The Last One

I've been in Holland for a week now, and still haven't posted a thing. No, this has nothing to do with the availability and/or speed of the Internet. Think of it more as, perhaps, a mental block, rather than any actual obstruction. Writing this post means my trip is really over, something I've been trying to avoid, and still am, even though it really has been (over), for a week now. I think it's just, what do you say after all of this? I can't even begin to describe how I feel now. Relaxed but anxious. Thrilled but sad. Tired but revived. Home but not home. I miss Ann Arbor, I miss my friends and colleagues in the States. Of course I do. But, I'm happy to be staying with my family now, and am looking forward to hanging out with old friends from high school and college here once more. In short, rather mixed feelings.

Luxor was beautiful! I spent two full days there: one day on the West Bank, and one on the East Bank of the Nile. My day on the West Bank (first day) was a good choice, and well spent! I picked what I think are some of the most beautiful and/or most important sights, because it would be impossible to cram everything into one day, and then went to those sights with a private driver plus guide. Luckily the guy was an Egyptologist who really knows his tombs and so forth, so that certainly helped; I couldn't imagine having had to do all of that on my own.

I started the day going to the Valley of the Kings (picture left), and visited three tombs there. Taking pictures is extremely prohibited, and I didn't feel like losing my camera (and getting it back for no less than a $50 bribe!), so no snapshots of those. But they were quite amazing, all the murals and carvings etc.; especially the burial chamber of Ramses I was spectacular, with incredibly vivid colors, and remarkably well preserved.

I skipped the Valley of the Queens (in an attempt not to be over-'tombed') and headed straight for the Hatshepsut Temple (pictures left, and above right). I had seen a picture of Char in front of it from back in 2004 and have wondered about that remarkable monument ever since. I had assumed that it was built into the mountain, much like Helms Deep in Lord of the Rings. But, in fact, only the top (third) level is built into the mountain; the rest is built in front. It was extremely crowded here (and it had gotten to be quite hot by this time) but still an incredible sight. My guide once more pointed out many of the hidden treasures and artwork in and around the temple, so in short, time well spent.

The next stop was the Medinet Habu temple (picture right and below left). Lonely Planet touted this as one of the most underappreciated tourist attractions in Egypt, and I completely agree; this was by far my favorite sight that I saw in all of Egypt. An astonishing amount of murals and sculptures were very well preserved at this rather large site, which centers around the temple of Ramses III. The last stop, on the way out of the West Bank (and heading back to the one nearby bridge that connects ancient "Thebes" with the East Bank) I saw the Colossi of Memnon (picture below right); two giant seated statues (about 18 m, or 55' tall) that once guarded the Temple of Amenhotep III (which was only discovered fairly recently, and is still largely hidden underground).

That concluded my West Bank day, which obviously was amazing. I went back to the hotel to relax a bit, but it didn't all work out as I had planned. I'll spare you the details, but after a pretty much very disappointing night (where it comes to both service and facilities), I decided to swap hotels the next day, which I did, and it worked out fine. The best part about the hotel was the (here we go again) view of the sunset from the rooftop pool area (see picture at the very top of this post). The hotel was located on the East Bank, pretty close to the Nile, and seeing the sun set behind the mountains across the Nile was a true joy.

Sadly, the food in Al-Uqsor (the Arabic name of the town, which we later butchered into "Luxor") was nowhere near as good as that in Cairo. I tried to go by the Lonely Planet once more, but was disappointed (as, to be fair, my guidebook had predicted). So my last night I decided to spring for Japanese food in one of the top-end hotels. Bad choice. Though I still have no proof it was that particular meal (the test results aren't in yet), my last night in Luxor (which is when I had the Japanese food) I got violently ill, which to varying degrees continued for a little over a week. Today (Saturday) is pretty much the first day I'm not folded in half because of stomach cramps. Oh well, it's not the end of the world, at least I didn't gain all that weight I was fearing to gain (in fact, I lost about 4 kg / 9 lbs in a week), but it sucked that I now was unable to enjoy some of the finer restaurants in Cairo I had been saving for last. And, the 10-hour trainride on Thursday (last week) and the 9 hours traveling from Cairo through Prague to Brussels Friday Night were no pleasure cruise either...

In any case, my second day in Luxor, on the East Bank, I took it easy, mostly (this was still before I got sick). I spent the morning strolling around the Luxor Temple, which is pretty much right downtown, which meant that I had walked past it many times already. The Lonely Planet gave a pretty thorough description here, so I figured a guide wasn't really warranted. It was amusing to me that part of the temple is now, in fact, a mosque (see picture on the right), but I guess not really all that surprising. The temple was well preserved structurally (the alley of the sphinxes, picture below on the right, was uncanny), but much of the decorative artwork had been lost.

After relaxing a bit by the pool of my new hotel (also a rooftop pool!) during the hot hours of the day, I went to the Luxor museum in the afternoon. I had been looking forward to this a lot, since Char had touted it as her favorite place in all of Egypt. And certainly, it was remarkable. As museums go, it was just about the polar opposite of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo: wide open spaces, artifacts are carefully picked and displayed, and a lot of thought even went into the lighting of the pieces. Mostly, the museum was dedicated to war artifacts, but the two mummies, and the wall of Akhenaten were my favorite items there. It wasn't hard to see all the items in THIS museum, but I still spent a good 2.5 hours there.

After the aforementioned Japanese food (which tasted, aside from the sushi which was mediocre at best, quite good) the next day I had an entire day of "training" ahead of me. I dished out the $14 (11 euros) for a first class ticket and listened to books-on-tape all day (I am now an expert on Law in America [Lawrence Friedman] and Chronicles of Narnia [C.S. Lewis]!!), while trying to nurture my aching insides to a better place. Unfortunately, to no avail, and so I spent my last day in Egypt feeling pretty miserable, not "doing" anything anymore, other than checking the Internet and assuming the fetal position on the sofa at my hotel. I left the hotel around 11pm, splitting a cab with a German family, and got on my flight to Prague, which left 30 minutes late. Remarkably, I did manage to make my 50 minute transfer, and that's with picking up the second boarding pass in between. Perhaps more surprisingly, my bag made it also.

And so, now I'm here, in Holland. Excuse me, the Netherlands. It took more than 5 years in Michigan for me to stop saying Holland (so as not to confuse it with the town "Holland" in West Michigan), but 3 months on the road and I've already given up on "The Netherlands". But, call it what you will, I'm here now. And now, the real choices and challenges begin. What do I want to do, where do I want to do it, and how do I get to do it; these are the crucial questions that I'll begin answering now. This is not going to be easy; certainly not! I expect a steep road ahead of me. But, I've already climbed so many hills and mountains before, I'm not really all that worried. Not just in 5.5 years of living in the United States, though believe me, there were many challenges! But also in these last three months. Yet now I know, now that I've taken this trip of a lifetime, this trip that no one can ever take from me ever again, now that I have these tremendous new memories that have changed me forever in so many ways, now that I've climbed over so many obstacles big and small and reached my goals, now I know that the view from up here is worth it.

Thank you all for reading and writing me while on the road; it has been very encouraging to see so many of you feeling involved and connected with my journey. To those of you I have left behind in Michigan and elsewhere in the US: I will miss you dearly (I already do), but know we'll meet again soon (you're all coming to visit me... right?)! And to those in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe: I'm baaaack!!!!

Pictures & Videos

So, a quick post from my last 14 hours of travel... strange to think that after leaving Ann Arbor about 3 months ago, the night after a great party! In any case, I've been able to upload lots of pictures and videos here in Egypt, with the fast Internet and so on, so you can check those out.

Almost all pictures are uploaded onto my picture site, which you can find by clicking here. There are a few more of Luxor that I'll add once I'm home in Holland. But, everything from Mauritius, South Africa, Tanzania, and Cairo is up there now!

Also I've uploaded lots of videos. You can see a video of the hotel I was staying at on Zanzibar here. The beach we went to on Zanzibar after the spice tour is this one, and Nassoro the caretaker at the hotel can be seen posing for a picture here. Lastly, two little videos of Zanzibar's unique Red Colobus Monkeys can be seen here and here.

In Egypt I made some videos of the pyramids, which mostly are inaudible due to the wind. But, the pictures are nice. You can view them here, here, and here. The last two videos are of the El Fishawy coffeeshop in Cairo (here) and the Hatshepsut Temple in Luxor (here).

Enjoy!

Feeling a bit dirty...

Sand gets EVERYWHERE!! When I was a kid and played outside with my buddies, I often came home quite dirty, sure. But as I grew older I learned to appreciate cleanliness. OK, you're right, I'm a bit obsessive over personal hygiene. But, when you travel, you must be able to put this aside a little bit. Maybe not to the extent of one fellow traveler I met in Johannesburg (who happily and willingly volunteered the information that he only had one pair of underwear with him on his trip, which he wears for 4 or 5 days before washing it...), but you can't expect to be sparkling clean constantly.

Going to the pyramids, however, gave all this a whole new dimension. It was going to be hot and sunny, my first full day here, so I figured I'd put on some suntan lotion. Big mistake. Once I got out to the pyramids, it turned out to be extremely windy and, well, seeing as how it's the desert and all, that meant that a LOT of sand was blowing everywhere. Literally everywhere. I'll spare you the graphics (or let you think them up yourself should you so be inclined). Also, it's not a good place to have the longest hair on the trip; still not all that long, really, but long enough to trap a small sandbox in it. First thing I did afterwards was e-mail my family to make an appointment for a haircut for Saturday. And then a long, long shower.

But aside from the sand and wind, the pyramids themselves were amazing. What a sight. It's weird, because I've seen so many pictures of them, pictures much better than I could possibly take them, but to actually stand right beside them, or on them, and touch them and look up at them is quite humbling. Suck on that, today's engineers! A remarkable accomplishment. The ones I went to see were the pyramids of Gizeh, which include the largest one of all pyramids (Cheops) and, of course, the Sphinx. The Cheops pyramid was, in fact, the largest non-natural structure in the world for thousands of years, before the Eiffel Tower came along 100-some years ago.

You are allowed to go inside the three pyramids there, but there's a bit of a trick to it. To the largest one, they only allow 150 people in the morning and 150 in the afternoon, and tickets are extremely pricey ($30, or about 25 euros). The smallest one is rather unexciting, I heard. So, I bought a (much cheaper) ticket to go into the second pyramid. It wasn't as spectacular as I had hoped (basically just one long walkway, going down, then up, to the center of the pyramid to see the burial chamber), but an interesting experience all the same. Sadly, the ventilation shafts the Egyptians had built in them were probably fine for one dead pharaoh, but with hundreds of tourists coming through every day, it was hot as hell inside.

The best part was when a guy acting as though he worked there (and he probably really did) showed me some back paths to get inside a tomb. Of course, I realized it wasn't entirely on the up-and-up, since he kept saying "secret, you no tell", but I wanted to see all the same. He showed me some well-hidden hieroglyphics, a sculpture, and the best part, a series of tombs. They were all hidden inside a cave that was quite difficult to climb into. I knew all along he would be asking for money once inside, so I had my plan ready. The moment he did, I feigned hyperventilation due to claustrophobia and worked my way out of there. He didn't want to let me out at first, but hey, I'm a very convincing actor. And it wasn't like I wasn't going to pay him anything for his trouble (or law-breaking, if you will), but his demand of 200 pounds (about $40, or 30 euros) I found quite outrageous. In any case, I got outside, paid him 30 pounds, and left it at that. Got some great pictures out of it, and certainly it was one of the highlights of the day.

So, I spent most of the day around the pyramids, then went for a late (as is custom here) lunch at Andrea's, one of the restaurants touted in the Lonely Planet as one of the five best ones in Egypt. And it was truly spectacular. The half chicken I had was spiced and spit-roasted to perfection, but that wasn't even the best part; the baba ghanoug and tahini were spectacular! I heard that, compared to other Middle-Eastern countries, Egyptian cuisine isn't all that exciting. If that's true I need to travel this area more often.

All the food I've had here so far has been very good at a bare minimum. Maybe not all of it my favorites per se, but ranging from good to spectacular. I of course did have the good fortune of getting a list from Char with all the restaurants I should try out, so that certainly helps avoid some of the less interesting ones. But whether it's upscale dining (jumbo prawns at the Fish Market, or stuffed pigeon at Abu El-Seid), mid-scale dining (lamb sausages at Felfela) or fast-food-like dining (felafel at Gad), all of it has been great. And the deserts too are spectacular. I just had lunch at Abu El-Seid (one of the most popular places, if not THE most popular place in town, and very hard to get in!), and as my desert I got fiteer. This is sort of like a flaky pancake (in het Nederlands: een soort bladerdeeg pannenkoekje), which was served with the creamiest, almost sweet butter, and honey, and topped with various nuts and yellow raisins. It was un-be-lievable!!!!

Yesterday I dragged my soon-to-be-enormous butt through the downtown district, which is where my hotel (Pensione Roma) is located. I was surprised to find that lots of stores are closed for Easter. Until of course I found out there is also an Islamic holiday going on at the moment, though nobody could make clear to me which one, or what it's called (closest thing to an answer was "prayer holiday"). Most people here don't seem to pray the required 5 times a day anyway. Though it is interesting to see people with all different degrees of devotion, at least, in their appearance. You see girls in anything ranging from ripped jeans and miniskirts to full burkas with gloves, and men with beards in dresses to men with designer leather jackets.

Another surprising thing here is to see so many men walking arm-in-arm. I know the press made a big deal out of Bush holding hands with that Saudi prince a few years ago, but this is different. Not just older men, but boys and men in their teens, tweens, twenties, thirties; everybody. They walk around arm-in-arm, the way couples do in the States and in Holland. Now, unless this country is far more progressive in their gay-rights-ness than this liberal Dutch boy is used to, it must be something else. What I wonder is, how do they decide who gets the "man" part in all this (the arm simply down, or sometimes with hand in pocket), and who gets to play "woman" (sticking their hand between the other guy's arm and side). Do you think I can ask?

But back to where I was heading with this. Downtown is interesting. Completely dead and desolate in the morning, at least until about noon or 1pm. After that, the crowds gradually swell, usually peaking about when I head to bed around 11pm. I wonder how long they keep going, and I wonder if this is standard or because of the holiday (lots of stores are closed). Luckily, there's always the Khan Al-Khalili; a bazaar that has been around for hundreds of years, with people trying to sell you everything, everywhere, all the time. I found it quite enjoyable, though I heard that lots of tourists prefer to avoid it like the plague because of all the touts. But getting beyond that (I'll explain how I did that in a little bit) it was fascinating. My favorite part was going to El Fishawy; one of the most famous "ahwas" (traditional teahouses), where people sit, drink tea, and smoke sheesha. I'd gotten the tip of trying mish-mish (apricot) sheesha, and it was spectacular. Sitting there, smoking the waterpipe, sipping some amazing tea (with a mint leaf twig in it and everything), watching the whole circus of a market. A truly amazing experience.

I mentioned the touts (a word, by the way, I had never heard of before this trip); they're everywhere! This may be more of an African thing, seeing as I've seen more here than ever before, anywhere else in the world. And more persistent ones too! In Zanzibar they're appropriately (but not exactly affectionately) referred to as "ticks", but here that term wouldn't be misguided either. They stick to you like glue and are basically just very hard to shake off. What I learned is that just about the worst you can do is engage in conversation with them. Saying even something as little as "no, thank you" (or even saying "no" in Arabic, one of the few words I know) opens up possibilities to them. So, what I started doing yesterday is wearing my headphones. And sure, some of the time I'll play some music on my iPod, but when I was in the Khan I actually didn't have any music on, just the headphones in my ears. It not only gives me an excuse not to respond, but I feel like it actually makes people approach me less often. It's a bit tricky sometimes to not respond to all the weird noises they constantly make, attempting to get the tourist's attention, but once you succeed, a simple big smile or grin in their direction shakes them off. I was quite pleased with myself having discovered this.

This morning, after checking out of my hotel, I went to the Egyptian museum. Char as well as my guide book had warned me about the enormous amount of artifacts there, and the utter chaos and lack of organization, so setting out with that in mind, it wasn't all that bad. Sure, there were hordes of people around Tutankhamon's burial mask (solid gold, weighing 11kg or about 24lbs), but with the tips from the Lonely Planet some of the cool, unique artifacts were quite easy to spot. I spent about 4.5 hours there but could have probably spent an entire day, if my legs hadn't gotten so exhausted. The only bummer was that the Lonely Planet said cameras were not allowed inside, and that you have to hand them over at the entrance to be picked up afterwards. But inside, I saw tons of people taking pictures, and the signs simply said no FLASH photography (though some people ignored even those to apparently no consequences from the 3 guards in the entire museum). So, I'm a bit bummed at not having been able to take any pictures, but hey... still worth it.

The lunch I had just now, I ate in Zamalek. This is basically (the northern part of) an island in the Nile, just west of Downtown. It's only about an hour walk from my hotel, so I generally prefer that over the crazy taxi drivers (more about them below). Zamalek is sort of a more upscale, Western neighborhood, not only in that lots of embassies and consulates are located here, but also because you get everything from fine, top-quality dining down to a Hardee's. There isn't much to see or do here per se (though some of the buildings are quite nice, especially a music school and an art academy), but just walking around here is pleasant.

There are two main bridges that run straight across the island east to west, where taxi drivers race around in their road-unworthy old Fiats etc. They're not quite as crazy as the Shanghai taxi drivers, I think, but the feeling of sitting in a car that'll fall apart if he hits the brakes hard once makes you feel perhaps even less safe than in Shanghai's Volkswagen Santana taxis. But, at least they give me the feeling of being an extremely beautiful woman, in that every taxi that drives by and sees my obviously foreign carrot-top will honk at me, just to make sure I know I can get a ride from him. I never understood guys honking at beautiful girls on the street, nor do I understand this. I'm sure it would make sense if there were only, like, 5 cars in all of town, but more than half of all cars here is a taxi... and there's a LOT of cars.

Tonight I'll be taking the overnight train to Luxor. I packed only two little bags and will leave the bulk of my baggage at my hotel here in Cairo. The train arrives at Luxor around 6 in the morning, so I'm hoping to drop some stuff at the hotel, and then hook up with a tour in Luxor. I want to spend two days there; one day doing the West Bank (where many of the tombs are, and Hatshepsut Temple), and one day on the East Bank (Luxor Museum and Luxor Temple, among others). Thursday I'll be "training" back up here to Cairo, spend one night and one more day here, then... well, I'm still not ready to talk about that yet.

Connected in Cairo

What a relief! I have Internet here, and it's not slow! Well, it's no broadband, but compared to my last three countries, this is phenomenal! I'm uploading pictures to my picture-site very rapidly at the moment, and am also uploading more videos here, and so I figured this would be a good time for another "regular" update as well...

So, my last full day in Johannesburg, after posting the long update here (below), I went to Montecasino (picture left). This suburb / casino is supposedly Johannesburg's most popular tourist attraction. To some degree I can see why, though I think it does say more about the rest of the city than about the casino itself. On the outside it looked like a little (fake) Tuscan village; on the inside it was almost an exact copy of the Venetian casino in Las Vegas, with fake sky painted on the ceiling and everything. Seeing as I don't gamble, and the casino area (though supposedly the largest in Africa) seemed quite small to me (being "used to" Vegas), I wasn't quite sure what to spend the rest of my time doing there until I'd get picked up. I decided to see a movie, and it was a great decision, one of the best movies I've seen in a long while ("The Pursuit of Happyness"), I'd definitely recommend that one!

The flight to get out of South Africa got all taken care of, be it at some additional cost. But, that's the (actual) price of my own stupidity, I suppose. I flew into Dar Es Salaam, but because I would probably miss the last ferry over to Zanzibar, I decided to fly straight on to Stone Town. It's only a 20-minute flight, and I was quoted $70. But, once I got to the airport in Dar, the nice young lady at the counter thought about it for a bit, looked me up and down, and decided $50 would be enough. Nice! Especially considering that the hour-and-a-half long hassle of a ferry ride costs $35! Sadly I didn't get a good view of any of the coral reefs from the plane, seeing as it was a bit overcast. The "big rain" season in Zanzibar runs from Easter until June, so I guess there was a risk there.

But, I ended up getting tremendously lucky with the weather (as I feel I have been, pretty much all of the last three months)! After some light rain that first afternoon I arrived, I didn't see any more rain during my time there (only some overnight showers). And, I suppose I was also lucky to avoid the "hot season", though I'm not quite sure what to call this season if not hot (the "also-hot-but-maybe-not-quite-40C-anymore" season? Or the "hey-it-cools-off-to-about-28C-at-night!" season?). In other words, I lost a lot of water-weight on Zanzibar.
The hotel I was staying at was quite lovely (picture above to the right was the garden, with treehouse). Sadly, the first three nights, because I'm a nice guy, I stayed in the one room (of four total) that did not have air conditioning. As soon as I mentioned it I was immediately allowed (nay, encouraged!) to switch rooms. Guess I should've said something earlier; sleeping became a lot easier after that! The hotel was otherwise empty my first three nights, with only one other room taken the last two, so switching was no problem. The hotel is owned by an American living in Italy, and managed by a Zanzibari who works at another hotel (still following this?). During the day there were two staff there; Nasoro the caretaker, and Majuma the housekeeper. Though their English was a bit of a struggle, they made for good company and accompanied me everywhere! One of my favorite spots was the tree house, from which I had a great view of the sunsets (like the three surrounding this piece of text). I gotta say, these rivalled (if not surpassed) the ones from Mauritius!
The town I was staying in, Bububu, is about 10km north of Stone Town, the "capital" of Zanzibar. This meant that there wasn't much else to do around where I was staying, other than 'beach'. Not bad, though, seeing as that was basically the reason I picked this location. I did spend one day in Stone Town, as my last (brief) post indicated, but am not so much a fan. In general, I've come to look at Zanzibar as Mauritius' poor cousin, and Stone Town is a bit exemplary of that. Lots of poverty all around, and though it's fun for a little while, walking around the little winding alleyways (picture right), I was pretty much done rather quickly. Besides, the "ticks" I mentioned in the last post ensure that the best way to walk around is quickly, and as though you have a purpose or destination in mind. When you don't really have this purpose, but still walk around at these high speeds, you'll be done looking pretty quickly, since it ain't that big!

At least I got to experience the local transport, the dala-dala; mostly converted mini-buses packed with people that drive you from A to B in a high-speed, high-risk fashion for very cheap. No tourists take them, but I enjoyed it the two times I took them. I even enjoyed the "conductor" trying to cheat the "white man" to pay more... but I'm not so easily fooled... anymore!

But my favorite unique and non-tourist experience was when Nasoro took me to his village to watch the PSV-Liverpool soccer game: some guys laid out a couple square meters of tarp and some 70 or 80 local boys and men were sprawled all over them, outside, watching the two Champions League games simultaneously, on two tiny old televisions. I didn't take any pictures, it didn't feel right to do so there, but the atmosphere was phenomenal, just about the coolest of the many, many times I've watched soccer (too bad about the outcome though...)!

So, I had already mentioned the spice tour (whoever can guess what the picture on the left is of wins... well... absolutely nothing. To be honest, I don't remember either actually...). It was fun, and I think previous comments (like the one on the video) made me seem perhaps more ignorant than I really meant to come across. It was very interesting, and most spices were quite easy to pick up even for a collateral cook (or helper-chef) like me. The hard part particularly was recognizing plants by sight alone, or having to smell parts of the plant that don't necessarily make up the spice, such as the seeds of the cinnamon bush (everybody could've sworn it was vanilla, but upon smelling and tasting the bark, well, it was quite obvious instantly). And, the beach we went to with our group (me and the 8 girls in the group... yes, I know, some of you see a pattern developing here!) afterwards was absolutely gorgeous (see this video). In between, we also visited one of Tippu Tip's slave caves (he was a famous slave trader). In this cave (picture right), the slaves were kept; the weak were separated out from the strong by the harsh conditions (smoldering heat, and food only once a week). Rather chilling, hot though it was. (picture below: one of the many "mudhuts" on Zanzibar that we drove past on the day of the spice tour)

The other day trip I took was the most phenomenal one, on my last day there. It was a combination snorkeling / dolphins / monkeys trip. Yes, I know that sounds weird, but it all made sense. In the morning, we drove south to board a tiny little 15hp boat to go see the dolphins. Once we spotted them, we were allowed to jump in (with snorkel gear) and swim along with them. This was absolutely superb! There were about 5 boats around (each with some 6 tourists), but I ended up being the only one who stayed in the water the whole time and able to keep up with the dolphins. They dive down every so often and then stay down for a minute or two, so I had to indicate to everyone in the boats where they were going. The best part was, one of the times, when they came back up to catch a breath, I was literally swimming right over them, so some of them popped up in front of me, behind me, left, and right. And, I stroked one on the tail as she (I think she, though I'm not sure how I'd check) came up. Truly amazing!

After that we sailed east a bit to go snorkeling on a little coral reef. Too bad the underwater camera I have been carrying around all over the world was... well, back in my hotel room (you know I'm not so bright by now!). In any case, it was an amazing sight, and my favorite was the General from Finding Nemo; he was there, in the flesh (or is it in the 'fish'?), well, a whole bunch of him! Oh, and there was also one (just one) rainbow fish, with a sort of horizontal rainbow stripe, looked extremely cool! My other not-so-smart move was staying in the water that long without T-shirt or sunscreen on my back. So, I burned my back, but luckily not too bad (my body can take a beating [burning] now, after all these sunny countries!). And, it earned me some rubbing from a few lovely ladies, haha.
After that, we went to Jozani Forest, the largest forest (government-protected) on the island (picture above). There I saw the "red colobus monkeys", who were just perfectly happy being around me, eating lunch, and in one case trying to play with me (though I didn't quite get that at first; I thought he wanted to steal my camera!). In any case, they're unlike any other monkeys I'd ever seen, and believe me, I know my monkeys (V taught me well)!! I have two short little videos of these monkeys as well (click here and here); and, of course, lots of pictures (left). In the evening I went out to dinner with the two girls from London that just arrived at my hotel, and we ate (fifth night in a row for me!!) at the only restaurant walking distance away, for the fifth time also with the same British family (from Norwich) staying there. Nice night, but I had to pack and, well, sleep.

The alarm this morning (Friday) felt far too early, even though at Zanzibar airport you only have to arrive 1 hour before international flights (let's face it, it's tiny, and the only international flight goes to Nairobi). My "e-ticket" that I had printed clearly stated that I was supposed to pick up the ticket at Kisauni airport on Zanzibar, but when I got there, Kenya Airways doesn't even have an office there!! So, in order to not get bit in the butt again by flight plans going awry, I found an amazingly friendly tourist willing to lend me a few hundred dollars to buy a new ticket to Nairobi from Zanzibar (Luca, if you're reading this, you're a life saver!). It is wonderful to find that there are still some amazing, helpful, and wonderful people around. I was panicking, I admit, but this worked out perfectly.

Of course my troubles weren't over yet with that though. After getting cash at the ATM in Nairobi (I left the airport with special permission of the Immigration Chief, seeing as I didn't have a Visa to enter Kenya), changing that cash back into US dollars, and paying Luca back, I had to get my actual ticket that I couldn't pick up at Zanzibar. They claimed it had not yet been paid for, which I know for a fact that it has. So, they made me buy a new, full-price ticket (twice as much as what I paid for it the first time!!) to get to Cairo. At that point, I couldn't be bothered, I just wanted to get on the plane. But, when I get home, I'll surely bug the hell out of Kenya Airways until they give me my money back. For now, all I can do is tell you all: don't ever fly Kenya Airways! There was some wonderful ground crew that helped me get a ticket 12 minutes before the flight was to leave, and still manage to get on board, but as a company, they're a giant PAIN and extremely disorganized and unprofessional (even by, and pardon my political incorrectness, African standards)! Only good part of today: we flew pretty much right over the top of Kilimanjaro (picture above to the right), so I managed to snap a few great pictures of it. Good motivation to come back there some day and stand there to wave at the planes!
In any case, I'm in Cairo. My last country. I'll spend my time here, and a few days in Luxor, and then a red-eye back through Prague to Brussels on the 14th. I'll try to make it count for something ;-) It's hard to believe I have only 1 week of travel left. I don't want it to end, on the one hand, and am not exactly looking forward to being unemployed, and a full-time job seeker, at least for a little while (and hopefully only for a little while). But on the other hand, I'm tired, and think that a little home-pace would do me good at this point... But first, Pharaohs and Sphinx, tombs and trains. Happy Easter / Passover / Moulid an-Nabi / whatever you care to celebrate!

Quicky from ZZ-Bar

This is going to be a very short, picture-less post (uploading the pictures takes about 10 times as long as actually typing this), but I just wanted to give a quick update. I am in Zanzibar at the moment (on Zanzibar? I feel like I've asked myself this before, in/on Mauritius...), and am still really enjoying myself! Zanzibar seems and feels rather like Mauritius's poor cousin, with lots of obvious and extreme poverty around, interspersed with great landscapes and sights. I did a Spice Tour the other day, something I'd highly recommend to those among you who love to cook. I enjoyed it a lot, seeing the spices in their "natural habitat", but did feel a bit lost in guessing which they were before the guide told us. Meanwhile, the beaches here are spectacular; there is one right by my hotel, and yesterday after the spice tour we went to an even better one up north. Tomorrow I will go to Jozani forrest (see the red cocobus monkeys!) and snorkeling with the dolphins (yay!), today I'm in historic Stone Town, fencing off the "papasi" (Kiswahili for "ticks", because they stick to you like glue and are hard to shake off, trying to sell you just about anything...), and using the extremely cheap, extremely slow Internet. Friday early morning I leave for Cairo, hopefully Internet will be easier to access there... Hakuna matata!

The one with the stupid Dutch boy

It is March 29, and I'm still in Johannesburg. For those of you more or less aware of where I should be at what point, this will undoubtedly be a surprise, as I was supposed to be in Tanzania, near Kilimanjaro, at this point. But, here's the thing. I may look smart (well, sort of), sound smart (ehm... sometimes), and act smart (OK, rarely), I'm really not that bright... Throughout my trip, there have been two things I've guarded with my life: my iPod (mostly just because it holds all my pictures), and my passport. Yet unfortunately, I made the mistake of placing one of my wallets, the one holding my passport, in a vault at one of the backpacker hostels that I stayed at, and yes, I forgot to bring it with me as I left. They sent it up here to Johannesburg, but South African mail, though reliable, is slow. Without a passport, no flight to Tanzania, so there you have it. Just today (Thursday), I did receive the package, so I'm about to start working on getting a flight up to Tanzania. Sadly, it means that I won't get to go to the Kilimanjaro area, but only to Zanzibar. OK, well, it's not the end of the world. No worries. I'll just sit in my beautiful garden in Johannesburg a little bit longer...

It's been so long since my last post, I mean, the last "real" post, that I can't even remember where I left off, and I'll certainly be at risk of leaving out a lot here, but I'll do my best to cover everything I wanted to say. (Picture top right: me with some of my favorite staff at my Mauritius hotel/bar, Alan and Sweety. Picture left: rainbow near Simonstown, on the Cape Peninsula. Picture below to the right: seal rock, near Simonstown).

One day before leaving Mauritius, I decided to book an additional one-way trip from Johannesburg to Cape Town on the day I was supposed to land in South Africa. I'd heard stories of how awesome Kaapstad is, and only then truly realized how big this country is. So, I spent a few days down there.

Cape Town was truly fantastic, and I'm so glad I went there! On my first night in town, I went on a pub-crawl, and met an amazing group of Americans whom I hung out with pretty much all night. The street I stayed on was the busiest, liveliest one in town (Long Street), with lots of pubs, clubs, and hostels, and so that was a great night. Sadly, we didn't really get all that much sleep, but hey, I'm on holiday, right?!?

My second day, I spent a large chunk of my time planning my trip. South Africa is a quite easy country to get around in, but I figured, I have so little time, I better plan ahead. I really wanted to see Cape Town, see the coast (Garden Route and Wild Coast), and see Kruger National Park. So, the wonderful girl at the reception at the Inn Long Street (Nikki), where I was staying, helped me out a ton, and booked most trips and tickets for me, which was, of course, great!

There are basically, as I see it, four main attractions in and around Cape Town: Table Mountain, Robben Island, the Waterfront, and Cape of Good Hope. I'm happy to report I saw all of them. Table mountain (picture left) is phenomenal to look at from afar (in fact, I got quite a nice view of it from my hostel balcony!), but the views from the top are truly remarkable. It's an oddly shaped city, Kaapstad, which you don't truly realize until your so high up and get a good view of the whole thing.

The waterfront is sort of a nice, pretty, harbor-like area. I didn't think it was that different from, say, the Baltimore waterfront (or the Scheveningen boulevard, really), but the weather was nice, and a great little dixieland-band was playing in the shade of a tree, and they were wonderful. Also, I was fortunate enough to be there during a national holiday (I think it was Human Rights Day), so a large children's choir was singing some great tunes (and some of their soloists were amazing!). It made me miss Benri, and basically all of my other singing friends from the States...

From the waterfront, you can take the ferry to Robben-island, which, as I hope you all know, was where Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (and with him of course many other ANC members) were held captive for many years (18 years in the case of Mandel). The tour we got there, though short, was an incredible experience, especially since I'm a tremendous admirer of President Mandela and have read his autobiography ("Long Walk to Freedom") several times (I recommend reading this to everyone!). Standing at his cell, in the prison court yard, and in the mine where he was put to work was a very intimidating, unsettling, but powerful and almost magical experience.

I also took a day trip down to the Cape peninsula ('schiereiland' in het nederlands). We had a fantastic guide, and we made a side trip to the real 'robbeneiland' (it isn't called that, but there were a lot of 'robben', or seals in English, just lying around in the sun there), as well as another penguin beach (these were much bigger than the ones at Philip Island near Melbourne). But the highlight for me was biking around on the peninsula on mountain bikes, and going up the Cape Point as well as the Cape of Good Hope. Quite neat to think about how hundreds of years ago the Dutch VOC was already sailing around it to get to Asia, for trade etc.
At my hostel in Cape town, there were a few wonderful people staying there, so we just sat out on our balcony and hung out a lot with the four of us (Vicky from England, Cameron from the US, me, and Jenny from Germany [picture right]... that's the backpacker world for you right there!). It turns out that South Africa has many great, great tourists from all over the world, and that certainly helps make the travels much more fun!

The next day and a half, I spent traveling up the coast. Due to my limited amount of time, I sadly didn't get to spend any time at any of the "Garden Route" beaches, but I still got to see some great sights along the way. My first real stop was in Cintsa, or Chintsa (depends how well you can pronounce Xhosa!), on the wild coast. Within 5 minutes of arriving there, I found a great new friend in a girl called Arabella, a vet ('dierenarts') from Sussex, England. I only spent 2 nights there, but had a great time at the gorgeous beach and pool areas, and in the fun bar or on our little balcony (with a great view; see picture left of Arabella and me; that was actually taken at our little dorm/cottage!).

After leaving my passport in their vault, I made my way up through Durban to Johannesburg, where I only spent one (very short) night, before heading up to Kruger National Park, for a 3-day safari there. To my surprise, I met two beautiful girls from Luton (England) there, Jo and Claire, who were also on my Robben Island tour down in Cape Town, and they turned out to be great company! In fact, most of the group, including a wonderful Australian couple (Vic and Michael), was great (all of them are behind that ridiculously red/pale guy in the center of the picture on the right).

At Kruger Park, we got tremendously lucky. Sure, we had to get up in the dark at 5am every morning, but the morning drives and walks through the park were TOTALLY worth it! I was fortunate enough to see all of the "Big 5" in a single day (lions, leopards, elephants, rhinos, and buffalo), which is something few people can say, and of course saw lots of others as well, including some beautiful zebras and wildebeests (picture below) and giraffes quite closeby.

But overall, it was great! We stayed at a small little private tent-camp, but, with a pool(!) and hot showers, so it was a perfect mix of back-to-nature and comfort. Three days (two nights) is almost too short, I would have loved to stay there longer and spend more time there, and see more gorgeous sunrises (yes, got some pictures and videos of those too!) and sunsets, and animals, but time was running out. But, as soon as I'll get to reasonably fast Internet again I'll post plenty of pictures for you guys to see some of the amazing sights and animals and solar phenomenae. For now, I'll leave just this picture of an elephant having a spot of lunch right next to our car, really close by!

Upon returning to Johannesburg, I found out I didn't have my passport yet, so I decided to stick around for a couple more days. This worked out great, as I met a great Dutch girl (Annemiek), whom I've been hanging out with a LOT for the past couple of days. Yesterday, we joined another Dutch couple (on their way to emigrate to Australia) and went to the Apartheid museum (in the picture right, that's Annemiek sticking her head out of one of the tanks used during the 1976 Soweto uprising), and a tour of Soweto (including a walking tour through the poor, illegal settlements, at sunset). It was very fascinating and impressive.

As far as safety is concerned, yes, you have to be careful, and yes, it's a dangerous country (and especially the city of Jo'burg). But, I basically don't leave anywhere at night, the hostel drives us everywhere (including the mall), and common sense gets you a long way. I did have a small incident in Cape Town, which I didn't report earlier so as not to worry any of you, but really, nothing bad happened to me or my possessions in the end, so again, don't worry! I do hope, though, that I can get a flight out to Zanzibar as soon as possible, because I'm not sure how to entertain myself here for many more days. I have a hotel room booked there starting April 1, but hopefully I can make it out tomorrow or on the 31st. I think perhaps I'll take a diving course in Zanzibar, I'll have enough time there now, haha.

I'm sorry I haven't been posting on the blog, uploading many pictures, and responding to e-mails. Please keep sending me messages though, either through this blog (by clicking "comments" below) or by e-mail, I do read everything! It's just that, Internet is scarce, and extremely slow here, but I'm doing the best I can. I did manage to upload a little video of Cape Point, as well as a few others, and have finally finished uploading all my Mauritius pictures (and some Cape Town pictures as well), and am doing my best to get up to date. Hopefully I'll get some time (and better connections) in Zanzibar to keep you posted better.

I love South Africa, absolutely LOVE everything about it (except, of course, the crime). Cape Town is an amazing and entertaining city, the coast is beautiful, nature remarkable, and the people, and perhaps especially my fellow tourists, wonderful. I will come back here. Soon.
p.s. In the great tradition of the infamous Roel-Sunset-Pictures, I'll leave you with an image of the sun setting in one of the Shantytowns of Soweto. Enjoy!