The end to Africa and a hello to India

So i ended the last update when we had just got to Cape Town. Martin, who hosted us in Cape Town, was amazing. He put us up in his B&B for a week. He let us use his car for multiple days. He gave us different things to see, most of which wouldn't have been seen if it weren't for his guidance. What a beautiful city. We went in the cage to see great whites. That was truly something spectacular. The sharks were aggressive and we had 10 of them swimming around us. We then hiked Table Mountain which provided 360 degree views of the city and ocean. We went to Cape Point, which is the furthest southwest point on the continent. The winds there were intense. We swam at the beautiful beaches. Nick and I did a wine tasting and tour with Mike and Kelly. We were also there for a massive party where they divided the World Cup teams into pools. There were 100,000 people all lined up along this street. Pretty cool. After that we departed from Mike and Kelly, who we hung out with everyday for 5 days. Nick and I took a bus to Kynsna, where we rented a car, took our time driving along the beautiful Garden Route and onto to Durban where my parents had a friend.

In Durban we were treated like Kings. Joy, my parents friend, rented us a car and put us up in a B&B. We were not expecting this, but it was awesome to see a woman give and give to us.

On monday we went to the Indian Consulate to get our visas to India. We were leaving in 3 days and this was the only time we could have done it in South Africa. Of course, visas usually take 5 working days, so we could only pray that ours would be a miracle of God. On wednesday we had to leave for Johannesburg to catch our flight the next morning, so we knew we had to get our visa at the end of the day on wednesday, but there was a problem. It was a national holiday and as you know, government agencies will take any chance to get a holiday, but for some reason, it was open that day and we got our visas. Definite workings of the Lord. Praise Him.

We then got a cheap, one hour flight from Durban to Joburg to save some time, slept in the airport and got up to our flight the next morning. We are now in Mumbai India waiting for Justin to arrive in a few hours.

So far India is very populated, dirty, and poverty stricken. Its very sad to see the people here. Most of them sleep on the sidewalks. Its crazy, but more to come on India.

I am going to try to provide some pictures now.



























Our rented car, Chico. What a fun time.








Mike cutting open a bottle of champagne with a sword. This is the real way to do it.









Notice the handle bars and mustaches going on. We have to represent in India











I don't have the talent or time to align every picture. Sorry. Hopefully more to come if time permits.

Baboons, Bungy, Beards, Beaches, and Buses

Wow its been way too long. Sorry all you dedicated followers...

So we ended off at Zanzibar. From there we took a ferry to Dar es Saleem. We couldn't get off the ferry until the morning when it was light because of the crime. From there we boarded a train for over a day. That was quite interesting. We then stayed a night in Mbeya and got up early to get a bus to Malawi. We bought a ticket to the border and then another one that would take us from the border to the next big town. Well when we got to the border, there were no buses and we got screwed...little did we know we were on punked and Ashton K came running around the corner screaming "you've been punked jamie." I was alittle embarrassed but gave props to AK for getting me. Eventually we decided to get a taxi and get to Lake Malawi (it was Ashton's taxi, so he was stranded at the border).

Lake Malawi, wow. Incredible. We stayed at this hostel right on the water. We had a balcony where we sat and watched the kids playing and the sun rising. Yes i know this is alittle too romantic for 2 guys. Don't worry Rach, he loves you more. We spent a few days there, wish it was longer. Naturally we met these 2 local guys, Maurice and Amos. They were artists, so we decided to pay for 2 t-shirts that they would make us. Nicks read "No my friend, i do not need a taxi" and mine read "Stephen Harper, not obama" We get asked alot about how Obama is and whether we need a taxi.

From there we spent a few days traveling to Zambia. This is where we would see the great Victoria Falls. It was truely amazing. There wasn't as much water as most pictures show because its the low season, but that allowed us to do some amazing things. The first day we started walking around the falls and this guy approached me. He asked me about my Stephen Harper shirt. After we chatted and i told him the Flames are a terrible hockey team, we found out that Mike and Kelly are from Calgary. So we went with them to the Devil's Pool. This is a pool that overlooks the falls and can only be swam in when there isn't as much water. We were literally swimming in a pool that was inches from us falling over the falls to our death. It was amazing. At one point, we stuck half our bodies over the falls. The next day we went bungy jumping. Mike joined us and Kelly did a sweet job on documenting this legendary day. So thrilling. We loved it. ON the way back, we were walking and there were some baboons. As the big one passed me, i came up behind it and started mimicking it and making monkey sounds. Mike was laughing and trying to film it. The baboon didn't like this, so it charged me. I turned a ran. So did Mike. Eventually it stopped and we were laughing for awhile. I was definitely taken by surprise. That baboon and its rabies put some fear in me. The next day we rafted the Zambezi River with MIke and Kelly, as well as Chris and Mitch. They were from Winnipeg. It was an all canadian boat. Those 5 days were quite a highlight.

We then left Zambia and went through Botswana for a few days. We hitchiked to the Namibian border with truckers who were carrying these huge tanks. One of the trucks broke down, so we were sitting in the middle of the Kalahari desert with a truck that was over heated. Eventually it worked out and they brought us to the city. From there we were looking to get to Windhoek, the capital city of Namibia. This massive, mean looking german guy picked us up and said we could sit in the back of his big semi on top of the carrotts he was delivering. We were jacked. He took us the remainder of the 3 hours and we were finally there after like 3 days of travel. Windhoek is very German. It really isn't like anything we experienced in Africa. Its more like Europe, so it was a nice break from the poverty. From there we went to the coast to Swakopmund. We sandboarded there on the beautiful dunes. We played in the cold atlantic ocean and we even spent a few hours building sandcastles. We were getting a little anxious to leve and go to south Africa.

We took a 24 hour bus to Cape Town and that is where we are now. It is stunning here. The ocean, mountians, beaches. So gorgeous. We have been here 2 nights. We are currently staying at my buddy Carl's Uncle's Bed and Breakfast. Martin his uncle has been great. Put us up in his house, gave us his car for the day. Awesome man. Surfing and swimming with sharks are to come. We are meeting Mike and Kelly to see the sharks with them. 17 days and we are through with Africa and onto India.

Today we went wine tasting, olive oil tasting. A little out of our comfort zone but that is what this trip is about. The average age of the wine tour we did was probably 88, hahaha. Cool old people i tell you.

NO pics for now, but the pics are coming for real, so don't get mad Ash. SOme poetry too.

Sorry for the long delay. That was the short version. There are many more stories.

Poll question

(Tanga to pangani, about a 1.5 hr drive on bad gravel roads)

How many people do you think were in this taxi ride at one point? Take a guess.

Ok now for a real blog update....sorry for the delay.

It definately has been a while, a few weeks a large number of kilometers, and an even larger amount of greetings of 'My friend, you need a special taxi? Ill give you friends price'. pretty funny but to be serious we were thinking of making shirts that say 'NO WE DONT NEED A RIDE' or something along those lines. the big towns are definately the worst but everywhere you go and seemingly everyone you meet is a official tour guide/owns a taxi/ or has a gift shop you can not afford to miss. but with a whole variety of lines we now miss most. The offers/ the shops/ etc are all getting to be the same, but I guess it is our fault that this has come about. Lately, somewhat out of spite, we have begun bartering with people sheerly for pleasure and to see how low we can get them from their original price. It may seem mean but especially on the beach it somehow doesnt feel all that wrong.


Gorilla (obviously, but we actually saw them in the wild)
At any rate it has been a while since we updated and you are probably wondering where weve been and where we are, so I will start from where we left off.

From Kampala ( a very crazy city) we headed down by bus through Uganda to the southern city of Kabale. We heard that a Lake which is near to this town (Bunyani) was very nice, and also free of parasites etc as it is quite high in altitude. It turned out to be a good time, although the poor weather limited our stay. In fact we got caught out in a big storm paddlign our rented canoe, and had to dodge a few lightning bolts. From Bunyani we stayed one night at a nice hostel in Kabale, before venturing across the border into Rwanda.

The geography of both Uganda (the parts we saw) and Rwanda is absolutley phenomenal. It is extremely lush and mountainous and was very interesting to drive through. This was a nice change, especially after coming from the Masai lands of Kenya which have been in severe drought. The Rwandan border was no problem to get through and soon enough we were in Kigali the capital city.

Us, another trekker, and our guide for gorilla trekking.

In Kigali we booked a ticket to go see Gorillas in the Volcans National park. This park was very nice, and a rarity for the tiny country. It seems nearly every part of Rwanda is cultivated, all the slopes etc, and much of the national parks that previously existed were given out to displaced people and returning refugees from the genocide (more on that later). Anyways we tracked the Susa group or family of gorillas, famous because of Diane Fossey. It was a neat experience, and the two hour hike through the rain forest was very good. Once back to Kigali however we were short on funds, and the banking system wouldnt recognize our cards or banks so we had to go pretty budget and walk for hours around the city. Kigali is very nice, and has obviously benefited from international aid etc. Getting out of the country to Tanzania was a bit tough by ground, especially without funds, we decided to fly to kilimanjaro airport with Rwandair. It worked out great as they accepted visa.

But back to the Genocide. All around the countryside were reminders, graves, signs (Jenoside in Francais) etc. We were also informed that it is now an offence to mention anything about tribes (hutu, tutsi). Automatic jail apparently, everyone is now a Rwandan. We also went to the memorial in the capital which was very interesting and quite eye opening.

Boat to the island of Zanzibar (4 hour trip, with an hour for snorkeling)

From Kigali to Kilimanjaro International airport was a nice flight on a tiny little twin prop. Very nice views flying over lake Victoria, and the Ngorongoro Crater among others, it was definately worth the extra money, and saved us a couple days of bad roads and cramped buses.

After arriving in Kilimanjaro, we were able to see the mountain, although with the clouds we originally thought that Kili's neighbour, MT Meru was the highest point in Africa. And if it was it would have been a let down. But on the way to the nearby town of Moshi, we saw the snow capped peak breifly and were thereby able to check Kilimanjaro off the too do list.

Zanzibar (enough said)
Tanzania has been hot from the start. Very warm inland and as we made our way by bus to Tanga (on the coast) even warmer as we headed over the Masai Steppe and through various mountain ranges. The people here are much like the Kenya, with decent english, but it seems everyone is trying to hustle you. Giving you wrong change (to see if you notice), trying to get you to buy, acting like a pal and then expecting money for a service you never wanted. Pretty exciting stuff.. but we are managing. Tanga itself was a let down, with only a small chunk of INdian Ocean beach, and at a cost no less. So we took off to the small town of Pangani, which was gorgeous. Both of us got cooked swimming in the ocean and kicking it on the white sand beaches. Good times, but as we have found out the last couple days, it doesnt hold a candle to Zanzibar. We took a small wooden boat, (which we actually have a pic of above) to the island with a few other mzungus (white people) and were dropped off at the northern town of Nungwi (For those following along). It was unreal, which didnt help the burnination of our backs. From the there we headed to the actual town of Zanzibar, and the old Stown town (Which is where you find us at press time). The old town is quite something, easy to get lost, easy to get ripped off and even easier to get hustled by the appropriately named "ticks" (i forget the swahili name). Anyways everyone here is a amuslim it seems, and all the women wear the clothes. It has been good though, seeing the sites, as well as experiencing a bit of the culture, while also eating some good food evening markets and small shops.

But our trip must go on, so tonight we are heading back to the mainland, Dar es Salam to be exact. We are taking a night ferry which is the cheapest and also the longest unfortunately. It doesnt dock till 6 am tomorrow morning, due partly to being slow, and partly to the fact Dar is deemed to unsafe at night to drop hundreds of people off into. Good to know, and another reason we wont be staying too long. Off to southern Tan (Mbeya) and then Malawi Lord Willing. And this is where we leave you followers for now. (all five last time I checked?) Not including my mom and dad though, who I assume do not know how to become followers. All the best every one!

Uganda

We left Nakuru on Tuesday morning and headed to Jinja, Uganda. It was an 8 hour bus ride with Kampala Coach and this is what i learned about buses in Africa:

1. They are very aggressive drivers...but they can only reach certain speeds because there is a gigantic pothole or speed bump every hundred meters.
   
2. You better love Usher because they played about 6 of his music videos over and over again.
   
3. No matter what it is, music videos or CD's, expect it to be played about 5 times in a row. By the end of that, you basically have learned the native language and can sing along.
   
4. There is a good mixture of music. Christian music is a lot better over here, even if they do play it over and over again. I guess its a lot like Praise 106.5 (Man i miss that stuff).
5. The buses are usually the biggest vehicles on the road, so if they want to use your lane, you better get out of the way.
   
6. We were blessed though because we had ample leg room

That was my bus experience. It was a good one. Hopefully our bus ride tomorrow morning is as memorable.

When we got to Jinja, we walked around, found a place to stay and rested up...because the next day we were going rafting on the Nile. The rafting was amazing. We hit class 4 and 5 rapids. Our group was sweet. Everyone wanted to hit all the big ones. We even hit a few that most groups miss because the paddling is too much. It was great. We got flipped twice, one of them our guide did on purpose we later found out. Haha. So much fun. The great thing was, we didn't run into any crocs. I guess we are too skinny these days for them to even consider.

After that we stayed at the campsite down the river. We went swimming in the Nile the next day. The currents are pretty strong, so we definitely had to be careful. Nick might tell you a story about that one day. Last night the rafting company gave us a free ride to Kampala, and that is where we currently are.

We leave tomorrow to go to Lake Bunyani. Its suppose to be unreal. We'll stay there for a few nights and then onto Rwanda to trek Mountain Gorillas.

God bless you all,

Love and Peace

Give me a S-A-F-A-R-I

On Sunday we decided that we wanted to go to the Maasai Mara for a safari. We were hoping to catch the wildabeast migration. So we called our friend Terri who said she had a friend who worked for a safari company. She called him and he gave us a pretty expensive price, so we decided to call this guy that approached us at the airport. We were a little skeptical about this guy because they usually prey on tourists, but we went with his company, Big Time Safaris. They picked us up monday morning and we headed off on the 4 hour journey to the game reserve. They had sweet trucks, which allowed us to stand up in them to see different animals. We got there and they put us in these sweet huts. Then we were out on our first trip to the game park. We saw thousands of animals. Lions, elephants, giraffes, zebra, gazelle, rhino, crocodiles, and hippos. Our driver, Joseph was awesome. He took us off the path a few times, literally 8 feet away from lions. On tuesday we were in the park all day checking out different animals. We ended up seeing a rhino at the very end of the day. The crazy thing is, there are only 5 of them in the park and they mostly never get seen. The only animal to allude us was the leopard, but we did see one of his kills in a tree. Overall, it was an amazing experience. The food was great and the people were amazing. What a great blessing.

Jumping with the Maasai Warriors.

Yesterday we hopped into this tiny truck with a friend of a friend, and he drove us to Nakuru, where Nick's parents have some family friends. There are families that live in this 20 acre compound and its beautiful. They are really nice and have provided us with a nice place to stay for a few days.

From here we plan on heading to Uganda to climb Mt.Elgon. Should be interesting.

Another crazy thing is the last 2 days it has been raining. Kenya was experiencing extreme drought and hopefully this rain allows for people to grow some good crops.

Thanks for all the responses.

Africa

Update time....

Lots has happened since the last post. First of all, after touring London all day, Nick and I came back to our hostel and our bags we not where we put them, so we went looking around. we found nicks bag with a slit in the top section. Someone clearly knifed his bag. Mine bag was gone altogether. We talked to the hostel people and they looked at the cameras and clearly saw a guy slit nicks bag and then pick mine up and leave. The police couldn't do anything, so i had nothing except what was on me. I was pretty mad...so i had to buy everything new again, lucky jarrett's friend tim was there to help us find stores. Tim is the MAN. My DAD is also the man because he gave me a bunch of his clothes later that night when we met them at their hotel. Thanks Dad. It was nice to see my parents before we took off to Kenya.

The bag being stolen has been a blessing in diguise because it has allowed me to spend lots of time reading the bible and praying. I know God is going to do some crazy things on this trip.

We got to nairobi, kenya at like 230 in the morning. i had contacted someone my Dad knew here and they were going to meet us at the airport. After waiting an hour, i called Bella and Richard. They came and got us. They have been the most amazing hosts. Provided us with rides everywhere, food and a place to stay. We have gone to a bunch of malls to pick things up, went out to eat alot, went to see some animals, and just seeing Nairobi as much as possible.

We are kind of just catching up with sleep and just getting used to this culture and lifestyle. Nairobi is crazy. The drivers are nuts...but Richard rules the road, so we are good to go. At 5:00 the roads are crazy with cars and thousands of people walking alongside the road. Its been a great experience so far. Looks like we will be heading out of the city on saturday and we will visit a Maasai village there.

I wish i could put some pics on here...when i have more time I will try.

I also want to say hello to my beautiful new neice Illyana. Congrats Joel and Tanesha.

london...dreams of being as nice as van

Hello everyone, it has been a very eventful trip so far. First of all our flight got delayed a bunch of hours in vancouver, and we had to switch our connector flight. Secondly, jamie almost didnt get admitted through US customs in vancouver for taking pictures of 'classified' material. then upon arrival in london, neither of our bags showed up in the carousel. about an hour later on our way to the customer service booth we found our bags piled on the ground. thankfully we both had some sturdy locks on our bags to protect all our valuables. following a trip into the city from heathrow we took the advice of some scrub and went searching for hostel's miles outside london city proper. good choice. anyways after some walking we finally found a cheap hostel and signed in for the night. after catching up on some sleep tuesday night, we chatted with our roommate a bit and got a hookup in Uganda which might work out well for us. wednesday we spent out on the town checking out museums, palaces, and parks, all the while dodging pigeons and angry taxi drivers.

What nick forgot to mention is as follows:

1. Our diet has consisted of mcdonalds and subway, therefore to stay chisled, we needed to walk for 9 hours today.
   
2. nick loves chattin in his sleep
3. people in london walk as fast as the red rocket used to drive, they are always on their phone or listening to their ipod, and they are always looking at the ground.
   
4. they also pay rent by the week, most of which are like 500 pounds a week. do the math.
   
5. and lastly, but more importantly for most, we havent showered yet.

peaceeeeeeeeeeeeeeee