in a highly decorated small coffin and then It is time for a huge ritual ceremony which involves lots of alcohol. The men climb up these insane cliffs, free-climbing up to the ledge to place the coffin. The alcohol apparently helps them to overcome fear. To date nobody has fallen and there were quite a few of these coffins perched on the crevasse of the cliff. If a non-local is watching they are forced to consume ridiculous amounts of alcohol so that they will not remember the route that the climbers take up the cliff, not that if I remembered the route I would venture up in a suicide mission anyway.

We continued on our hike and ventured into two canyons, Canyon de Maki and Canyon De Rats. From a distance the first was shaped like a wine glass and the second like a beer glass. Maki means Lemur in Malagasy. The canyons were stunning and have lovely flowing rivers which had been carving away the rock walls of the canyon for thousands of years. The cliffs and rocks were a variety of reds and orange colours and were accented by bizarre and unique plants growing where they could. We hiked from one canyon to the next and found a group of Ring-tailed Lemurs hanging out in the trees. These are the iconic Lemurs that most people think of and picture. They are mainly grey and have distinctive tails marked with black and white rings running the entire length of the tail. They are adorable to look at, like all the Lemurs and they like their relatives make such cute little grunting noises. 

My last day in Isalo was exceptional. My guide, Roland took me on a wonderful hike that began in the forest where we managed to find two Verreaux’s Sifaka’s. They were the prettiest of the Lemur and Sifakas that I had seen so far. They had this thick white cream coloured fur which was highlighted by dark brown on the face and back. They looked so cuddly. I watched this male and female for over an hour as I bushwhacked through the forest to get a better glimpse and photo opportunity. I found this boulder that I climbed up and watched as they became so inquisitive of me. They had become used to me and fully realized that I posed no threat. The female began climbing down the tree which was directly next to where I was standing. She swung down and hung upside down from one of the branches just staring at me with such curiosity. She was so close to me, about three feet away. Then she reached out her arm as if she wanted to touch me and shake my hand. I extended my hand slowly and when I thought she was about to touch my hand she pulled back and jumped back up the tree. This was such a magical moment for me and one of the greatest wildlife encounters of my life. I was so enamoured by these gorgeous creatures who are struggling for survival in the small protected pockets within Madagascar.

Our hike continued out of the forest and into another canyon where we walked along the bottom of a partially dried up riverbed. We came to the end and found two small waterfalls with lovely pools beneath them in which I swam in. One of the falls dropped about 25-30 ft off an overhang, dropping into the large black pool of water. It was so refreshing and tranquil amidst the beauty of the canyon coupled with the sound of the flowing water pouring gently over the sandstone rocks. Our route then took us up out of the canyon where we walked on top of the cliffs. The landscape was spectacular with surrounding peaks of jagged and knurly sandstone massifs, everywhere I looked I was in awe.  

The fauna was incredible with species such as one called elephants foot which looked like a tiny baobab tree. Roland showed me a plant that in the days of the Queen it was used as a form of judgement of criminals. The sap was taken and mixed with tea. If a person drank it and vomited, then they were innocent, if they died then they were guilty. We descended into another canyon and found a small Ground Boa, a remarkable snake which I was able to pick up. I stood in this canyon with a trickling of water coming down this amazing rock wall with yellow and black colours in the sandstone, all the while holding this strikingly patterned snake. She was a small young one but still had such incredible strength in her body, they are after all constrictors.

From Isalo we had an early morning drive that took us through more lovely landscape in which we saw a beautiful sunrise amidst an eerie fog that hung in the bottom of a valley forest. We arrived in Zombitse National park where I did some hiking and birding. This time my guide was a great birder who could imitate all sorts of calls. He led the way and I followed, unfortunately he was shorter than I was because my face kept clearing the trail of all the spiderwebs that had been spun overnight. They were intriguing webs that were created by the golden web orb weaving spider. The threads were actually a golden yellow colour which I’d never seen before, and also very sticky.

My last adventure in the south found me nearby Ifaty in the town of Mangily. The weather here was scorching hot and the environment, once again, totally different. It was very desert like here and I went to visit Reniala Forest Reserve which was a spiny dry forest covered in sand. The place was full of Baobab trees and spiny octopus like trees called Dideracea. I thoroughly enjoyed it here as it was so very different. We found a small sportive Lemur, unique birds and insects too.

That afternoon after having lunch with some local fishermen who fed me their fresh catch, they took me to see the championship soccer match for Southern Madagascar. It was between Mangily and the nearby town. I arrived at the field and realized that it was not a field of grass but sand. Surrounding the edge were all the locals and the visiting supporters. It seemed like the whole town had come out to watch the game. It started off quite painfully slow but by the second half it picked up. After each goal the supporters would run onto the sandy pitch, the children would throw sand in the air and everyone would scream, then they would run back and sit down. The game became close and ended with much excitement, in the end the opposition won. I walked onto the field along with everyone else and congratulated a few of the players. The opposing team then asked me to get a celebratory team picture of them which was fun to do as I felt like a professional. 

The remainder of my time in the south I relaxed and did some diving in a lovely lagoon that unfortunately had been overfished.

Now it was time for part two. I flew up to the very north of the country and began exploring the parks up there. I was taken around by my guide for the next five days and an old German driver who smoked like a chimney. We began in Amber mountain where we went on hikes in the evening as well in search of chameleons where we found many. My guide Anjilean was excellent and had done work with BBC earth and national geographic. He really knew the parks and flora and fauna very well. 

We went to a place called Tsingy Rouge which was a chore getting to along a very long windy and undulating road that threw our bodies in every direction. Finally we arrived and hiked down to see this truly remarkable natural phenomenon. Tsingy Rouge are amazing sandstone formations that have been created by the wind and rain. They are like little pinnacles all tucked together forming loving patterns and have a red tinge to them, hence the name Tsingy Rouge. They were set against a lovely backdrop of deep red sand cliffs. My words do not do justice to the beauty of this place. It was like someone had taken all this colourful sand and poured it out of their hand into piles of cone shaped pinnacles placed next to each other all over and in different shapes, textures and sizes. It really was breathtaking.

Next stop was Ankarana National Park. I didn’t really know what to expect with this park and it blew me away. My first afternoon we hiked through the forest before making our way out into the limestone rock formations. Ankarana is known for its Tsingy limestone formations which are vast and impressive. They are found throughout much of the park and are different shades of grey. Some of the pinnacles are razor sharp and yet this park is also home to many Lemurs. One afternoon hike I sat staring out at the tsingy before me and spotted a family of Crowned Lemurs hopping amongst the tsingy pinnacles. They have adapted to the environment by building up extra calluses on their hands to protect them from the sharp rocks. It was awesome to watch them leap from one pinnacle and grab onto another one with its jagged edges. We spent quite a bit of time hiking through the tsingy as we walked on top of it, carefully ensuring where each foot would go so as not to step on a sharp piece or through a crevasse. One of the trails led us to these rope bridges that bridged the gap between to massive tsingy formations on either side of this canyon. It was awesome. We also wandered up and down them as we wound our way into the depths of the tsingy and found some great caves to explore in. Another hike took us to an old riverbed where part of the ground had collapsed and given way to this labyrinth of caves that were evident below. This park was remarkable and so beautiful.

Each night we did a night hike to see the nocturnal animals and mainly found lots of chameleons and snakes all the while hearing the sounds of the jungle. it was so calming being in nature whether night or day, there was a sense of relaxation that would overwhelm me. I was in my element here observing the beauty of the land and its marvellous animals.

The last portion of my trip took me to the island of Nosy Be on the northwest coast of Madagascar. Here i spent my days relaxing on the white sand beach and doing lots of diving. The diving here was some of the best I’d seen. Fantastic coral, huge pieces of fan coral and other soft corals. The fish were amazing and one on dive we dropped down to almost 100ft to see these little rock islands that sat on the ocean floor. We stayed on the sandy bottom watching the schools of fish circling above us, it was so idyllic as the sun rays were shining down from the surface giving a heavenly feeling to the sights. They were refracting all over and glistening on the fish.

One day I went to check out the local town to go and see some Malagasy fighting called Morengy. It was very different as the crowd formed a circle around an area on the field. In the middle individuals walked around with their fists up looking for an opponent. If two people agreed to fight each other then the fight was on and would be refereed. There didn’t seem to be many rules and the fighters were bare knuckled as they pummelled one another, all the while the crowd cheering them on. After the amateurs fighters were all done the professionals came in. It was quite strange as I had no idea who won a fight and how it worked because one pair would fight two rounds then another pair and it would go on like that and then just end. It certainly was an interesting cultural experience and was fascinating to watch.

My last big adventure took me to Lokobe national park. I arrived at this little village with a guide and we took a Malagasy canoe over to the southern part of the island through the mangroves and to the beach of the park. We hiked around for a bit and quickly came across a group of Black Lemurs. This family was quite habituated to humans and my guide began feeding them some banana’s.

The next ten minutes were priceless. I had one of the females jump on my back and just sit there and chill out. Julien started passing me pieces of banana and I fed the female on my shoulder. There was this young female that kept jumping on Julien and he kept shaking her off, finally I enticed her onto my shoulder with some banana, but it was hilarious to watch him try to get her off. He’d shake her off and she’d jump to a tree trunk then a split second would jump back on, it was like a funny comedy that I was watching.

Soon a male jumped on top as well and I had three Black Lemurs on my shoulder and head. It was awesome. The male didn’t stay on too long once he realized I was out of banana and then the adult female eventually got off too, leaving the young female on me. I got her and a few of the other Lemurs that were on tree trunks nearby me, to lick of the little pieces of banana left on my fingers, it was so cute to feel there little tongue. Then the youngster on me began licking my arm. I was sweating quite profusely and I think she was licking off the salty sweat, either way, she spent minutes licking my entire left arm, and then she started on my neck and briefly licked my forehead and ear. It was so funny, especially when she was licking my face, which made me giggle and laugh as it was almost tickling me. What an incredible experience and so weird, who would have thought a creature as cute as a Lemur would like my sweat, oh well. Eventually she got off and I stood there in awe at what had just transpired. So amazing. As we were about to leave, Julien told me that I had been pooed on by one of the Lemurs, most likely the young female who was on my shoulder for so long. They had an interesting smell that was a little unique. They smelt pretty good, but the poo did not, even though it had a hint of their scent in it. Hilarious that I got Lemur poo on me, I hope its good luck like getting bird poo on you.

My trip ended as it had begun, in the capital of Antananarivo. I spent some time wandering around and checking out the life no the streets. There were some lovely old buildings there, left over from the French colonial days. I found a lake in the middle of town with a big memorial in the middle. On one side of the lake was a collection of tiny little barber shacks, each with a number on the wooden door and a simple set up inside. The streets of Antananarivo were fascinating as I wound myself up and down the hilly streets. The market was very busy as people were selling all sorts of meat, fish, fruit and veggies. There was also a huge variety of rice and other grains that were laid out in sacks around the stalls. One part of the market extended up this pedestrian staircase that spread up the hill. And then as soon as it had begun, it ended. Three weeks in Madagascar was done. Now I was off to reunite with my wife and to meet my parents in Europe who we would spend our last month with touring Western Europe. 

I had had a fabulous time in Madagascar, one of the most amazing countries I’d ever been to, and easily amongst my favourite places I’ve ever visited. There had been struggles as the language barrier was very difficult to overcome, most of the population only speak French which even with over 12 years of learning I couldn’t remember. There were certainly many times when I felt very alone because I couldn’t communicate. However all in all it was totally worth it. 

The natural beauty is everywhere and the warmth of the simple people is so welcoming. It is sad that such an wonderful place is struggling. There is a leader who took over by coup d’etat and has decimated an already struggling economy. Many NGO’s were in the country to help out, including some big ones like World Health and World Bank but after the coup, they all left as did much of the other international support. It is heartbreaking to see  how a country with such potential is self-destructing at the hands of a greedy, money grubbing bastard. Parks boundaries are shrinking through the locals chopping down forests to make charcoal, there is such a lack of protection of the environment and parks due to a lack of funds, lack of education of the population and a lack of caring by the government. International environmental groups see Madagascar as a huge red flag and as a primary focus and concern. This stunning country must be preserved and protected so that future generations can enjoy its beauty. Madagascar is too unique and special to let more species of flora and fauna become a distant memory or a picture in a museum.

Sorry again for the delay in getting this. I still owe the Europe email which will be coming soon and then I will finish off with the current portion in SE Asia.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the last few installments of Jaclyn and my year abroad.

After leaving Tanzania, Jaclyn and I flew to Johannesburg for a night. The next morning we flew to Mauritius and unfortunately a few things that were supposed to join us on the plane did not. Firstly, Jaclyn’s dad and girlfriend, Marianne were due to meet us, however they got delayed and missed the flight. Secondly our luggage failed to get on the plane, as we had expected due to difficulties at Joberg airport, that place is a nightmare and notorious for bag problems.

                Anyway we had landed in the tiny island nation of Mauritius where we were staying with Ron’s childhood friend, Hilton and his wife, Lynda, at their beautiful home on the west coast in Tamarin. Our first day was spent enjoying their company and chilling on the beach and getting to swim in their awesome pool. Later that afternoon, Ron arrived and the trip could now properly begin. We spent five wonderful days in Mauritius eating fabulous meals and bbq’s, playing a little golf, relaxing on the beach and playing beach bats (a south African beach game with paddles and tennis ball, lots of fun). We also got our fill of adventure. I went scuba diving one morning and had an awesome dive where I saw many lionfish and dove through lovely coral strewn out between sandy bottoms. The temperature was so warm that like in Mozambique I didn’t even need a wetsuit, gotta love the tropics and the warm waters.

                One morning Jaclyn, Ron, Marianne and I went out on an atv ride through a private “game park”. None of the animals are local and were all brought into the country. We were taken through the park where we rode past zebra, eland (a type of antelope), other deer from around the world and some ostrich. I wasn’t a particular fan of this portion of the ride as I didn’t feel like we were out in nature since we were always near a fence. Then the ride quickly became awesome as we got to go out of the park and into the open fields and mountains surrounding the park. Mauritius is a beautiful island with a lovely coast line and had some impressive peaks that were covered with trees. The mountains were very reminiscent of the mountains on the islands in the South Pacific. We went through the hills enjoying the wonderful views we were afforded from the top of hills. We went through some rough terrain which was fun, but the best part was going through some rivers, one of which they let us go through a few times. Each time I went faster and faster getting Jaclyn and I completely drenched. Very refreshing and once again a most obliging wife, who didn’t have much choice in my childish antics, but she enjoyed it anyway.

                The next day we returned to the park where we to have a most unique experience. They have a breeding program for lions and they allow people to get to go for a walk in the park with the lions. The family that operates this breeding program, runs a number of other ones throughout parts of Southern Africa and their goal is to assist with reintroduction of certain species to the wild. It was great to learn about what they are doing as I think this is very commendable and something that is dear to my heart and incredibly vital to the survival of many of these beautiful animals. This is assuming that we continue on the slippery path we are travelling in which is not taking care of our planet and the wonderful creatures we share it with. Conservation is key but so is educating the locals in the importance of these animals and helping them be a part of it and getting financial benefit in the form of community programs etc.

Anyway, now that I’ve had my little rant we can get back to the lion walk. We got to walk with two beautiful little cubs. One was about a year old and the other was six months old. They gave us strict instructions to follow as even these little guys can pack a mean punch with their sharp claws and teeth. We were allowed to touch them but not on their heads. I was surprised by how soft their fur was, I was expecting it to be a little coarser that in it was. We got to spend an hour watching the two cubs play with each other and then climb up some branches were they would pose for photos as they were enticed with meat by the handlers. It was such an amazing experience to get to walk with these beautiful animals and something that I will never forget. The time flew by.

That was the end of our time in Mauritius. We had a wonderful time and I want to especially thank the incredible hospitality of our amazing hosts. From Mauritius the four of us flew through Joberg and onto to Cape Town. The next morning we rented a van and headed an hour out of the city to enter the wine country. Our tour began in the city of Stellenbosch and our first vineyard was Ernie Els, yes the same famous golfer. We got to taste a number of different types of wine and then got a tour of the barrel room and Ernie’s private tasting room. Next up was lunch in Stellenbosch at an old vineyard with its lovely Cape Dutch architecture, followed by another wine tasting at Uva Mira vineyards which was situated up on the hills overlooking the stunning valley and these amazing red coloured mountains on the outskirts. I was pleasantly surprised by the beauty of the winelands and surrounding mountains.

The next day was spent doing more wine tasting at vineyards in the quaint little town of Franschhoek. Today we went to Stoney Brook followed by Tokara. Another amazing dinner, this time at the famous Reuben’s, yummy chilli lime prawns.  I have always enjoyed wine, not as much as I like my beer, however I was learning so much about the process of making wine and the variety of wines. I was quite intrigued and have found a new appreciation for wine, especially good wine, which we were tasting a lot of. Our last day in wine country was spent in the town of Paarl where we had the pleasure of going to Fairview. Fairview is owned by one of Ron’s second cousins so we were in for a great treat.

We arrived and we treated to a behind the scenes tour of them making the wine, barrelling and the bottling process. Then we were taken to his lovely farmhouse on the estate where we had a fabulous lunch with him and his wife. After lunch we were taken to their cheese factory. Surprisingly the cheese factory is far more profitable than the wine, which I was shocked to learn. His Fairview cheese is very popular and highly regarded, their Camembert actually beat the French Camembert cheese at a cheese tasting competition in Europe. We got a tour of the factory, complete with the four of use where funny sanitized white outfits and hairnets. The tour was so enthralling as I learned about how different cheese is made. Mould is so important to making many of the cheese we eat. This ended our wonderful time in the wine country of the Cape region of South Africa. We had drunk awesome wine and eaten at fabulous restaurants. I was happy to see how far our dollar went against the South African Rand but the food was so reasonably priced for excellent meals compared with what we pay in Vancouver the average here was almost half the price for exceptional food.

On our way back in to Cape Town we stopped at one of the townships, Langa, for a tour. The townships are where the impoverished blacks and coloured (as the half blacks are referred to in South Africa) live in essentially shanty towns. We had an excellent guide who took us into the community centre to listen to school children who were practicing their music, traditional African music that was quite pleasant to hear.  From there we headed off wandering the streets and seeing how some of these people live. Our guide took us into his room which was one of many in a small dishevelled apartment. There were 3 beds in the room and each bed slept a different family. Not much privacy in a place like this, that coupled with the families pooling together to pay for electricity if they could and alternate cooking meals. We walked past one part where they were cooking sheep’s heads. They would heat them up over upon fires in barrels, then rub off the hair and repeat until it was bald and ready for sale. All this on the side of the road. We ended up the tour by going to the poorest part of the townships where homes were built from scraps of metal and wood as little shacks. We went into one shack and tasted the traditional beer that they make. It was quite a full body beer and had lots of thickness to it, yet it was quite tasty.

The township was not quite as bad as I had imagined, especially after some of the countries we have visited thus far on our journey. What shocked me was that this occurs in what is supposed to be a democratic First World country. These poor people vote for a moron of a president who is so corrupt. He promises them education, healthcare and housing but does nothing to help his own people. One could even argue that the living conditions for the blacks were better during the days of colonial occupation, without the violence and imprisonment factor.

From there we drove to Cape Town and I was blown away by the beauty of the city with famous Table Mountain towering above the city, sandwiched by Devil’s peak and Lions head on either side. The city spreads around the dominating mountains and out to the shoreline with lovely promenades and beaches. We were off to stay in Bantry Bay for a few nights. We spent our days touring around the great city of Cape Town visiting many of the tourist sites like city hall, the castle, a lovely park called the Company Gardens right next to a historical government building. I was very impressed with the city and the lovely architecture, much of which in the Cape Dutch style from the days of the Dutch colonization. One afternoon we took the cable car to the top of Table Mountain. The views from up here were breathtaking. From here the whole city spread out in her beauty before us and wound round the south end of the mountain towards the beaches of Clifton and Camps Bay, beyond which stretched more mountains towards Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope.  I loved our time on top of Table Mountain, Jaclyn and  I went for a great walk around the top and then we enjoyed the sunset with a nice cold beer well I did.

The following day we went for a lovely brunch at Ron’s relatives, Peter and Liz who had a beautiful apartment overlooking the ocean. Following brunch Ron and I went off to see a rugby match at the famous, hallowed grounds of Newland’s Stadium. It was a Super 15 game between the Stormers and a team from Australia, Western Force. Stormers thumped them 51-14 for a real schlacking. It was awesome to get to go to a game, since Rugby is such a part of the culture in South Africa. The next day we had another brunch at Peter and Liz’s were we met their friends. Following that the four of us headed east towards the town of Gansbaai, ready to begin the next adventure.

The next morning we awoke early and drove to the nearby seaside town of Kleinbei, we met our group and leaders, got our briefing and boarded the boat, Slashfin. We headed out to see about 6kms, along the way we saw an absolutely enormous flock of Cape Cormorants all around feeding, there were probably around a thousand of them all flying just above the water, it was incredible to see, I’d never seen so many birds all together at once, especially in action.

Then we arrived at our destination, just off the edge of Dyer Island. Now the adventure could truly start, Cage Diving with Great White Sharks. The cage was lowered into the water and chum was thrown in the water around the boat to attract the sharks with the scent of fish. Lastly there was a small decoy made of styrofoam shaped like a seal and a tuna head on a rope to draw them even closer. The shark cage diving operators do not feed the sharks, they just attract them and draw them close with the three measures previously mentioned. Then we don our wetsuits and hop into the frigid water, well into the cage. The cage holds 7 people and sits just above the surface. You get in and they tell you when to drop down and which way to look. You hold your breath and hold onto these metal bars on the inside of the cage to help keep you down for better viewing.

We waited our turn and then we hopped in. The water was really cold but it was incredible. We watched as the sharks swam past right in front of the cage. It was awesome to see these huge majestic animals swim right in front of us. The visibility wasn’t that good but it was still awesome to be that close to the largest sharks in the ocean. Jaclyn was feeling incredibly sea sick as she doesn’t do too well with motion sickness so she literally went from lying down in the boat to going in the cage then back to lying down again. I wasn’t feeling that good either as the huge swells were moving the boat up and down. We were given another opportunity to go back into the cage, which I took advantage of without hesitation. My second time in was even better than the first. One of the Great White Sharks came right up to the cage and poked its nose inbetween the bars, it was awesome. A few minutes later, a few people away from where I was, another Great White Shark came up to the cage, this time with its jaw wide open. I watched as the teeth, which were clearly visible, seemed to bite the metal bars of the cage, it was phenomenal. The cage is designed perfectly so that there is no way a Great White Shark can get into the cage in any way possible.

For those that don’t know, sharks account for fewer deaths per year than toasters. Over 100 people a year die from toaster related accidents compared to the less than 7 who die from shark attacks. Shark attacks are driven by the sharks thinking that humans are their food. When surfers or swimmers are on the surface they resemble a seal so the shark comes up thinking it has got a meal and takes a bite only to realize it is not their food. Then they leave us alone, unfortunately sometimes the bite results in the individual dying. Let me make this clear, sharks are NOT after humans to kill them. I highly encourage everybody to become more educated about sharks and how they are critical to the balance within the ocean, which produces more oxygen than trees do. If we throw the oceans out of kilter then we are really hooped. Do your best to prevent innocent sharks from being killed for something so meaningless and with no health benefits whatsoever, shark fin soup. It is a horrible thing that must be stopped so I encourage each and every one of you to never order shark fin soup again. If you think I am making this up then watch the most phenomenal movie on sharks by a Canadian filmmaker, it is called ‘Sharkwater’. Everyone MUST see this movie, it will give you a new found respect for these creatures and how vital they are and how horrible the shark fin industry has become. Thank you for letting me rant, but this is something that is very dear to my heart, sorry for being so political, it is imperative I tell as many of you as possible about this.

 We ended up seeing 13 different Great White Sharks, the largest of which was well over 4 metres in length. From the deck of the boat we were afforded more great views of these creatures. It was a much different vantage point from up here and you could see them moving through the water slightly clearer than in the cage. We also got to see a number of them make lunges for the seal decoy. Two sharks were fortunate to outwit the tuna head handler and take it off the rope. All in all it was an incredible experience that I will never forget.

We returned to Gansbaii and the next day Ron and Jaclyn headed back early to Cape Town. Marianne and I headed a little further east to head out to Cape Algulhas. There was a lovely old lighthouse there that was built in the mid 1800’s. I ventured up to the top and I was afforded wonderful views of the coast. Then I walked down to the southernmost point of the African continent. It is here that the two oceans meet, the Indian Ocean to the east and the mighty Atlantic Ocean to the west. The ocean here is full of life were the two currents meet, the warmer one coming down the east coast of Africa and the colder one up from Antarctica and the west. It was a cool feeling to be standing at the southernmost point. We drove through some lovely picturesque landscape and headed to a coastal highway. On the way we stopped at Stoney Point to go and see the cute African Penguins.

I was amazed by how many there were. This was is in the middle of their breeding season and some had already given birth to little chicks who were making little chirping sounds, much different from the adults who have a funny kind of honking squawk followed by a wheezing inhale at the end which brought me to heavy laughter every time I heard it. The African Penguins used to be called Jackass Penguins because of a resemblance of their call to that of a jackass. It was wonderful observing these flightless birds as they waddled around the ground and hopped off and onto rocks. In the water they were more at ease and showed off their great swimming skills. I was so intrigued by these little fellas and could have stayed much longer watching them but it was time to move on. We drove back along a gorgeous rode that reminded me of parts of the Northern California coast in its sheer beauty.

We arrived back in Cape Town and Jaclyn and I headed to stay with Ron’s relatives Peter and Liz. Once again we were so fortunate to be staying with such incredibly generous and hospitable hosts, a big thanks to them. The next week we spent time going for amazing meals with Peter and Liz most nights and went to visiting Jaclyn’s family on her mother’s side. It was filled with incredible food and excellent company. The remainder of our time we went for walks along the promenade and great path through Bantry bay and into Green Point. I went for a tour of Green Point Stadium, which hosted numerous football matches for the 2010 World Cup. It was a beautiful stadium but I was surprised by how plain it was inside, the luxury suites are nicer in the hockey rinks back home than here, the regular seats were also very basic. The outside is quite nice with this Teflon outer membrane material and allowing lots of natural light and breezes inside.

Jaclyn and I got to go horseback riding one morning through one of the suburbs, most enjoyable for two horrible riders like us. That afternoon I headed off with Liz to Somerset West to see her teach at these stables where they employ disadvantaged youths. It was wonderful to see her teaching these young men in their twenties to early thirties how to read and write. They were also prepping for their drivers test which she helped out with. It was a most memorable afternoon and one that was quite inspiring, it was great to see someone giving back to their community in such a fabulous way. You could see how much the students really appreciated Liz coming out each week to help them. These young men work for a place called Cart Horse that rescues horses that are being abused or malnourished in the townships. Then they allow people, like Jaclyn and I to ride them back in town. A great story and opportunity for those less fortunate to get some employment and housing.

One day we headed off to Cape Point and drove down the eastern side towards the cape, passing through tiny quaint villages and stopping at Boulder’s Beach to see another African Penguin colony, this time for Jaclyn to see how cute they were for herself. Cape Point was stunningly beautiful with its towering cliffs rising straight out of the waters below. On the cliffs were many nesting cormorants and other seabirds. I was shocked by how naturally beautiful Cape Town and its surroundings are, I had no idea it was this beautiful. There were definite similarities between here and Vancouver, yet the weather is much better here in Cape Town. If they got their politics figured out this place would be even more desirable. Ron and Marianne left ending our journey with them, yet Jaclyn and I would remain and let the good times continue. 

We spent time down at the V & A waterfront with its plethora of restaurants and shops. One day we went there to visit the aquarium, it was very well done and quite informative. The highlight of our visit there was having the opportunity to go diving. They offer individuals the chance to dive in two of their massive tanks, on offer that day was the predator tank. We were so lucky to get in as there had been a cancelation. We got to spend 30 minutes diving to a depth of about 10 metres. In the tank were many large fish, a massive green turtle and a smaller loggerhead, both of which I got to touch and feel there little flippers and shell. Their flippers were so soft and I could feel the little bones inside, just awesome. The best creature in the tank was a few large ragged-tooth sharks. They were enormous. We mainly stayed on the bottom of the tank watching the fish and sharks circle around above us. One of the most amazing parts of this experience was getting to watch the families and particularly the little kids looking at us through all the plexiglass windows. The best was waving at the little kids and seeing how excited they were that I was waving and emphatically waved back at me with large smiles on their faces, we had other people taking our pictures. I also found a ragged tooth shark tooth on the bottom which we were told we could keep, it was like finding a needle in a haystack. The sharks are continuously replacing their teeth. Such an awesome experience to be able have, I don’t know many places where you can do that and I’m glad we took advantage of the chance.

Our last day together we went to Robben Island. This was the island prison where many of the political prisoners during the Apartheid were kept, including its most famous prisoner, Nelson Mandela. We had a most informative and educational tour of the island which was followed by a tour of the prison itself, led by a former inmate. It was crazy to imagine what life was like for these prisoners during their time here. Conditions were quite appalling yet they persevered. Ironically the British were in for quite a surprise when the day came when they released the prisoners towards the end of Apartheid. They thought the negotiations would go in their favour and not those of the new up and coming leaders. One thing they hadn’t realized was that they let all these political prisoners stay together in the same prisons where for years they educated themselves and kept faith and hope that one day they would be released and when that day did come they were more than ready to negotiate the new South Africa. It was definitely eye-opening going to visit a place such as Robben Island and learn a bit about the history of Apartheid and life in South Africa under colonial rule.

I quickly fell in love with Cape Town and everything it had to offer. There was so much to do here from historic sites to beaches to hikes to mountains to unbelievably amazing restaurants and food. There was an unbelievable energy and vibe to this city that was contagious. It was wonderful getting to see where Jaclyn’s family had grown up and I enjoyed Ron taking us on an emotional journey where we saw him recollecting his past in this city.  I certainly look forward to my return to Cape Town to see more of the sights and have more experiences.

It was now time for Jaclyn and I to part company for a little while. Jaclyn was to remain in Cape Town spending time with family and I was off to see a country that had long been calling for me to visit, Madagascar.

Until the next installment, thanks for continuing to read our adventures, sorry this was much longer than normal. I’m trying to get you all caught up.

Take Care,

James

www.jaclynandjamesabroad.com

Last I left we had just arrived in the island of Zanzibar. Zanzibar is famous for its spices which made the island famous hundreds of years ago during the days of the spice trade around Asia and the Indian Ocean.  It was also known as one of the main places where part of the former slave trade took place.  A few hundred years back Zanzibar was a very wealthy island.

We were fortunate that my Aunt Shirley was here in the Tanzania on an organized group tour. Jaclyn and I were able to join up with her and their group of 19 here in Zanzibar. We had three days of touring around the various sites on the tiny island. The first day we did a walking tour of Stone Town where we were staying. Stone Town is a blend of old and new.  The old town is lovely with white-washed buildings and narrow walkways. The streets are alive with a great vibe and energy.  Stone Town is famous for these beautiful decorated wooden doors with elaborate designs. Each door’s design represented different things back in the day, such as the number of families living in the building, whether they were of the spice trade or fisherman. Today the doors are a well-known tourist attraction and a must see with their drastic contrast of the dark wood against the white building. We were taken through the streets and shown some of the other sights, including the centre of the former slave trade. Slaves were brought from mainland Africa and sold at the slave markets in Stone Town, these slaves were not taken to North America but were rather used throughout mainly Africa and a little into Asia.

That afternoon we were taken a little outside of town to go and visit one of the Spice Farms. The island still grows all sorts of wonderful spices like pepper, lemongrass and so on. During our walk we had locals take us around and a few were making these things out of the tall grasses. They made hats, baskets and ties and even a little frog all out of the wide green grass blades, quite creative. Then we were taken to see the work of a local gentleman named Butterfly. He was an expert at retrieving coconuts from way up in the palm trees. He took this piece of rope and wrapped it around his ankle as leverage to help him get grip to climb up the trunk of the palm tree. Then he quickly made his way up, singing wonderful entertaining songs the entire time. The afternoon was topped off by enjoying the many coconuts he had brought down.

The next day we headed to the south of the island to Kizimakazi. We boarded these little boats and went out in search of dolphins who we were hopefully going to swim with. We got out to the spot and along with a number of our tourist boats, found the dolphins. It was hard to get close enough to them. Jaclyn and I were geared up with our mask, snorkel and fins anxiously awaiting the cue to jump overboard. Then it came and we jumped in like two madmen and swam frantically, looking every which way under water for the dolphins. Alas, no sign, they disappeared and we never got to see them underwater. It was still great nonetheless to see them breaking the surface. That afternoon we went to visit Jozani National Park where we got to see the endemic Zanzibar Red Colobus Monkeys. They were cute little guys who had a funny tuft of hair on top of their heads that made it look like they all had army crew cut hairstyles. From there we went to the other side of the park, on the water where there were some wonderful mangrove forests to walk through. Our last day with Shirley was spent wandering the streets of old town once more and navigating our way to the market and little shops.

After Shirley left Jaclyn and I headed up to the north east of the island for some much needed R & R time. We went to a lovely resort in the town of Matemwe where we spent five nights at Azanzi. The first day we arrived the waves came crashing to shore around sunset with some great force to them, I played like a kid in them and surfed them as they came in.  One morning Jaclyn and I headed out for some diving at nearby Mnemba island, which is also a marine park. It was a tiny island above water with an awesome reef surrounding it for quite some distance. We did a couple of dives there and I was able to get my confidence back. The water had been nice and warm and the visibility had been great. We got to see some awesome colourful reef fish, some honeycomb moray eels, lionfish and some great collections of coral.

The next few days were spent swimming, relaxing, and meeting some other great couples, one of which was from Vancouver – small world. One morning we walked out to the edge of the lagoon which had the outer reef that was navigable in low tide only. We were given funny black rubber shoes to protect us from the plethora of sea urchins begging to stab us. The little tide pools were alive with all sorts of little creatures like starfish, anemones and the like.

Then it was time to return to the big game parks. We flew in the tiny little Cessna’s once more from Zanzibar through Dar es Salaam and on towards Ruaha National Park, the largest in Tanzania. We arrived at Jongomero at a beautiful tented camp in the middle of nowhere, the closest other camp over 80kms away. We would really have the park to explore all on our own. The park was quite dense with vegetation which would make finding the game even more of challenge. We had some great game drives with an awesome guide named Moly. He gave us so much information on everything we were looking at, he had an incredible wealth of knowledge. He even spent over twenty minutes telling us about the inner workings of a termite mound, it was so fascinating. For those interested I can tell you about it in person, it’s worth it.

Our first drive we came across this juvenile, yet full grown, male elephant. He was quite intrigued by our presence and kept coming towards the vehicle for a closer look. Then realizing we were no threat he went about his activities. He began by giving himself a bit of a mud bath in this small water hole. He would take the water and spray it on his under belly and his back. Then he kneeled down and began to put his face in the mud and water, pushing his tusks back and forth in the mud. Then he dropped his back legs and started to roll around. He was like a little kid playing in a puddle. This activity was followed by him walking to the tree next to our vehicle where he proceeded to scratch his bum and face, each time moving to get both sides. It was priceless to see this behaviour from the elephant. We had some other delightful drives spotting some great birds, lots of impala and ending up with a small pride of lions. Our drives were around the convergence of the Ruaha river and one of its tributaries. The latter was dried up revealing a red ochre sand bottom, this area, like much of the country, was in desperate need of rain. We had thoroughly enjoyed our time in Ruaha at Jongomero, yet it was time to move on to our last game park.

                Next up was Selous Game Reserve which we arrived at via another tiny bush plane. Selous was much different from Ruaha in that the vegetation was quite sparse and it was even drier and hotter here. It was well over 35 degrees Celsius each day and that was in the shade. Our thermometer measured 54 degrees Celsius when we put it in the sun at midday, hot much! Our first afternoon we were treated to a lovely boat ride along the nearby lake, next to where our camp was situated. It was so calm and relaxing as we went around the shores of the lake in search of the many waterbirds.

                Next morning we got back to the routine of the early morning game drives. The park was awesome and quite different from the other parks we had previously visited, each park was unique which was impressive to see the variety of flora and fauna within each respective park. We managed to find a good size pride of lions with some young cubs. That following morning we returned and found the same pride except there were more, the others had obviously been hidden from view. This day we saw four lionesses, three of which had litters of cubs. The oldest cubs were about one year old, the middle ones 6 months old and these two adorable little guys were quite young, around 2 months old. When a lioness gives birth she keeps the cubs away with her on their own for a number of weeks till they are old enough to be introduced to the pride, these little cuties had recently been introduced to the pride.

                We were spending some time observing the pride and the cuddly little cubs without even noticing what was in the shade of a tree, a fresh kill. The pride had killed a young giraffe a few hours earlier and were in the process of eating. Most had already eaten and were taking a breather before going back for the next round. We watched the little cubs running around making these funny and cute little cub roars which didn’t have the power or deepness of the adult lion’s roar. This roar was more like a little cat than a lion. Both cubs came exploring by our vehicle and one of them decided to be a little more adventurous and went underneath before popping out the other side. We stopped for a drink and snack before returning to watch the pride. This time they were back at the carcass eating away. One lioness and two cubs were working away. You could hear the crunching as they broke through bones and the ripping of meat, it was quite cannibalistic but that is the beauty of nature and the circle of life. The two cubs were eating so quickly and sat there for a good fifteen to twenty minutes before finishing. One of the cubs stood and appeared to act like it was drunk, instead his belly was so full that he literally stumbled away from the carcass very slowly and awkwardly, swaying from side to side before collapsing full and exhausted in the shade next to a tree trunk. He rolled over on his side and his huge belly was quite evident. It was wonderful to get watch this awesome experience with the pride of lions.

                We spent our next game drive searching for the elusive wild dogs, one of the few African mammals I am yet to see. We tried our hardest to find them but the closest we got was a recent track in the sand. Oh well, best to save something for the next time we are in the game parks of Africa. With that we headed back through Dar es Salaam, this time on an even tinier little Cessna plane. This time Jaclyn sat as co-captain in the small four seater plane as we flew over the empty vastness beneath us and returned to Dar es Salaam. From there we hopped on another slightly bigger, small plane and flew to Arusha.

                We had a day to prepare for our trek up Mt. Kilimanjaro which we spent going around Arusha getting snacks and renting some of the smaller gear we would need and more importantly some fleece clothing, something we hadn’t needed till now. The next day we were picked up and taken to the nearby town of Moshi. We arrived at the hotel where we would spend the night before starting the trek the morning. Unfortunately things turned bad quickly. Our rep didn’t show up as requested and in the meantime we went to get the rest of the important gear we needed from the hotel, like sleeping bags and down jackets. The gear was a complete joke, bags weren’t rated to a cold enough temperature needed to stay warm in the minus 15 degrees Celsius on the top of Kili. This coupled with down jackets that didn’t fit either. Then the duffle bags they were to provide were too small to fit our gear and then the sleeping bags they gave us were wet. It was a disaster and didn’t give Jaclyn and I any confidence whatsoever in the company we were going trekking with. All the signs were there for us to pull the plug, which we finally did a few hours later. It was very hard to make the decision as climbing Kili was something we had both wanted to do, Jaclyn even more so than I did, and yes you did read that correctly.

                We made our way back to Arusha, upset, exhausted and very frustrated at our horrible experience but happy that we had made the right call. The next day we flew from Arusha back to Dar es Salaam for three nights on the beach just north of the city to figure out what we would do with our time now that we weren’t on Kili. While on the beach we went to this waterpark next to the resort we were staying at. The waterpark was like the place we were staying, quite basic, except there was nobody here and when you got on the waterslide to go down you didn’t really moved because the slippery surface was so worn away. Instead they gave us inner tubes to slide down on, which were incredibly dangerous as we almost flew off the slides because of the crazy speeds we reached. That quickly ended our time at the waterpark. While we were at the beach resort, if you could call it that, we decided it was time to treat ourselves to some real downtime in a tropical beautiful beach.

                The next day we flew down to Pemba in northern Mozambique. We had managed to get an unbelievable deal at this resort. While we were there we were treated like royalty. They upgraded us to a luxury room. We got all this treatment because when we called to book, last minute we explained the situation with the Kili trek falling through and they must have felt sorry for us, that coupled with it being our extended honeymoon and we got the primo deal. We spent the first three nights at Pemba beach resort where we swam in the infinity pool, walked along the beach by town, played tennis and chilled. Then they convinced us to go and check out one of their other resorts on one of the islands. They said they would give it to us for the same price, all we had to pay for was the flight, once again on a small plane. We chose to go to Medjumbe which is a tiny private island that the company owns.

                We approached Medjumbe with its stunning turquoise waters surrounding the little island. The runway which we landed on, took up a good chunk of the island. The island was about a kilometre long and only a few hundred metres wide. It was tiny and perfect for what we needed. We spent four nights lapping up the little island paradise. Our days were spent relaxing and swimming and going for walks around the island. At the far end of the island was a little sand spit that appeared during low tide and allowed one to walk quite far out, so technically the length of the island changed with the tide. We also did some scuba diving here as well. Jaclyn joined me for one of my three dives. I was so impressed by the stunning coral we saw here in the Quirambas archipelago. It is the most impressive coral I have ever seen. One dive site, Sambi sambi had so much coral that we never came to the edge of it the entire dive, it just went on and on for what seemed like forever. I also got to see some phenomenal fan coral that stood at good ten feet tall, gorgeous. We enjoyed some beautiful sunsets and got to have two of our four dinners as romantic candlelit dinners in front of our beach bungalow on the edge of the ocean.  

                Mozambique was just what we needed and from there we flew back to Dar es Salaam. Our last night in Tanzania was spent going for dinner with a Vancouverite who was living there. We went to a very modern area called Slipway which was on the water. The next morning we went to visit a place called Wonderworks. It was a place that hired disabled individuals to make art from recycled metal, and paper decorations from cardboard. It was very inspiring to be there and see the wonderful things they made. We asked for a tour of the place to see the many workers and every single one of them was so happy and seemed to be enjoying and taking pride in their work. It was such a wonderful thing that they have created by giving opportunities to those less fortunate and coincidentally ended our almost six week journey through this wonderful country of Tanzania.

                With that also ended our phenomenal times in the game parks of East Africa, in total we had spent almost six weeks going through various game parks and on safari in Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya and Tanzania. Thank you to my wonderful wife for putting up with my obsession of nature and wildlife. We had been so fortunate with the amazing sightings we got to witness. I will certainly miss the parks and the incredible animals and birds we saw but I know that we will return soon enough. This continent is addictive and keeps drawing me back for more and more. I am emphatuated with the environment, the people, the flora and fauna and the beauty. The majority of the people live in such poor conditions yet they are so happy and always smiling, they appreciate what they have and take nothing for granted. We need to think about them when us Westerners complain about the petty things we moan about. Life is too short not to enjoy each and every moment. Thank you East Africa for opening my eyes even wider to newer experiences and seeing new things, people and places. I have nothing but the fondest of memories of this part of Africa and especially Tanzania.

                Thanks again for all who are following this email blast and for those seeing Jaclyn’s thoughts on our blog: www.jaclynandjamesabroad.com

Until the next installment, keep in touch.

All the best,

James

After a bumpy flight in a tiny airplane where we were thrown around like tossed salad, we arrived at Kilimanjaro airport for our transfer west to the world renowned park, Serengeti. We landed on a tiny dirt runway and were greeted by our guide Jimmy who would be with us for the next two weeks.

 We began driving from Seronera up to the northern portion of the park and within 20 minutes of landing we came across a leopard. It was perched on the bough of a large sausage tree. These trees have enormous fruit that look like dark brown sausages which are over a foot and a half long and quite wide, one wouldn’t want to be walking past and have it drop on the ole’ noggin, that would be painful, Tanzanians say potentially fatal. Anyway it was incredible to get to see such a beautiful creature so quickly into our time in the Serengeti. We watched in awe for a while and then soon enough we headed on our way. As we drove I was standing up out of the roof of the open top safari vehicle and felt the urge to listen to a classic from the 80’s by Toto, the song was “Africa” and it was so appropriate, especially with the lines referring to the plains of the Serengeti.  It was a wonderful moment for me as I was singing along watching this incredible sunset. As we were about to pull into camp we found a female cheetah with two very young and adorable cubs sitting on a dirt embankment. The cubs were still quite fuzzy with the young fur that is associated with cubs of that age.

 Jaclyn and I had three nights at Mbuzi Mawe in the north.  Our days were spent waking up at the crack of dawn to head out on game drives, some days it was an all-day affair with packed lunches or others, which tended to be the norm, comprised of a morning drive for around 4 hours followed by an afternoon drive for about 3 hours. I was in complete heaven and loved every minute of it. Jaclyn did not partake in all the game drives since I was slightly obsessed with the whole game viewing, unfortunately she missed out on one of the better sightings we had. Jimmy and I came across another a gorgeous female leopard.  We watched her for about 45minutes as she walked through the tall grass looking for an antelope to flush out and devour. It was wonderful watching her stalk, albeit unsuccessful because none were around. Then we saw her cross the dirt road and search briefly on the other side before heading back directly towards our vehicle, pure bliss.

 We had other great sightings of lions, one male was surrounded by a pack of over twenty spotted hyenas. He was eating a rather small kill and the hyenas were anxiously awaiting their turn, yet he was having none of it, he would finish. I’m not sure whether the lion made the kill or the hyenas did and he stole it from them. If it had been a lioness the hyenas would have flushed it off and taken the food, but not the male lion, hyenas have too much respect to mess with their arch nemesis. The game was awesome up north and so was the natural beauty. The north also had way less other tourists so one really felt as if you had the whole park to oneself up there, just you and the animals in their home, it so tranquil out here it really is hard to describe without enjoying it.

 Next was a move down to the south of the Serengeti.  The Serengeti is famous for the wildebeest migration that occurs throughout the year, this time of year they are all in the southern plains giving birth beginning around February, when we were there (as you can tell I’m only a few months behind-I’ll catch up soon). On our drive down we came across an enormous herd of around 100,000 wildebeest. Unfortunately they were on the move north-west, starting their migration early because of the weather. However, they will turn back to the southern plains when the weather becomes typical of this time of year. It has been quite dry and hot, not the usual rains which help the grasses grow that they feed on and subsequently their young.  This movement will not help the newborns who are supposed to be staying in the southern plains for a while longer, hopefully the weather doesn’t affect them too much as it can cause numbers to drop in the population. Either way it was an incredible sight to behold as we drove through this lightly forested area with a small river meandering through.  Everywhere they eye looked was wildebeest as far as one could see.  We went close to the river where they were coming to drink. Along with the Wildebeest are herds of zebra who travel with them yet not in the same numbers. It was phenomenal to look at such a plethora of animals in one area, in the backdrop was a hill rolling away.

 We now found ourselves at our next camp which was in the Southern Plains, a  lovely tented camp called Kusini. Our first game drive took us out into the southern plains. This area seemed to typify the African plains that one pictures. It was dead flat all around except for the various animals grazing. It was so flat you could actually see the curvature of the earth. Again we had some fabulous game sightings including some massive journeys of giraffe, elephant, lion and many other species and birds. We came across a cheetah with a young cub, around a year old. The mother had just killed a male Thomson’s Gazelle and we had missed the kill by about 3 minutes.  I was quite upset because I had really wanted to see the Cheetah reach its top speed of over 100km/hr, nevertheless we got to witness the mother resting on the side while the cub began to open up the gazelle and eat from the rump, occasionally pausing to look at mother with blood stained on his lower jaw, priceless.

 The highlight of our time in the south of the Serengeti was when we were driving along and all of a sudden Jimmy managed to spot a Wildebeest about to give birth, I still have no idea how he saw that but he did. We pulled over and sure enough there was a female Wildebeest with two legs, not hers, sticking out. It only took a few moments for the head to appear. Suddenly she seemed to get startled, maybe by our presence, and she got up and started walking around. Luckily, she quickly stopped and lay down again to finish giving birth. She stood up again when the calf was almost completely out and then it was there lying on the ground. She quickly turned around and began licking off the afterbirth, and there in front of us was the cute little second old Wildebeest calf. Within a few minutes the calf began to try and stand up and quickly fell over. The next attempt was better, the front legs went up and became rigid, then it slowly raised the rear legs, shaking profusely in the process. It was so wobbly and unsecure in its attempt that it fell over once more onto its side and rolled over with its legs raising up to the sky. Then finally on the third attempt using the front and rear leg procedure previously mentioned, it managed to stay up. We watched it hop around quite clumsily as it got used to its new footings. Mother stood by and help reassure the calf, then came the first meal from mother, which seemed to last a long time. We continued to watch for about 15 more minutes as the calf bounced around, bumping into things and mother while doing so. It was incredible to get to witness this, it was so beautiful and amazing that this young Wildebeest calf learns to walk so quickly.  Apparently within an hour it is running and able to keep up with its mother, all part of nature and survival for the Wildebeest and so many other animals.

 Then it was time to head off to the east, more parks yearning for my love. We drove through another area called Ndutu where we saw two lionesses on a fresh kill and later found three Cheetah brothers who had gorged themselves on a fully grown Wildebeest the previous night. Cheetahs are usually very slender and streamlined, helpful with their speed, yet these three were so enormous in their bellies that they looked overweight and fat. That’s partly because Cheetahs are the only cat that will only eat what it kills and therefore must eat it all at once or else face losing it to something else like vultures or hyena.

 En route we stopped at the Oldupai Gorge which has traces and remains of some of the oldest human (and our ancestors) found on the planet. One area they found footprints dating back almost 3 million years, quite a fascinating museum in the middle of nowhere. Finally we arrived at our next port of call, the Ngorongoro Crater. The crater was formed millions of years ago when the volcano erupted and sunk back in on itself forming a crater a few kilometres wide and 600metres deep from the crater rim to the floor. The next morning we went for a hike in another crater called Empakai crater. It was just Jaclyn and I and a Masai ranger who spoke virtually no English. At the floor of the crater was a stunning alkaline lake that was full of grebes and flamingoes. We spent some time wandering the shores which were so incredibly soft with these mineral deposits and salts that the ground felt like a trampoline at times. We climbed back up the steep walls of the crater rim and returned.

 That afternoon we entered into the Ngorongoro Crater for a wonderful game drive. This conservation area is just as popular as Serengeti National Park yet a smidgen of the size. There are many visitors each day, some days over 400 vehicles go through, because of this the animals have become quite accustomed to the vehicles and also because the animals in the crater are not migratory, they are not afraid of vehicles and allow them to approach quite close which was a wonderful experience to have. Jaclyn and I couldn’t believe how close we were able to get to some of the zebra, to name but a few. Once again we had some great sightings, many lions, over 14 different sightings, a huge pack of hyena numbering well over twenty all lazing around out of their dens during the heat of the day which was surprising to see. We got fortunate and managed to have a wonderful viewing of a Serval cat. The Serval is smaller than the Leopard and Cheetah, yet has similar marking but very distinctive large oval shaped ears and more of a face similar to a domestic cat. Ngorongoro Crater was stunningly beautiful and within such a small area has such diversity within its environment. There was also an alkaline lake, savannah and a lovely forest with massive trees that were home to a number of troops of baboons who we watched eagerly.

 Next up was Lake Manyara National Park where it was incredibly hot. This was the first park where we didn’t manage to spot any of the big cats, our luck had finally run out, yet no complaints here because we’ve been so fortunate thus far. It was a lovely park with a large forested area giving way to the south to the lake, which at this time of year had receded substantially. Our next day was a down day and I was hoping to have fast enough internet to be able to watch the super bowl. By now it was 5 days since the big game and my favourite team, for those that don’t know, the Green Bay Packers were playing the Pittsburgh Steelers. Because of where we had been I had been out of touch of internet and had yet to be able to watch my beloved Packers play in the big game. I had told everyone I met and where we were staying not to mention anything. Jaclyn was also a huge help in telling people not to mention anything while I was around because I wanted to watch the game. I was so excited to finally get to watch it. I sat impatiently as Jaclyn struggled for an hour trying to get me logged into my nfl gamecentre account so I could watch the game. Finally I was ready and I hit play and it was so painfully slow, I was furious to say the least.  I would have to go through this horrible process for another few days until we got fast enough internet – DOH!

 Our next park was Tarangire National Park which was amazing. Each of the parks was different in its own way from an environmental point of view and had different emphasis of animals and bird life, I loved the uniqueness of the parks that were all in relative proximity to one another (a few hundred kms apart). Tarangire was known for its lovely Baobab trees. Baobabs are incredibly soft trees and can live for hundreds of years, they have an uncanny ability to retain huge amounts of water and are impressively resilient to the elements, namely elephants. Elephants love to eat Baobabs and when they are old and large they can withstand the torment of these large creatures. The elephants are able to literally bore holes right through the trunk of the tree and yet the tree lives on and over time will manage to heal itself, assuming the elephants don’t keep at it.

 Tarangire was filled with more adventures and was the first place we were able to do walking safaris. It was so nice to be out of the vehicle and moving around. I did one walk while Jaclyn did two. We didn’t have any big game sightings but came within sight of a herd of elephant, and many different types of antelope. It was lovely to walk in such a beautiful place.

When we were back in the car we managed to come across a pride of 21 lions. The adults were all lionesses and they each had a number of different cubs ranging in age from 3 months old up to about a year. They were so cute to watch, especially the very young ones. We also got lucky a different day and found a pair of lions that were mating. For those that don’t know, the male and female lion will separate themselves from the pride to do an insane mating ritual that lasts 3-4 days. They will mate around every 20-30 minutes day and night for this entire time. By the end it becomes quite painful for the female who will lash out at the male right after each mating session, occasionally cutting him open with her massive claws. Don’t worry each session only last around 10seconds and then they lie down again inbetween. The reason this takes so long is because the female has to do this procedure for a number of days until the egg drops down for fertilization. If for some reason the male cannot finish the marathon then he is replaced by the next worthy male who has the easy job of finishing his compatriot’s tireless work.

         With that ended our time in the parks on the Northern Circuit of Tanzania. We were so fortunate to have had Jimmy, our fearless and amazing driver/guide, lead us through these stunning parks. What an incredible journey filled with such beauty and amazing animals and birds. These are memories I will truly treasure. From Tarangire we headed to the town of Arusha where we caught our flight aboard another tiny single prop plane to the exotic island of Zanzibar.

           Finally on Feb 15^th I had success in getting fast enough internet to be able to watch my Packers beat the Steelers to win the Super Bowl, I was ecstatic and so relieved that I could now check email again and talk to people without the fear of finding out who had won the game. I couldn’t believe I went 9 days after the game to finally see it.

           On that note, keep reading and enjoying these and I will send Tanzania part deux shortly.

All the best,

James

www.jaclynandjamesabroad.com

After leaving Rwanda we flew to the capital of Kenya, Nairobi. Kenya was not initially on our radar but got added thanks to some convincing from fellow travellers, cheers Justin. We landed and headed off to the city centre.  Nairobi is nothing like anywhere else we had been thus far in Africa.  It was very modernized and the streets were jam packed with cars, it was like rush hour traffic in a big North American city.  We were captivated by the chaos. We checked into our hotel and were amazed to see the levels of security, 3 separate locked doors to enter, made us feel better about being in the city nicknamed, Nairobbery. That evening we headed to Westgate mall to Art Caffe for dinner.  We were shocked at the setup, it was like we were in a mall in Scottsdale, Arizona, it was so modern and chic. We had a delightful western style meal.

The next morning our rental vehicle was dropped off, we had decided we were going to do Kenya on a self-drive and rented a safari vehicle – a Toyota land cruiser modified for 7 passangers and a pop up roof for game viewing.  We headed off on the roads with me driving stickshift, everything the opposite from back home, the roads, the stick shift etc. Driving through Nairobi, you quickly adjust, or are forced to. Soon enough we were on the highway heading west out of the city towards the Great Rift Valley. After a few hours we arrived in the town of Narok where we picked up our guide for the next few days.  He was a local Masai named Patrick. For those that don’t know, the Masai are a large tribal people that are primarily cattle herders.  They are found throughout East Africa.  They are known for being tough, wearing red cloth wrapped around their bodies, wearing lots of beaded jewellery, for jumping high and for cutting holes in their ears.  We headed off to the world renowned Masai Mara Game Reserve. Along the way the smooth paved roads gave way to dusty and bumpy dirt roads that passed by many Masai villages, some in what seemed like the middle of nowhere.

Soon we arrived in the Masai Mara and were blown away by the natural beauty.  The park seemed to typify everything that one would imagine about going on safaris in Africa.  This is partly due to the countless African wildlife documentaries that are filmed in the region year after year.  Furthermore, Masai Mara is known for the annual wildebeest migration, however at this time of year they are all down south in Tanzania in the plains of the Serengeti .

We found ourselves at a lodge situated up on a hill overlooking the plains of the Mara and the surrounding escarpment in the distance to the west.  The highest point where we were was a telecommunications tower that was neatly disguised as a palm tree, quite ingenious and surprisingly blended in incredibly well – technology these days. We spent three nights in the Masai Mara and had some lovely moments.

The first morning we headed off on a game drive complete with Patrick, our Masai guide, wearing his traditional Masai clothing which includes sandals made from old tires, very cool.Within five minutes we found a beautiful cheetah. She was watching a number of impala (a type of antelope).  I had yet to see a cheetah in my previous visit to the African continent and I was ecstatic to finally lay eyes on one. We watched her sit next to a termite mound, her coat blending in with such perfection.  We continued to the south and found ourselves surrounded by nothing but the wildlife and nature, a lovely feeling in such a place of solitude. The plains spread out around us with the odd hill rising up. We came to the border with Tanzania marked by a large triangular concrete post with a line on the top and a simple ‘T’ and ‘K’ on either side. I entered into Tanzania about five or six times before finally settling back down in the vehicle on the Kenyan side. After playing around at the border we continued our search for wildlife, until we reached the next border marker and all three of us proceeded to do yoga poses on top of the marker.

We had numerous game drives and were quite fortunate with the game we saw. We got a large pride of lions with approximately 15, comprised of adult lionesses and a number of cubs ranging in age from a year and a bit down to about six months old. We found them around dusk and watched them stir from their state of slumber as they walked off one by one into the orange glow of the sunset. They would stop and all that we could see was their silhouettes against the blood red sky, it was quite picturesque.

We had one of our most memorable game drives while in the Mara, we got to see the entire Big 5 in one drive.  The big 5 are so called because they were the prime targets for the hunters back in the day, they include; buffalo, elephant, rhino, lion and leopard. We were very lucky to get to see the rhinos as there are very few left in the wild due to over poaching throughout Africa. There are many projects set up to reintroduce them to their former ranges and a few were reintroduced to the Masai mara.  We got lucky in spotting 5 black rhinos, one of which had a youngster with her.  Shortly after that we were driving around and found a number of vehicles that had spotted a leopard which we caught a few glimpses of, such a magnificent creature.

One of the highlights of the mara had nothing to do with wildlife. We were over by the swamp, which was quite dry and we came across a muddy section that was about 25ft wide.  The top was quite hardened and it looked doable.  I asked Patrick what he thought and we both agreed we would give it a whirl, unfortunately the only thing whirling was the tires as we got stuck so close to the other side. So close yet so far.  We spent the next few minutes lurching the car back and forward as we tried to wiggle out and up the slight embankment on the other side but we kept slipping back into the muddy water that had appeared out of nowhere. Even going into 4x4 low did nothing.  The next 45minutes was spent digging ourselves out and trying to give the vehicle more room.  We proceeded to grab a lot of dried mud to put under the wheels and along the tracks where we needed to go to get out.  At last we managed to get out, now the vehicle really looked like it had been through the trenches, it was covered in mud all over from the spinning wheels but man it looked cool and added character. Patrick and I were a little muddy too and in the process we had managed to save a cute little terrapin that would have been smushed by our wheels.

We spent three nights in the Masai Mara and had some fabulous game viewing.  I loved the freedom of being on our own and getting drive ourselves through the park, it all felt so natural. Our last morning Jaclyn had made a great call in getting us onto one of the hot air balloons for one last Mara adventure and our first hot air balloon rides for both of us. We awoke at the crack of dawn and were taken to the launch sight in the pitch black. We watched as the balloon took shape and life with the glow of the flames illuminating the area. Soon we all piled in with the other 12 passengers to embark on our journey. We rose up oh so gently as the world was awakening around us.  By this point the sun was already providing enough light, yet was still tucked away beneath the horizon.  Soon enough it rose, as did we. We began to see the plethora of animals beneath us on the plains. Then we spotted some hyenas intently watching something, it turned out to be a large male lion which had a half-eaten carcass of a topi, another antelope, in its jaws and he was walking with it dragging on the ground between his two front legs as he hauled it off into the thickets to eat in peace. Our hot air balloon ride took us over the Mara river as we raised up and down in elevation to get different vantage points of the surroundings.  A few times the basket of the hot air balloon was dragging against the tops of the trees as the hippos grunted and splashed in the river below. The morning was quite calm which gave us the opportunity to have an even longer ride of almost an hour and a half.  As we were approaching the landing site a leopard was spotted on the edge of a forest, again fortune was on our side to see this creature yet again but this time from above with a clear bird’s eye view of it. The ride was concluded with a lovely breakfast out in the middle of nowhere.

So ended our time in the Masai Mara, we stopped just outside the park to go and visit one of the Masai villages.  We were welcomed with traditional dances by the men and got to join them in their jumping dance.  It is amazing how high some of these men can jump, I didn’t do too badly in comparison.We were taken around the village and showed where and how they live. It was a brief sample into the culture and life of the Masai and was incredibly fascinating.  The tour ended with us being taken around an open area surrounded by little stalls, each one was from a different family and had their art work that they had made. We went round and selected the items that were of interest to us and then proceeded outside where things got interesting.

The Masai are a masculine dominated culture where polygamy still exists. The women do most of the work while the men simply wander with the cattle as they graze.  Meanwhile the women are taking care of the children, making clothes, cooking, making the huts that they live in, pretty much everything. As we left with the items we were interested in we were surrounded by about thirty men, all wanting to be part of the price negotiations.  It began with them giving us a price, which was grossly overpriced. And so began one of my more vivid and enjoyable memories of our entire trip. Jaclyn was sitting in the middle with our items, surrounded by a circle of thirty masai men, all wearing their traditional clothes. Each item was picked up and it was like a tennis match going back and forth between Jaclyn and the main negotiator.  He would start with a price, for example $25, and this is how it would transpire for each and every item:

Masai: $25

Jaclyn: $10

Masai: $23

Jaclyn: $12

Masai: $20

Jaclyn: $12

Masai: $18

Jaclyn: $12

Masai: $15

Jaclyn: $12

Masai: fine $12

 There were a few moments when Jaclyn would give into their price and increase but only in exchange for her winning the next item up for battle.  This whole procedure went on for about 30minutes while a scribe wrote the running tally on his arm by scratching his skin using a tusk of a warthog.  It was priceless.  We ended up getting the price we wanted and had fun with the whole process, along with learning about the Masai people.

 We drove back towards Narok. This time, being more comfortable with the vehicle and the abuse it could take, we hammered down the dirt road with me at the helm blasting over the bumps and having fun with the whole off road experience. We stopped in Narok to visit Patricks house and family.  It is beautiful to see people who are so genuinely happy with such simple things.  I love how materialism hasn’t jaded the entire world like it has in our western culture. Getting to watch children play with basic toys or simply being imaginative and creative on their own with their games is a treasure to watch.

Next stop was Lake Nakuru National Park where we spent a couple of nights.  The park is quite small in comparison to the Masai Mara but it is very different.  The main focus is the alkaline lake that is in the middle. The lake was beautiful and had a tinge of pink to it from the thousands of flamingo’s that were visiting. Lovely birds that were there to feast on the algae that is synonymous with alkaline lakes. Getting to watch their graceful walk through the shallow water with their long skinny pink legs elegantly moving them along before stopping to lean down and siphon up some of that tasty algae.

On top of the flamingo’s were even greater numbers of Pink backed Pelicans that were in their even pinker breeding plumage. Lake Nakuru was stunning and we had a few game drives through the park. Some along the lakes edge where we watching the beautiful water birds and other areas that took us into the forests and up onto the ridgeline above the lake. We got to see many giraffe and lots of white rhino’s.  We even saw 18 of them in one drive. The park is known for its leopards however, we weren’t fortunate to get to see any of them

Our last game drive was cut short by a flat tire that unfortunately we couldn’t change because we were give the wrong wrench for the nuts on the tire. Instead we had to wait over an hour in the blistering heat for a vehicle to come by which had the 22 wrench for us to take the flat tire off. From there we returned to Nairobi along the main highway. We had our last night in the country before heading off to begin our next adventure in Tanzania, which we’d already been to earlier, ha ha.

Kenya was a lovely country that was filled with very warm and friendly people.  We didn’t experience any of the harshness or horrors associated with Nairobi.  Instead we found a developed city that was bustling at the seams. The country definitely caters more to the tourists as it has been a major African destination for many years, however, the other East African countries are trying to catch up. There definitely appeared to be more dirtiness in the country, however, we had such a small taste of Kenya that it isn’t fair to fully judge.  All in all we’re glad we came, even though it was only for a week.  The natural beauty was amazing and the wildlife is a plenty.  This is a place I will return too.

Until next time,

James

Hello to everyone once again and welcome to the newbies joining the list.

I’m sorry for the lack emails and will try my best to make them more frequent and therefore, shorter.

 The next part of our adventure took us overland into the tiny land locked country of Rwanda. As soon as we crossed the border from Uganda, we noticed distinct differences. The basic infrastructure of the Rwanda, appeared to be more organized.  Roads were better, schools seemed more maintained and newer, and the streets were incredibly clean. Even the agriculture was impressive. Our first destination was the tiny town of Kinigi just outside of Ruhengiri.  We were staying at a lovely lodge looking out towards the Virunga Volcanoes where Kinigi was situated. We were here to visit the mountain gorillas once again, except this time in Volcanoes National Park, the sight of Dian Fossey’s mission and research. We were fortunate enough to be spending two more days with the incredible beasts.

 Day one we had a half hour walk through the beautiful crops, mainly irish potatoes with lovely purple flowers blossoming around us. Then we reached the buffalo wall which marked the beginning of the National Park. We then, surprisingly, only had a ten minute walk before we reached our Gorilla family, the Kwitonda group. We were greeted with one gorilla up in a tree staring down on us.  This experience was better than in Uganda because we got to see more of the group and they were more out in the open areas of the jungle, the only thing missing was a cute little 3 month old like we had in Uganda. We got to see all three of the Silverbacks, the oldest, named Kwitonda is actually 39 years and approaching the end of his life.  They generally will live, on average, to around 40 or 42 years.  He was immense, however the #2 Silverback was the main focus of our visit.  We watched him suck down on bamboo shoots from about ten feet away.  Then all of a sudden he got up and our guide quickly told all of us to back up, yet there wasn’t much room to move and he meandered right past us to feast on some other vegetation nearby. We got to see a number of females with youngsters, one of which was up in this thick vegetation off the ground with the little one being quite playful before disappearing around a tree trunk. The Kwitonda group was a pleasure to see, quite large and active, aside from a juvenile who lay flat on his stomach with his head resting on his arms.  Every once in a while he would make these weird faces with his lips pouting, it was cute to watch, especially since he looked so human.  Gorillas mannerisms and the way they conduct themselves is very reminiscent of humans, aside from the obvious black furry bodies and eating plants. As before the hour flew by and before we knew it we were heading back down the trail for the slopes of Gahinga mountain.

 That afternoon we got to witness a lovely performance by local Rwandan children performing local dances and songs.  The owner of the lodge we were at pays for them to go to school in return for them dancing for his guests. The next day was supposed to be a day off but we decided to return to the jungle in search of the rare Golden Monkeys. Once again we had a brief walk through the fields before entering a the park, yet this time we were amidst a large bamboo forest of young, thin, yet tall bamboo shoots. Soon enough we encountered our first golden monkeys.  The name eludes to the beautiful golden yellow colour that is over their back and flanks. The remainder of their bodies are covered with a variety of browns, deep blues and other darker colours.  They truly are beautiful and we were lucky to be able to get quite close to them.  We would be walking through the bamboo forest and they would be about 3-4 feet above us at times eating the leaves.  The would pick off one of the smaller shoots of the bamboo and run it through their mouths from a sideways angle, as they did their mouths would collect the leaves as they pulled the shoot through their teeth ending up with a clean, leafless shoot to be discarded on the forest floor. They were a joy to watch as they swung around the bamboo, little ones had their weird squaks and squeaks while some males chased each other around.

 Our last day in the region found us heading back out in search of another gorilla family.  This time we had a long 1 ½ hr drive to the slopes of Karisimbi, the largest mountain in Rwanda, to find the Susa family.  The Susa group is the largest of all the 7 or 8 families that are habituated for tourists in Volcanoes National Park, at one time they were a family of over 40 individuals, however they split in half and now have over 20 per susa group.  They are generally found at a higher elevation and the trek is usually much longer, these were some of the reasons for us requesting the Susa group.  We had a long, almost 3 hour, trek to get to them but it was beautiful.  We began climbing up the mountain through more agricultural fields and crops, all the while getting lovely views of the valley and other mountains laid out below us in a myriad of colours from the variety of crops, villages and mountains spread out. When we arrived at the buffalo wall to enter into the park we found ourselves amidst a huge bamboo forest.  This one was much different from the previous day as it was much larger and older.  It was gorgeous walking through it and it seemed to go on and on forever.  Everywhere you looked was bamboo towering around us, I had a few moments where I did my best impressions of tarzan and the apes as I swung from bamboo tree to another, however without the grace of the apes.

 Finally we reached over 3000 metres elevation and were near to the family. By this point I was at the back of the group and watched them disappear down and out of the trees and into a lush vegetated open slope on the mountainside.  As I emerged to see my group ahead, my first image of the Susa family was a youngster slamming his fist firmly on the head of another gorilla and then doing the traditional gorilla chest beating.  What an opening act. We quickly found the dominant silverback, this group, like the Kwitonda group, had 3 silverbacks.  There is a pecking order within the gorilla groups and often the #2 or 3 silverback will leave the group to start his own group because he wants to dominate, usually they will try to steal a few females to take with them.  We watched as the dominant silverback was groomed by a female as two youngsters play fought just below them. The group proceeded to scramble down the hill, silverbacks walking right beside us as they meandered down the slopes, vegetation squashed flat under their heavy weight, this coupled with a number of young gorillas play fighting with one another rolling around, bashing each other and beating their chests.  It was quite a sight to behold.  Our hour ended with us amidst the trees constantly getting stung by stinging nettles, but it was worth it because we watched a couple of gorillas scamper up the tree and then proceed to jump down out of the trees swinging from branch to branch slowly lowering themselves till they were on the ground, and like that it was all over.

 This was by far the best day of the three days that we had with the gorillas.  It was your quintessential gorilla experience.  Everything you could imagine about seeing the mountain gorillas occurred during our visit with the Susa family.  Pure magic! Our next stop was the town of Gisenyi which sits on beautiful Lake Kivu.  We were here for some pure relaxation and down time.  We had some lovely strolls along the lake and even walked to the border with Democratic Republic of the Congo and looked out to the town of Goma. Along the way we passed a number of palm trees that were literally swarming with Straw Coloured Fruit bats that were squawking quite loudly.

 We had decided that we would take the boat to get towards our next destination and we hired a local who said it would take us 2 ½ to 3 hrs to get down to the south end of the Lake Kivu.  It was a lovely day and we headed off with a picnic lunch on this little beater of a boat. We passed a few tiny islands and thought we were getting close.  Each time we asked the captain how much longer he would tell us “only 20 minutes” Soon enough we realized we weren’t close.  I told him to go faster and in broken English he responded that the engine is not working – yay.  I felt like we could have walked faster than we were going.  Soon we approached a random boat in the middle of the lake that appeared to have no direction.  It looked like a miniature version of noah’s ark.  Sitting on top were about twenty or thirty Rwandans and in the open hull of the ship below there were all sorts of wildstock, pigs fought with one another, cows, goats, you name the farm animals they were there.  Soon enough we realized that it was going to take a long time to get there.  We were both getting quite frustrated and had our guide calling to see where we were.  7 hours from our departure we pulled ashore in a remote village to find out that we were still a 45 minute drive by car from where we were supposed to end up.  It was now pitch black and the point of taking the boat to get to our next lodge early had been futile. TIA (This is Africa) rung in my head.

 Our next day started at 430am for Jaclyn’s birthday.  We headed off to a trailhead in Nyungwe National Park in search of the Chimpanzee’s. Rwanda, for whatever reason thinks it is best to get up at the crack of dawn to search for the lovely apes – totally unnecessary.  Nonetheless we had an enjoyable morning hike as we scampered along the trails before diving down the slopes to only have to bushwhack all the way back up to where we had just been, all the whilst slipping and sliding.  At last we got some good glimpses of the chimpanzees swinging in the trees and feeding. A great experience and an unforgettable birthday adventure for Jaclyn. Our fun in Nyungwe continued the next day with a delightful walk to go and find the Angolan Colobus Monkeys, a sub-species of Black& White Colobus.  We were lucky to find them right on the forest edge with perfect views.  We watched them for an hour as they fed and groomed one another. The highlight was getting to see young ones playing.  One youngster kept jumping off the bow onto a smaller branch hanging nearby, it would swing out and he would climb back up, jump back onto the main trunk and repeat it over and over again.  We watched a number of week old babies feeding from their mothers, born completely white, they stood out like a sore thumb against the adults who were all black except for white on their flanks and head that appeared to be bleached white.  There were two other adorable youngsters who kept chasing each other along this big, long branch, when one caught up to the other they would roll around and fall off the branch, grabbing onto each other, smaller branches or a nearby adults long tail that was hanging down, all in the effort to prevent falling all the way down to the ground. It is remarkable to see just how agile these primates are, especially the young and rambunctious ones who are running along the bows and limbs of trees.

 Final stop in Nyungwe park was spent on a hike that took us to this canopy walkway, that was ironically built by a company from Vancouver. We had a lovely vantage point of part of the park from high up in the canopy. The main section was well over a hundred feet up from the forest floor, equally as long in length and was swinging gently in the wind.  To successfully cross, one has to hold on to two of the main metal cables for balance as you walk the “tight rope” mesh floor. For someone like me who is getting worse with heights I was nervous and felt like a little kid venturing on his own for the first time.

 We drove from Nyungwe to the centre of the land of a thousand hills, watching the rolling countryside and fields spread out around us. Soon enough we arrived at a place with such a stark difference it is hard to describe, Gikongoro Genocide Memorial. For those not up to speed on their African history, one of the world’s greatest atrocities took place in 1994 with the Rwandan Genocide. The route of the problem stemmed with the Belgians when they controlled the country.  Prior to colonization the Rwandans were a country comprised of no tribes, however with the arrival of the Belgians, they decided that they needed to change that.  They were the ones that divided the country into two tribes.  The tutsi’s where those who had more than ten cows and the hutu’s where those with less than ten.  The Belgian’s even went so far as to try and find genetic differences between the two, along with producing identity cards which stated whether one was hutu or tutsi. As time went on the Belgian’s supported the “richer” tutsi’s and resentment began to build from the hutu’s. Things progressively got worse and the Belgians began to support the Hutu’s. Overtime, more and more resentment built and soon enough plans were in the works to overthrow the president of the country and rid the population of the tutsi’s. For the next 100days the worst genocide the world has seen, occurred.  Almost 1.4 million people were slaughtered in the most horrific ways imaginable. The number of dead is not accurate as many fled the country and many mass graves are still being found, thereby increasing the numbers of dead. The interhamwe, the killing machine, responsible for the genocide, had a mission to kill 1,000 people an hour, a staggering amount. All this occurred and the world stood by and watched and did nothing, despite many tell tale signs that this was going to occur. The French were present in the country, but in small numbers, and there are countless reports of them saying to the Tutsi’s that they would help to protect them and keep their hidden locations secret, and then when the interhamwe showed up they directed them where to go.

 I have got quite sidetracked but feel it was necessary to paint a small picture of the unfathomable acts that occurred during those 100 days in ‘94. Gikongoro was an old school on the outskirts of Butare, that became a safe haven for over 100,000 tutsi’s during the genocide, unfortunately they were all slaughtered in a matter of days.  Today there is a memorial and museum to remember those that perished. Rwanda has made a stark point of ensuring nobody will ever forget what happened.  At Gikongoro they have rooms full of bodies that were exhumed from the mass graves and preserved with lime powder, other rooms have clothes and other belongings.

 From Gikongoro we visited the quaint national museum in Butare before arriving in the capital of Kigali. We spent a few days in Kigali seeing the sights and driving through many of the new neighbourhoods being constructed with very modern and western style homes.  Rwandans hope that Kigali will be the next Singapore of Africa. One afternoon we went to the Genocide Memorial Museum which goes into incredible detail about the Rwandan Genocide, a strong heart and stomach was definitely needed to be there. In the museum they also had a section detailing the other genocides that have occurred throughout the world.  I was incredibly impressed with how the museum was put together, both a lovely memorial to the almost 2 million people who lost their lives and also a blunt reminder and history, with an unbiasedl perspective of what happened. Jaclyn met a group of Rwandans sitting in the memorial garden surrounding the centre. She asked them how they felt about visiting the museum and what happened with the genocide and they responded, “we’re ok, it’s over and we’ve moved on” .  It was remarkable to hear, and such a testament to this fabulous country. 

 This ended our wonderful journey through Rwanda, a land of such incredible natural and human beauty. You have to remember that the majority of the population was alive and lived through those insane 100 days, yet they have moved on and haven’t let the past dictate their future.  It is so inspiring being in a country like this, surrounded by people who are so positive.  They have a wonderful government that is very forward looking and does not have levels of corruption like many of the country’s neighbours.  They have a strong growing economy and want the population to succeed through education and healthcare.

Rwanda should be a shining example to the rest of us and how we should live our lives.  Live in the present, not the past.  The past is there to guide you to the future that you strive for.

 James

Welcome back to Jaclyn and James’s Excellent Adventure Part II
 
Well, the sequel began a little over a month ago in the wonderful continent of Africa with a brief stopover in Paris.  We had three nights and whirlwind days in the romantic and capital complete with delectable French cuisines. We did most of the normal tourist sites from visiting Notre Dame and saying hello to the gargoyles and Quasimodo (the hunchback). There was a brisk and nippy air in Paris as Europe was experiencing a rather numbing winter spell.  Snow hung on the sculptures lining the outer walls of the Louvre and other wonderful monuments while the wind was whisping other snowflakes into the Seine River.

We had a delightful time in Paris, strolling into quaint little bistros for amazing croissants, baguettes and a variety of cheeses, everything needed to please ones palette and taste buds. We took a journey up the Eiffel Tower at night to see the twinkling lights of the City of Paris beneath us, strolled along Champs Elysses and smelt the cooking of the huts lining the street by the park for the holiday season.  Paris was alive and the city was illuminated in a myriad of colours and holiday cheer. We visited the beautiful Sacre de Couer Cathedral and strolled the cobblestone streets of Montmarte while devouring fresh crepes and coffee. There was a certain magic in the air in Paris and our time quickly came to end.

Then began the real adventure - Africa!!! We flew into Entebbe in Uganda to start the journey. Our first day found us with a local Ugandan named Sula who was recommended to us to show us around the market of Kampala, the capital city. We hopped into one of the share taxi and were whisked down the hill towards the centre of town.  We were both quite surprised by how busy the city was, it was alive with an energetic bustle. People seemed to be walking with a purpose. Soon we found ourselves immersed in the hectic pace of the market, one of the largest in East Africa.  There was your usual variety of fruits and vegetables along with a massive section of second hand clothes and new clothes, mainly from China. We weaved our way in and out of the various shacks, passed the butcher with large hunks of meat hanging above the owners head, and finally emerged from our first cultural experience in Uganda. We wandered around the city and a few other sights to end our first day. Most people seemed incredibly friendly and outgoing, all curious to see white folk wandering through their market and city.

That night set the wheels in motion for our next portion of the journey. We met up with one of Jackie’s mum’s friend’s son’s who was meeting some people from Vancouver.  It turned out to be the Rosengarten’s and Friedland’s who were in Uganda to help with one of the Jewish Communities in the eastern part of the country. Jackie and I were booked to spend time on the Nile River for some relaxation before beginning our “safari” portion.  We headed off to Jinja, the source of the Nile River as it flows out of Lake Victoria. We found ourselves at Hairy Lemon, a secluded island and hour north of Jinja for some relaxation.  We decided to cut the trip short so that we could take advantage of the opportunity to go and help out the Rosengarten’s and Friedland’s with their community work.

After spending a brief 20hrs at Hairy Lemon we headed off to Nabugoya Hill to meet up with the Vancouverites. We were a day behind them but quickly picked up where they left off.  We joined them in helping out at the local school of the Abuyadaya Jewish community, which had childrens from all denominations attending. It was school holiday and we were there to fix things up.  The Rosengarten’s and Friedland’s had done campaigning in Vancouver to raise funds to help upgrade the school and we were there with them to help them carry out some of the tasks.  The ladies and girls were in charge of sanding and painting coat after coat of paint on the inside of the classrooms and on the new playground items, while the men and boys had the task of digging massive holes in the ground for the new heavy duty metal soccer/football nets that were held in place with lots of concrete.  We had to walk down to the school from up on the hill and along the way people, but mainly children, who come up to us and say, “Mazungu, How are you?” Mazungu is what the locals refer to white people as and it essentially means those of a different class and way of conducting oneself. For more info google it, quite fascinating.

It was hard work but incredibly rewarding.  The Jewish community live amongst others but have a small synagogue nestled on the top of a hill.  The following morning we went to take part in the morning minyan.  It was beautiful to see some of the members of the community singing many of the same songs we sing back home, some with different tunes. 

Then as soon as it came, it was time to leave and begin our safari adventure.  First stop was Murchison Falls National Park up in the north of the Uganda.  Murchison Falls is a beautiful park which has the Nile River flowing north through it.  The falls themselves are a powerful surge of water that has forced a narrow opening in the canyon wall where the river narrows.  The water torrents down the side with incredible force, falling in a mix of cascading water and misty spray. We had a number of activities within the park.  We took a lovely boat ride to the base of the falls and were welcomed enroute by many Hippo’s and a few large crocodiles. We had several game drives through the park as well which gave us some wonderful viewings of Elephants, and Giraffe. Our first morning in the park we headed to the adjacent Forest Reserve called Budongo where we went Chimpanzee tracking. We walked through the forest for a short while before we were welcomed with a chorus of hoots and hollers from a troop of Chimpanzees.  Most of the Chimps were high up in the canopy of the trees eating, yet we got to view a few scampering along the ground.  Amazing creatures to observe, and funny to think that we share 97% of the same genes.

Our next stop took us along the bumpy dirt roads for the good part of day going through small Ugandan Villages, each one with children running to the edge of the road to wave, majority with huge smiles. The innocence of these kids was adorable.  Some of them were playing with old tyres that they would roll down the dirt road running beside it with a tiny stick to help give it additional momentum.

Finally we arrived in Kibale National Park, which has one of the highest concentrations of primates in Africa. 20% of primates are found here, with 13 different species. We settled into our humble abode for the next few nights in a permanent tented camp, Primate Lodge. Throughout the property were a variety of primates eating in the trees, some right next to our tent.  We saw red-tailed monkeys, grey cheeked mangabeys and black and white colobus monkeys. The next morning we headed off in search of Chimpanzees again. This time we were even more fortunate as we came across a troop up in the trees, however a number of them came down on the ground and we followed in hot pursuit.  We followed this one male for a while bushwhacking as we went. It was amazing how quickly he moved, walking on the forest floor on all fours using his feet and the knuckles of his hands clenched in a fist position. Then he came to rest in the sun on a tree stump.  We were within 5 metres of him and stood and watched in awe while he relaxed and cleaned himself, this was incredible. It was amusing to watch some of the expressions he would make on his face and once he scratched his private parts and then proceeded to smell his fingers after, bizarre. What a great sighting of a fascinating creature. The next day we went to Bigodi Swamp where a local took us around the trails. The middle of the swamp had a lovely boardwalk with huge papyrus plants dwarfing us on either side. In the swamp we saw a wide variety of birds and more primates.

From Kibale we left the Northern Hemisphere and crossed the Equator into the South of our beautiful planet.  Queen Elizabeth Park was our next destination where we continued doing safari game drives and also took a wonderful boat ride along the Kazinga Channel that spans between Lake Edward and Lake George. Our first few nights we stayed in the northern section called Mweya where we had banded mongooses and warthogs roaming the grounds of the lodge. Then we went south to the Ishasha sector where we were fortunate enough to witness our first lion on the trip.  It was a large male lion which had just killed a warthog which it had hidden in the bushes.  On the tops of the trees surrounding the lion were a number of different species of vulture, all eagerly awaiting the remains. This part of the park was stunning, with typical African savannah rolling out as far as the eye could see, only broken by the ridge and Ishasha river with its adjacent forest where we were staying nestled next to the river. This was a quaint location brimming with tranquility at the river’s edge.  The food was incredible and at night we watched a few demidoff galagos hopping from branch to branch in the trees all the while making cute little chirping noises.  Galagos, also known as bushbabies, are tiny primates that are nocturnal.  They have enormous eyes that are quite cute.  The next morning we did one last game drive in the park and were graced with the sighting of one of the famous resident tree climbing lions.  This particular one was a lioness perched on the bow of a tree with three paws dangling from the limb while the other one was tucked under her head like a pillow.

From QE Park we continued heading south and arrived in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. We were quite high in elevation at this point and our accommodation peered across to the mountains on the other side. It was another beautiful setting that we were in and our room was once again a tent set on a permanent platform and deck that had the same views.

The next morning we set off on an adventure, this was after all the primary reason for venturing to this park……mountain gorillas. We had a briefing and then were whisked off to the trailhead to go in search of our group. It was Jackie and I, 6 other tourists, our guide and an armed ranger to protect us from potentially dangerous forest elephants. The group of gorillas we were tracking was known as the Mubare group. Our trek began weaving through houses of locals, many of which were made of branches held together with a type of muddy clay that is spread out over it.  The door is basic, along with a few windows also made of simple wood and a sheet of corrugated metal for the roof. That is if the owners could afford it, otherwise there would be a basic thatch roof. Finally we left the villages and hit the edge of the park.  The trail climbed steeply to the top of the mountain. From there the trail meandered through thick shrubbery. Finally after two hours we reached the trackers.  These are local park officials that head out early in the morning before the gorillas awaken to be sure they get to them to be able to follow them, they spend the day closeby and when the gorillas go to sleep they leave and report to the next day’s team of trackers where the gorillas stopped.  This is all for tourists like us, so that we get the opportunity to view this creatures in the wild. There are five habituated groups of gorilla in the region of Bwindi that we were tracking.

At last our moment would come, our guide walked us around a large bush and there they were -mountain gorillas.  It was phenomenal, a large silverback (the fully grown male gorilla) was on the edge of a bush eating and next to him in a little opening was a female with a three month old baby gorilla.  They ate for a bit before proceeding into the shade of nearby tree. Here the baby proceeded to climb the low branches and swing from them with little co-ordination.  He kept falling to the ground, don’t worry the branches were barely off the ground.  It was adorable to watch they baby play. Next to the mother was a juvenile male who was resting and sleeping.  Every once in a while the baby would climb up on him and play with his face.  It was remarkable to watch the way that they interacted with one another, occasionally letting out grunts to communicate with each other.

Next we were taken to see another gorilla that was nearby, this one was on an eating mission and we watched him devour the plants around.  At one point he grabbed one of the trackers and then brushed past one of the tourists.  Then we were told that our hour was up and it was time to leave. We had got to see five gorillas out of the 14 total in the Mubare group. It was amazing to say the least. My only wish had been for slightly better lighting for my photos but I can’t complain because getting to watch these phenomenal animals, which also share over 95% of our genes too, was incredible to say the least. We ate our picnic lunch on the trail and then made our way down the trail back to the park headquarters.
 

That afternoon I went out with a local Ugandan birder named Fred.  He was amazing at spotting the birds and even had an ipod and little speaker with all the bird calls of the east African birds.  We’d hear a bird in the distance and he’d play its call and a number of times it would come close enough that we could get a good look at it, a bit of cheating if you could call it that, but it worked like a charm and I added to my growing bird list. I returned to our tent to find Jaclyn getting a massage on the deck overlooking the views of the mountains, 1 hr for $30, gotta love it.

From Bwindi we drove 76kms in 4 hrs along one of the bumpiest roads I’ve been on. We finished our last few days in Uganda on a tiny island in the middle of Lake Bunyoni, one of the deepest lakes in the world. We had a lot of relaxation and boat rides to see the marshes and all the birds in their full glory, along with heading over to check out some of the other islands.

One morning we were taken across the lake to visit one of the communities.  We neared the shore and saw children running down the hillside to welcome us.  When we were within ear-shot the children began to sing and dance for us. There was a lovely harmonius melody and the children were jumping up and down, stomping on the ground.  It was such a warm welcome.  We got out of the boat and were swarmed by these children. This was a very remote area of Uganda and the inhabitants were very poor farmers.  The children were quite dirty and so were their clothes, many of which were ripped.   A number of the kids had tshirts that were being worn as skirts.  The kids latched on to us.  I had children pushing one another to get an opportunity to touch me and hold my hands.  One cute little boy named Domenico was around 6 years old. He was wearing a double xl grey t-shirt that hung down to his knees, there were rips all over and a nice layer of dirt and dust gave it an even more grey tinge, yet he clung to my hand like he owned it.

We walked up the hill to the dirt road and then were taken to our destination a pygmy village. The children who had greeted us were from a neighbouring village and they followed us in a pack as we went to see the pygmys.  The pygmy’s are not short like the name suggests, or like I imagined them to look.  They are quite normal, however, they live very solitary and unique lives.  They do not believe in education and like to be self-sufficient as much as possible.  They performed some songs and dances for us next to their very basic round mud huts with thatch roofs.  The dominant female was a very scary looking woman, who looked more like a man.  She was quite old and weathered looking and had more visible gum than teeth. She kept coming up in our face as she danced and slammed her feet on the dusty ground with a thud, all the while swaying her arms and body from side to side as if under a weird possessed spell.  The songs and dances were beautiful to hear and see.  In the background a woman beat on a large drum while another fed her baby. Then we left and headed back to the boat.  Along the way back the children from the other village followed us, a few of them ruined the experience by asking for things, like money or our clothes. It was hard to say no but it is better to do so, otherwise they will keep begging which we wanted to discourage. When we got back in the boat we decided to give a couple of pens away. All of a sudden there was complete mayhem and they rushed the boat.  Our boat driver pulled back and they proceeded to jump in the lake and follow us, all desperate to get the pen, finally we chose the recipient who was ecstatic.

That ended our adventures in Uganda.  What a remarkable country filled with such beauty, not only the scenery but also the people.  Ugandans are a very warm and welcoming people that love to smile. The impression of Uganda is still one associated with the days of Idi Amin, and it is a complete and utter misconception that is unjustified. The only thing holding back this country is the corruption of the government which is hindering the growth of this beautiful nation.
 
Until next time,
James

A highlight during our time in Uganda was doing volunteer work in the Abuyadya community with the Rosengartens and Freidlands.

We arrived in Uganda in the capital Kampala and planned to spend two days there before heading to Jinja for some relaxing time on one of the Islands by the source of the Nile. We were then scheduled to start our planned trip through Uganda.

While in Kampala we had plans to meet Matthew Stein, one of my moms friends’ sons who lives in Kampala and is the editor of The Independant magazine there. The one night that we could meet him was the same night that he already had plans with another Canadian family. He told us we could join them.

Just to backtrack for a moment… Before we left Canada, we had heard from several people back at home that the Rosengartens and Friedlands were coming to Uganda to help build a playground and improve the school classrooms in the Abuyada Jewish Community. The Abudaya is a small community of black African Jews. Link

Earlier this year, the Rosengartens and Friedlands raised money with Talmud Torah and wanted to visit the community that the funds were being donated to. Not only did these families donate money to this community but they wanted to physically help build a playground and classroom for these children.

We had no idea when exactly they would be in Uganda or where the village was. We had been trying to get their contact information, however we were unsuccessful. We figured that it would be lovely to join them while in Uganda if we could arrange it last minute.

So… fast forward….back in Kampala, we met Matthew for dinner and the family from Canada that he was meeting was of course… the Rosengartens and Friedlands.

We were able to reschedule our trip and join them in the village for a couple of days. The goal was to build a playground with a soccer field, swing sets and slides, and to repaint the classrooms. During the days, Natalie and Phillipa and their daughters Gabi and Elly and I painted the classrooms and the playground swing set and slides. James and the boys, which consisted of Mark and his sons David and Adam and Phillipa’s son Aron dug the holes to put the swing set and slides and soccer nets into and then they put it all together.

We stayed in the village guest house and in the evenings we entertained ourselves, as we were the only ones there. Rachel, one of the community members cooked up traditional and homely food from an extremely small kitchen. She kept the guesthouse in line with her daughters.

At the end of our time there, the mission had been accomplished. The playground was set up, the soccer field ready to play in and the classrooms were freshly painted.

While there we had a chance to go to their local synagogue for a morning service. It was peculiarly familiar and strange to hear the same songs and prayers sung at home, so far away by this African Jewish Community.

We also spent an afternoon visiting the local market and town center in Mbale which is the second largest city in Uganda and right by the village. It was fun to travel down the streets, us pack of 10 white Canadians in this fully black African city..  

It was an extremely rewarding and serendipitous course of events and definitely one of the highlights on our trip in Africa.

Jackie

When James first suggested we go to Uganda I had some reservations. I envisioned a place filled with tribal people, extreme poverty, pollution and violence. While there is definitely no Starbucks coffee here and I am yet to find skim milk, I have been fondly surprised by this country and my expectations have been highly surpassed.

Firstly, I have never met a warmer more welcoming and genuinely kind group of people. People in Uganda want to do anything and everything to make you happy. When you ask them for something they respond with, “Please, why not? or “Please may I?”.

There are plenty of villages and people who live on farms and in the country-side, however, they do not appear to be poverty striken like the Ethiopian Africans you see on TV commercials. They live off of organic food that they grow on their farms and make money by selling their crops in the town at the weekly markets.

They have no need for very much money as they are quite self sufficient. If they do need something, they can sell one of their cows in the market. They eat healthy and natural foods and I have yet to see one child who doesn’t smile, wave and say “How are you?” when they see you drive by.

The lodges and resorts are nestled in the middle of natural settings like by a Lake or in a National Park. They are cozy and sophisticated, yet still have a very natural and African feel to them. On a side note, I was having a spa treatment at one of the lodges and a Warthog ran by… not something you see everyday in Vancouver!?!?

In Uganda we have been on multiple safaris. We have been to Murchison Falls, Queen Elizabeth Park and Ishasha to name a few. We have seen elephants, lions, giraffes, warthogs, wildebeests and kobs. We also went chimpanzee and gorilla tracking and got to see these cute, somewhat human-like creatures (but much hairier) from about 3-6 ft away.

Uganda has been a wonderfully refreshing introduction to our trip in Africa and we are now off to Rwanda..

Jackie

Oh Paris!! I don’t know what it is about this place, but it is just all around the most romantic place I have travelled to. It may be the cobblestone streets and french shutters on the 4 storey buildings or the old French architecture and museums nestled along the Seine River. It may be the fine restaurants, wine and chocolate. Or it may be the strong French accents or high fashion. Or maybe it is just the dynamic combination of all these things. Either way, it is lovely and addictive and a place you just want to spend time in…especially with your significant other..

During our visit in Paris, we toured the Louvre museum and saw the Mona Lisa and Napoleans’ rooms. We visited the Notre Dame and saw the line ups for midnight mass on Christmas Eve. We took a boat cruise along the Seine River and saw all the attractions from a different view.

We shopped at Place L’Opera and ate at delicious and local restaurants thanks to the suggestions of Jenna, Marc’s girlfriend who is from Paris and Elana Jacobson.

We went up the Eiffel Tower on Christmas Eve and saw the Champs Elysee and all the lights of the city in the evening. Did you know that in winter, there is an ice skating rink on level 1 of the Tower?

Since we were there for Christmas, we were able to enjoy the local festivities. There was an evening market and parade along the Champs Elysee. We went on the Ferris Wheel and again had the chance to see Paris from a different angle.

We went to Sacre De Couer and Montmarte on Christmas day.I think Montemarte is my favorite place in Paris because of the cobblestone streets and local restaurants.  

Anyhow, it was a great and cold start to phase 2 of our journey… and then we headed off for Uganda… our first destination in Africa.

Jackie

We are alive!!!

Do not fear, Jaclyn and I are in one piece and are well. 

For those that don’t remember, or those who didn’t read the last email in its entirity, Jaclyn and I had decided we were going to do the 12 day trek to Everest Base Camp and Kala Pattar.

Nov 9th we flew from Kathmandu to the world’s most dangerous airport, according to Discovery Channel, Lukla. We flew on a tiny 14 passenger Twin Otter that seemed to bob up and down with every breathe.  The flight was quite short and stunning due to the scenery of the approaching Himalaya mountain range. Soon enough we began our approach.  We came out of small valley and quickly pitched left then right and it seemed we were heading directly for the nearing mountain, which we were.  All of a sudden I saw the ground getting closer and before I knew it we landed and then we were quickly heading uphill.  We had landed on a runway with a slope of 12 degrees!

Our first day took us to the town of Phakding.  We had actually descended from 2800m in Lukla to 2610m. It was a short first day but quite enjoyable as we walked this beautiful valley past numerous quaint Sherpa villages.  Along the way we passed by many sherpa’s lugging huge loads, all the weight supported from straps attached to their heads.  Its honestly surprising that their aren’t more reports of sherpas with crushed vertebrae.

Next day found us following a lovely river, the Dodh Khosi as we made our way up to the famous town of Namche Bazar. From there we enjoyed meandering the cobblestone streets.  Namche is set in the edge of the mountain in a crescent shaped pattern, spreading up the slope.  Guest houses are dotted throughout the mountainside amidst the cobblestone streets with shops selling every possible knock-off piece of clothing that north face and the other mountaineering companies make.  We spent two nights there as we needed a day of acclimatization to get used to the altitude.  Namche sits at 3440m, 11,280ft. Our acclimatization day took us up to 3900m where we were offered stupendous views of Mt. Everest, Lhotse Shar and Ama Dablam.  It was our first sighting of Everest from so close and it got the two of us even more pumped for the remainder of our trek that would bring us even closer to the world’s highest peak.

Our fourth day had us trek along the trail with the mountain side dropping away thousands of feet to the river and the bottom of the valley below.  It was a rather mystical day, like something you could imagine in Lord of the Rings.  The clouds hung low and there was a thick fog that covered all the peaks and the valley around us.  The only thing visible was about fifty feet in front of us and everything below.  We walked along the trail and then had a steep climb up to the village of Tengboche, this place too was enveloped in a thick fog.  We took a brief visit to the monastery, hoping to have a monk bless our Tibetan prayer flags we had bought in Namche, and that we would hang at Everest Base Camp and on top of Kala Pattar, apparently a good tradition for trekkers to these places.  Unfortunately we found a very reluctant “junior” monk who let a “senior” monk touch them for us - Yay.  We pushed on and spent the night in Pangboche at

The next few days we slowly worked our way higher and higher, spending two nights in the town of Dingboche (4360m, 14,300ft.)where we had another day of acclimatization and did a hike up to 4900m to get our bodies adjusted to that altitude.  From this point on we were starting to feel the altitude.  That day of hiking up to 4900m was a push.  I had felt quite good but Jackie had headaches, needless to say we were both going quite slow.  One’s body doesn’t operate quite the same as it does at normal altitude, everything is slower with movement and breathing becomes much more laboured. The views from Dingboche were stunning, we were even closer to Lhotse Shar and Peak 41, Ama Dablam and many other of the mammoth mountains of the Himalaya’s.

Our next day had us hiking along this beautiful valley ridge with Lobutse and Cholatse continuously towering over us on our left.  Then we had a huge steep climb up the edge of the glacial morraine of the Khumbu glacier which took us past the village, if you could call it that - it was literally one guest house with a water stop, of Dughla before pushing on to Lobuche.  On top of the big climb above Dughla, on top of the edge of the glacier morraine, was an area covered with memorials to the many climbers and sherpas who had perished on Everest and a few of the other surrounding mountains.  It was quite a humbling experience.  This whole trek I’d thought about the famous and not so famous mountaineers who had been along the very path that we were following.  Many had summitted, many hadn’t and then there were those that hadn’t made it back.  It was quite eye-opening to think about them and now that I was looking at the memorials to those who had perished made it seem even closer and more realistic.  I’d read about some of the individuals and seeing their names in front of me made me feel like they were no longer names.  It was a very unique experience and one that I deeply valued, I felt a connection to these people.  One was a gentlemen from Vancouver, Blair Griffiths who died on Everest in 1982.

Following the memorials we had a short few hours before our next destination of Lobuche, unfortunately I really struggled and had a rough go getting the rest of the way, I felt quite lightheaded and had a bad headache.  I eventually made it, had some food and rehydrated before finally feeling better, unfortunately I had some stomach issues that afternoon and evening.  Luckily I awoke the next day feeling much better and re-energized.  Today was a big day.  We were hiking from 4940m / 16,207ft. in Lobuche to Gorak Shep at 5170m / 16,961ft. We began by walking along the edge of the terminal morraine of the Khumbu Glacier and shortly into the hike I felt lightheaded and weak.  My stomach was grumbling again.  Somehow I managed to turn it all around in a few minutes and pushed on.  The next few hours were ups and down, but mainly uphill as we gained altitude crossing the rocks and boulders of the morraine of the glacier before finally arriving in the quaint, secluded village of Gorak Shep.

There in front of us was Pumori, Khumbtse, the southwest ridge of Everest, and Nuptse.  Just below the southwest ridge was the ice of the Khumbu Glacier, Everest hidden behind the peak of Nuptse.  Everest Base Camp was close at hand and above us just to the right below the peak of Pumori was Kala Pattar, our final destination and highest point we would reach on the trek.  We had a quick lunch at our guest house to recharge before taking the plunge towards Everest Base Camp.  Once again it was a struggle as we climbed the other edge of the Khumbu Glacier before dropping down onto the rocks of the glacier and arriving at Everest Base Camp (EBC), 5364m /17,594ft. Such a moment of jubilation.  This had been the real goal since we began looking into the trek, everyone has heard of base camp yet few know about the higher goal of Kala Pattar.  Needless to say we were both ecstatic.  To be standing at the point where so many brave men and women had begun their summit attempts on the highest mountain in the world was an incredible feeling.  This time of year is not climbing season so the place is desolate.  From here we could just get a glimpse of the top of Mt. Everest, on the hike in we had better views until we dropped onto the glacier and lost the view of Everest behind Nuptse.  From EBC we could clearly see the Khumbu icefall, one of the most deadly parts on the ascent of Everest.  The deep crevasses clearly visible, thoughts of those who had slipped and fallen to their deaths were on my mind.  Nevertheless it was a great accomplishment for us and we celebrated.  I had brought up a Nepali beer, appropriately called “everest” - Jaclyn, the healthier one of us, brought an apple!  We stayed an hour taking photos, hanging our prayer flags and relishing in our feat before returning back to Gorak Shep.

The next day began at the crack of dawn as we starting hiking at 5am. We walked to the base of the huge rock pile of a mountain know as Kala Pattar and began the ascent.  The night still hung over the valley, the only light provided by our headlamps to guide the way over the rock trail. We looked like the marshmallow man as we were layered in clothes punctuated with big poofy down jackets, it was well below freezing, luckily the wind was minimal. The trail climbed steeply as switchbacks took us higher and higher.  Quite quickly the light of the sun began to emerge and illuminate the silhouettes of the mountains around us, then a dark blue hue began to appear and then the golden light slowly appeared.  Soon enough Everest appeared and there was a heavenly glow from behind her pyramid peak.  This was shortly followed by a thin cloud that hung over the summit of Everest and reflected the suns golden rays.  The going up Kala Pattar was a slog and we both went very slow as we struggled with the altitude. As the sun emerged from behind Nuptse, the temperature quickly began to rise.  It seemed like it was taking us forever to get to the summit, the body constantly saying “are you nuts, stop go down” while the mind convinced it otherwise.  It was the constant struggle between the two going back and forth.  We pushed on before we finally saw the summit was within reach, yet somehow it still seemed so far away.  Our breathing was laboured as at this altitude there is almost 60% less oxygen that at sea level.  Our hearts were beating what felt like a mile a minute as the body struggles to pump whatever little oxygen is in our blood around our body as quickly as possible.  Muscles felt weak and sluggish.  We kept stopping every twenty steps it seemed like.  Layers were stripped off and thrown on the rocks near the summit, then the final push up the last remaining thirty meters.  Finally at around 8 am we reached the summit of Kala Pattar 5555m / 18,192ft.
What a relief.  All the pain and misery quickly turned to elation.  There we were standing on the top of the world, well the top of our world for this trek.  Still what an accomplishment.  Then I looked over the edge and saw the sheer drop down to the rocks way, way below - terror came to me and I decided to stay well away from the edge.  Prayer flags draped the rock peak of Kala Pattar in colour, contrasting the drab colours of the rocks.  From here Everest was in full view in all her glory.  I stood there imagining all those who had set foot on Everest.  I now had a new found respect for mountaineers.  I was struggling at this altitude, I can’t even imagine being at 8848m 29,029ft atop of Everest. I thought it might be something I would like to do someday, but not after this trek.  The fact I laboured so much at only 5555m / 18,192ft made me rethink it.  I’ll leave it to the experts. Jaclyn and I were ecstatic to have made it atop Kala Pattar.  We took in the stunning views, probably the most breathtaking view I have ever laid eyes on.  The gorgeous peaks of the Himalayan mountains around us were awesome.  Many more photos were taken and more prayer flags were hung before we departed the summit and headed down.

A brief stop in Gorak Shep to eat and then we began our gruelling journey down.  Shortly after departing Gorak Shep I had splitting headaches again, luckily we were going to be dropping in altitude and once we neared Lobuche they stopped.  We pushed past Lobuche, then Dughla before reaching the bottom of the valley beneath the mountains of Tobuche and Cholatse.  We were just below the ridge we had taken from Dingboche to Dughla a few days before, now we were heading close by but towards the town of Periche.  Yaks roamed around us and sherpas moved their loads, finally Periche but we weren’t done yet.  Our guide had made a miscalculation of the sunset and we pushed past Periche.  Not long after the sun set and we were hiking in the dark towards Pangboche. Our pace quickly slowed as we struggled to see.  Soon enough the moonlight was in full force lighting the way for us.  Finally we arrived in Pangboche at 730pm after hiking more than 13hrs.  We were done and exhausted.  The beauty about hiking at this altitude is that coming down you can cover much more distance because going down has no effect on acclimatization, its the going up that you have to be slow and careful. Next night we were already back in Namche Bazaar. Then I got sick - yay.  We left early the next morning but i was going incredibly slowly and felt horrible.  We finally hit the next town after a few hours, Jorsalle.  I took a nap while Jaclyn and our guide thought about putting me on a horse to get me back to Luckla.  Jaclyn decided to give me some rehydration salts which seemed to work a miracle.  Somehow I was re-energized and we pushed on the remaining 5 hrs, despite the many stops I had to make en route.  At last we were done and back in Luckla.  A successful trek.

This trek was definitely one of the hardest things that I have ever done.  There was the constant toll on the body from a physical point of view along with the constant battle in ones mind.  At those altitudes there is the continuous worry about AMS (altitude mountain sickness) which can be deadly.  Everything slighty out of the norm makes one think that you have the first signs of AMS, its like a weird paranoia that one can develop and you continuously need to push it away.  Luckily Jaclyn and I were all good and only had the minute signs of altitude that most individuals get, like headaches and lightheadedness etc.

However, the adventure wasn’t quite finished with us.  We had found out that the Luckla airport had been pretty much closed due to bad weather for almost a weak.  Most people couldn’t get out except for a few lucky flights that got out in gaps in the clouds.  We met a couple that had been stuck for 8 days.  People were dropping thousands on helicopters to get them out.  The morning began badly because Kathmandu was apparently closed due to fog, then it lifted and the planes began to arrive.  We waited for our turn, a weird system for a number in line to get on a flight essentially due to all the backlog.  Then we went to the airport and waited and waited.  I saw the clouds rolling in and didn’t have a good feeling.  Planes kept coming in and our flight still wasn’t being called.  Still we waited.  Then our guide came up to us and said, “James, sorry airport closed”  I said “helicopter”  I don’t know how he knew the airport was closed before it was announced but thank god.  The Nepali military had brought in a transport helicopter to get tourists out and Jaclyn and I managed to grab two of the last four remaining seats.  We said goodbye to our awesome guide, Khagendra was had got us up Everest Base Camp and Kala Pattar and we rushed towards this metal behemoth.  We boarded an old russian built army helicopter that whirled us away.  Our bags were piled on the floor in front of us and we were crammed in, sitting on these tiny benches as the load roar of the blades filled the helicopter.  We landed in an airfield where two other groups from the two previous helicopter evacs were waiting.  They told us that they had to move some military gear and a unit nearby and would be back to pick us up.  While we waited a soldier from public relations came round with a video camera and asked us what we thought of the Nepali military “rescuing” the tourists?  Quite ironic since we had to pay $350US for the rescue. We sat for about 1 1/2 hrs before a military plane picked up one group, a helicopter took the other and another similar military helicopter took us back to Kathmandu.  Finally we were in Kathmandu, what a crazy way to end our momentous 12 day trek in the Khumbu region to Everest Base Camp and Kala Pattar.

Until next time, thanks again to those that read this far. The first part of the journey is nearing its end as we return home Nov 26, can’t believe how quick time flies by, especially when you’re having fun.

James

Lucky all you readers, two emails in two weeks!!!

Well last I left you we were heading off into Bhutan.  We arrived on the flight and had the craziest approach I’ve ever had on a plane in my life.  We were landing in Paro, the only place with an airport in Bhutan.  Paro is nestled in a valley surrounded by mountains.  We began by circling over a number of the mountains, the Himalaya’s, before dropping down and weaving left, then right as we flew incredibly close over the nearest mountain.  Then touchdown in the land of the Thunder Dragon.

Bhutan is a magical place in the Eastern Himalayas and nestled between India and Tibet, Nepal is to the west.  It is a country of 700,000 people with most being rural.  The country relies heavily upon India for many things for construction workers, imports of most things, all the way to helping to protect their northern border from the Chinese, who in the last few years decided that they would take a portion of Bhutan’s northern land for their own.  Of course, the rest of the world stood by and did nothing, with the majority not even knowing about it.
The people are incredibly friendly and outgoing.  They are mainly buddhists here and have many many temples throughout the country.

Our journey began in the capital, Thimpu.  A quaint “city” of 70,000 nestled in the bottom of a valley, like most urban areas.  It is around 2100m, 7000ft up.  There is one main street and there are no traffic lights here or anywhere in the entire country. The busiest part of Thimpu has a traffic cop who stands under a circular stand in the middle of the intersection.  Apparently there used to be a a traffic light there but the citizens protested a lot and it was thus removed.

We spent our first full day leaving Thimpu and heading up to a high pass, Pele La, around 3000m.  Stupas and a new temple were up there which we visited.  From there we dropped down the other side and into the Punakha valley.  Rice paddies surrounded the slopes of the valley, cut into the mountain side like little steps.  Many of the fields were being harvested by the Bhutanese who cut the rice with their sickles and then laid the stalks out to dry on the ground.  They dry them for a few days before taking a tarp and beating the stalks to get the grains of rice out.  We visited a tiny village called Meshina, on the hill nearby is a temple called Chimi Lhakang.  We went there and got blessed by a monk with a ten inch wooden penis, yes you read that right.  Penises are very popular in Bhutan.  Images of them are painted on the sides of many buildings.  They help to ward off evil spirits, bring fertility to the homes and help with good luck.  All thanks to a saint who came from Tibet in the 1600’s who is referred to as the diving madman.  Quite an amusing story.

Next day we began a brief trek called the Samtegang Trek.  We left from the town of Pokhara with 7 pack horses that carried all our food and camping gear.  Bhutan will not let you do treks any other way and the country is quite restrictive on the tourists, wanting to know full itineraries and making them pay a hefty tourist tax per day.  This helps the country to maintain its eco-tourism and huge environmental protection that they do.  The country is more focused on the gross happiness of the people than the GDP, quite refreshing.  Anyway back to the trek.  We climbed up and down to mountains and into other valleys.  First night we camped in a lovely oak forest with a lone farmhouse nearby.  Our second night we camped on the lawn of a temple in another village, I know it definitely felt a little sacrilegious but they said it was ok.  Our last day of the trek we were hiking up the mountain through the rice paddies with the valley dropping away below us. Soon we began to hear some music and came upon a tiny temple.  We went inside and saw a group of about eight or nine monks playing traditional Bhutanese Buddhist instruments while chanting.  It was beautiful and magical to hear.  They used 3 instruments; first a drum that is raised on a stand and is beat with a small bent stick; second, a long horn that bellows deeper than a trumpet; lastly, a type of clarinet that had quite a metallic honking like sound.  We listened for a while and then they took a break.  They asked us to sit with them , they offered us biscuits and the famous drink, Butter tea.  I had heard a lot about it and had to try it.  It is made in a huge vat where they mix water, lots of salt, a hint of some tea leaf and lots of yak butter. It was revolting, so much so that I couldn’t even finish.  Jaclyn was smart and didn’t even try it. The trek was beautiful, we hiked through some lovely chir pine forests and oak forests and the last day came down through the rice paddies before summiting the last mountain.  We didn’t get to too high an elevation but it was still great exercise and most enjoyable.

After the trek we drove up to around 3000m where we visited the Phobjikha Valley.  This was one of my favourite places we went.  It was very serene and beautiful.  The valley is know to be the wintering grounds of the black-necked cranes that migrate from Tibet.  There are only 600 plus left in the world.  We went there in hopes of finding them, but they hadn’t arrived yet, they were late.  Luckily there was a lone youngster that hadn’t left last spring so we got to see him. We did another awesome day hike in the valley.  It is quite coincidental that much of the Bhutan, well the evergreen forests, seem quite reminiscent of beautiful British Columbia.

We spent some more time in Thimpu where we did some more day hikes up to two temples, well one was a buddhist meditation place and the other a buddhist university. The first was called Cheri Goempa and the other Tango Goempa. Both were situated high up on the hills.  We got to view some Grey Langurs playing nearby as well as a Gural, a type of mountain goat. At Tango Goempa we got blessed by a 17yr old who is the 7th reincarnation of a lama.  The last reincarnation died in the 1850’s.  The reincarnation was discovered by revealing historical facts about the previous reincarnations life at quite an early age.  It was quite spiritual to meet such an individual, despite not being a buddhist myself.  Dont’ worry I’m not going to convert.

We then traveled back to Paro where we visited more temples and dzongs (former forts built in the 1600’s that now are shrines and temples with many buddhist monks).  One day we hiked up a steep mountain to reach a famous temple called Tatksheng Goempa or Tigers Nest.  It is absolutely remarkable how the Bhutanese built this temple, and the Cheri and Tango we visited, so high up the mountain side.  Tigers Nest is by far the most impressive of the three.  There was a steep climb up before dropping down the side of the mountain, climbing past a waterfall and then back up the sheer cliffs on the other side to reach the Tigers Nest.  It is perched on top of a huge cliff way up on the mountain.  Thinking about how they must have lugged all the building materials up that mountain is astonishing and such an achievement.  The views of Paro Valley stretched out below us as we enjoyed touring the goempa. The remainder of our time in Paro was spent at the national museum and other temples, one of which was built in 647AD. Evenings back at our hotel I tried archery, the national sport of Bhutan.  Lots of fun and I even hit the target once.  There are archery tournaments all over the country. Men spend upwards of $2000 for their bows.

We spent another day back in Thimpu visiting more temples, going to lookouts overlooking the city below, seeing the library, and a traditional medicine clinic.  The highlight was going to an artist school.  Students are selected to attend based on their skills and spend 3-4 years perfecting various arts such as metalwork, woodwork, painting, stitchwork etc.  All that they are taught is in traditional Bhutanese art which further helps to preserve their phenomenal and fascinating culture.

Our 11 day journey in Bhutan flew by so quickly. It was an absolutely delightful country with children playing and smiling in the fields.  The rich buddhist culture is evident everywhere and the intricacies of the temples are stunning. This little known country nestled in the Himalayas is a true hidden treasure that we will both miss.

After Bhutan we entered the last country of stage one of our year long trip, Nepal.  Our flight from Bhutan to Kathmandu, Nepal was incredible to say the least.  We had an absolutely clear day and were offered stunning views of some of the highest mountains in the world.  We flew over Kachenjunga, Makalu, Lhotse and Mt. Everest.  It was awesome to fly so close to these majestic giants in the sky.  Even at the altitude we were at you could get a sense of their enormous size.

We landed in Kathmandu and entered the enjoyable mayhem.  Way more action and hustle and bustle than anything we’d experienced in the chill country of Bhutan. It was so nice to be surrounded by so many backpackers and young travellers.  We felt like we hadn’t seen them in so long.  We had a great first day checking out the streets of Kathmandu, mainly in the Thamel area.

Next day we headed off to Chitwan National Park. We stayed at a small lodge nestled on an 45sq.km island in the middle of the Narayani River.  We arrived and went on a Jungle walk right away.  Things were quite quiet to begin,a few deer here and there and that was it.  Then as dusk was closing in we heard some rustling nearby.  In the forest not more than 100 ft away was a female sloth bear with her very small cub. It was awesome, these bears are quite rare to see and happen to be one of the most dangerous animals in the jungle.  Next morning we had a ride through the jungle on the top of an elephant, it was great to be so high up and get such a different vantage point of the jungle.  Late morning we had another walk which ended with a boat ride back to camp.  Late afternoon we were taken on a vehicle to drive through the park.  We got really lucky again and got to see not one but five one horned rhinos.  The last one we saw was a young full grown adult male that just stood and stared at us with his almost prehistoric looking armour plating.  They are such fascinating creatures and unfortunately these rhinos in the Asian continent are quite endangered.  We had some more adventures into the jungle but no more good sighting like the first two days.  Our last day we had another elephant ride that was much longer.  We crossed the river three times with water lapping at the bottom of our feet.  The elephants took us through a variety of terrain, some where we had grass that was taller than we were on top of the elephant, other parts we were bush wacking and having to avoid the branches of the trees from smacking us in the head.  Great adventure complete with me getting some nice blood spots on my shirt, compliments of a leech that had sucked my blood from the lower stomach area.

One of the highlights of the time in the park was getting to help bathe the elephants.  I did it the first day and then Jaclyn got the courage to do it the nesxxt day.  They take you in the water and you climb up on their backs, obviously there is no harness with seats like we used in the jungle elephant rides.  They tell you to hang on to the ears of the elephant and it drops down and rolls on its side into the river with you trying to hang on.  Then you get back on and it stands up and begins to fill its trunk with water and spray you while you are seated on its back.  It was such much fun.

We left Chitwan National Park this afternoon and arrived back in Kathmandu.  We have just finished our final preparations for our 12 day trek to Mt. Everest Base camp and Kala Pattar.  We will be reaching a maximum elevation of 5550m.  We are both incredibly excited to be heading into such a beautiful area and hope that luck is on our sides to help us with the altitude and lack of oxygen.

Until next time, stay well and keep on reading.  Thanks to those that have reached this far.

Sincerely,

James