The website i had suddenly doubled their prices and as im on a budget here, spending that much per month, is a bit too pricey for me. Im very sorry that I've had to change this so much, but hopefully you will all catch on and be able to figure it out.
THe last time I wrote was ages ago: i am now writing from Zambia. unfortunately I will not be able to provide details for everything I've done but I'll include some bullet points and hopefully you can get a jist of what I've been up to.
- I spent about 2 weeks in ARusha, Tanzania at the ICTR (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda) doing research to finish up my summer course.
- Everyone left, and I bought a tent and went to zanzibar to meet up with a friend who I met in Kenya. Spent a few nights in Stonetown and headed up north to Kendwa Rocks for a full moon party. met an american guy, who i ended up traveling with for about 2 weeks.
- Left Zanzibar on an overnight ferry, spent a few hours in Dar Es Salaam and then got on train to Malawi. The train was wonderful, and quite an experience. I had a 3rd class ticket and spent 23 horus sneaking aroudn the first class cabins and met up with American (named Brandon) and his 2 new english friends, Luke and Tom. I spent 2 weeks with them.
- We arrived in Mbeya, and got hassled beyond belief and screwed over by a stupid tout. Long story short, we paid way too much $ for buses and got unlucky and eventually made it to the border, after walking for 2 km.
- Hassled all the way and annoyed beyond belief, we (me, brandon, tom and luke) arrived in Nkhata Bay, Malawi after many buses and a very nice man who took us in the back of his truck. Heaven on earth- Mayoca Village (where we stayed) is absolutely gorgeous, beautiful lake malawi, great food, wonderful people, boat trips, canoes, kayaks, hammocks, pool competitions, fresh juice...4 days later we added 2 people (Mitch and Ed, 2 aussies) to our group and we set off to Lilongwe to rent a car.
-Lilongwe was taxing and a bit challenging to get the car set up and everything, but on wednesday we set off and drove across the border. We had so many traumatizing, frustrating, painful experiences on buses in malawi that none of us could tolerate another bus, so we were very happy to have our own car.
- The drive was great, until the border when we had some difficulties with our visa waiver (free visa, normally 100$!) and such, but i agreed to convert to christianity and to marry one of the border guards, so we finally pulled through and got ourselves and the car across into Zambia
- First stop was South Luangwa Nat'l park and we stayed at a beautiful camp. Relaxing, good food, beautiful scenery (think elephants, rhinos, baboons and monkeys all over the cam) and we slept on platforms up in the trees! Did a night safari there and saw muskrats and a baby elephant nursing and a leopard eating his/her kill in a treetop! pictures will be up before the next millenium :)
- I killed any possible budget and flew from the park to Livingstone Falls. The journey, on bus, wuold have taken about 2 or 3 days, the flight was 3 hours!
- Yesterday I spent the day at Livingstone falls, one of the 7 wonders of the natural world, i think. Huge, beautiful, wet and sunny but I think im kind of water falled out- Niagara, Iguasu, and many other beautiful ones. Walked across to Zimbabwe and watched some awesome monkeys invade a 5* hotel room and steal all the sugar packets and eat them. Also saw a stupid tourist get freaked out by a big baboon and throw her bag of potato chips to the baboon. He ate 3 bags of chips in one sitting!!!!
- Im heading to Lusaka this afternoon to get my Mozambique visa, before I head off to Moz, then down to swaziland and jo'burg, before flying to mali!
Enjoy :)
