Kruger is bigger than Israel (and other fun facts)

First, and most importantly, we saw rhinos. Wild rhinos. Weird wild rhinos with weird horns on their heads. Here is proof:



Secondly, we learned an astounding variety of fun facts on our safari through Kruger. I would like to share my favorites with you:
1) Kruger National Park, at more than 19,000 square kilometers, is bigger than Israel.
2) There are only 120 cheetahs in the entire park (as compared with 1,200 lions) - and we saw two of them.
3) Termites regulate their hills to an exact temperature by opening and closing ventilation holes throughout the mound. Termites are apparently also delicious.
4) Giraffes can run 35MPH.
5) Female elephants go #1 and #2 at the same time. This is useful to know if you find yourself tracking elephants, as you'll be able to tell whether a lady has passed by judging by the pile of crap (literally).
6) The "Big Five" (lion, leopard, buffalo, rhino, elephant) are so named because they were once the most dangerous animals to hunt.
7) There is also an "Ugly Five": hyena, Maribou stork, croc, vulture, and warthog.
8) You can tell how old a male kudu (antelope) is by the number of turns in his horns - each spiral takes five years to fully grow out.
9) Female hyenas have false penises that double as their birth canal. Gross.
10) Erin's high school biology teacher is a genius. In addition to purposefully making her high school crush her year-long lab partner, he taught her this nifty device to remember how to classify animals: Kings Play Chess On Fine Grain Sand. Kingdom-Phylum-Class-Order-Family-Genus-Species. You're welcome, trivia buffs.

Overall, I'd say our four days on safari were a resounding success. With the exclusion of a little Africa confusion (our booking agent, The Safari Partners, sold us a six-day safari yet our safari company, Outlook Safaris, took us on a four-day...oh well...This Is Africa), we made it to Skukuza Camp with no major issues. Skukuza, our home base for the week, is a tourist camp (complete with restaurant, gift shop and movie screen!) nestled within Kruger and located five hours by car from Johannesburg. The camp is surrounded by Jurassic Park-style electric fences, which makes you feel pretty safe (generally). This brings me to a little photo series I like to call "Dangerous Wild Animals Very Close To Our Car":












Our team from Outlook was totally rad. Kylie, our driver / tracker, is an ebullient and hysterical 23-year-old who "has been going to parks since she was small" and pretty much knows everything about everything. Our cook, Francois, made us delicious breakfasts each morning and delectable dinners each night, and, despite having seen a few animals in his 24 years, was pretty firm with us that he's a "city boy" and "doesn't do well in the bush." The schedule each day was as follows:
5AM: wake up. This part stunk.
6-10AM. morning game drive. Seeing the animals wake up was sooo cute.
11-2PM: naptime!
3-6PM: afternoon game drive. This is when the lions came out to play.
6-7:30PM: cocktail hour!
7:30PM: delectable dinner cooked by Francois. Selections included traditional South African food like bobotie (sort of like an exceptionally delicious sloppy joe with an egg on top) and braai (BBQ).

Safari summary: we saw the Big Five, drank a lot of wine, and had some great inappropriate conversations. The whole crew there with us three girls included a middle-aged German businessman named Roman who extended a work trip to see some animals, two 26-year old Swiss girls, four older Malaysian ladies from Penang, and one Israeli woman with a very picky appetite. We'd split up into two cars each day and go on girl-power safaris. Roman was endearing as the only male guest on the trip until he told Ali that "childbirth is painful for men". I thought she was going to eat him. The weather stayed pretty good for us the whole time we were there, and aside from the cool morning temps, we were graced with sunny, warm days (and the amazing sunrises / sunsets of big sky Africa). Luckily, to deal with the early morming chill, Outlook generously outfitted us with these Fashion Ponchos (note Erin is stuck in hers):


Amazing Africa sunrise:


Amazing Africa sunset:



While I haven't yet invested in a telephoto lens for my Canon Rebel (Mom, Dad, I'm not sure if you're aware, but Christmas is December 25th), I managed to get some pretty good shots. It helped that the animals came RIGHT NEXT TO THE CAR. Here are a few of my favorites:















While we were sad to leave Kylie, Francois and the lions, we were excited to get back to Jo'burg to start the next leg of our trip: TURKEY! Unfortunately, due to the aforementioned Africa confusion, we had two extra days to kill in one of Africa's most dangerous cities so we spent them playing with kitties (yes, Abby, Michelle & Brooke - I went back to the Lion Park)...


...doing wine tastings...


...and taking ourselves out to fancy dinners in Melrose Arch:



All in all, this trip to Africa has been incredible. As always, it's hard to leave a place you love, but I know Istanbul, Cappadocia, Bodrum, Ephesus, Selcuk and Guzelcamli have a lot in store for me. Looking forward to meeting up with David and the ladies (is that a Richard Gere movie, or am I going crazy?) tomorrow and exploring a new country. Despite being sick of every single article of clothing in my backpack, and missing all of you back at home, I'm still loving the traveling life.

Thanks to Erin and Ali for being awesome safari buddies, Kylie for answering all of my dumb questions (rhinos are herbivores, FYI), Francois for making one of the most delicious cheesecakes I have ever tasted (seriously...recipe is below...make it now), and Roman for his wonderfully entertaining Thai ladyboy story.



If you're interested in reading more, and want to check out a travel blog that's as awesome and hilarious as mine (at least that's what my mom says), check out Ali's blog at www.offshegoes.com. She's awesome. And hilarious. Just don't stop reading my blog, Mom. On to the next...

PS As promised, here is Outlook Lodge's AMAZING, and easy, cheesecake recipe (doesn't Jeanine have adorable handwriting?):



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Location:Skukuza Camp, Kruger National Park, South Africa

The most magical place on Earth (and no, I'm not talking about Disney World)

I found paradise. Yep. You can rest easy now knowing paradise is a real place, and it's called Tofo, Mozambique. While my awesome travel buddies may have had something to do with the overwhelmingly amazing week we spent in Tofo (thanks KG, AMP, & GWO), I can safely say that Mozambique tops my list of favorite non-Barnstable beach vacations. What an incredible place.

As always in Africa, a few snags in the travel plans are inevitable. For example, when we showed up at the Avis desk at the Maputo airport to pick up our reserved rental car, the company refused to give us a car because we didn't have a voucher. Because we never received one. Because we booked online. After an hour of negotiating (thanks, Kellogg!) I packed myself into a compact Chevy (yes, you read right, they have American cars in Mozambique) with three giant men. And I was behind the wheel because I'm the only one competent with a stick shift (thanks, Dad!). So it was pretty much already a dream vacation. Well, after I spent a terrifying 30 minutes trying to figure out how to drive on the left hand side of the road. Rotaries are scary, FYI. Also scary: driving through dunes in a 2WD vehicle when you've never driven on sand before, especially with three guys yelling "Just gun it! Pin the accelerator! Ohhhh, you wasted that guy in the face with sand!". Also scary: the fact that the GPS we rented gave us directions like this:


But despite the snafus, we pulled into Casa John in Tofinho, a small beach over the hill from Tofo town center, around 5:30PM on Sunday. Commence Round Two of negotiations (they had our reservation for Monday night, not Sunday), fast forward an hour, and we end up in a six-person house with two bedrooms, a giant living room, and a sea-facing deck (complete with porch swing) overlooking the Indian Ocean. We had stocked up on pasta and beer (only the essentials, naturally) on the way up, and after a light dinner of homemade mac and cheese with extra butter, we hit the sack.

When we woke up the next morning, we were pleased to find there were humpback whales breaching ALL OVER THE PLACE. Seriously, all over. Like, it wasn't even worth it to point one out to someone because they were simultaneously looking at three completely different ones. Awesome. Commence two days of doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. And I mean that. Here is a list of activities:
Sit on porch swing
Read "Game of Thrones"
Walk on beach
Sit on beach
Shop for fresh fish in Tofo market
Cook fresh fish from Tofo market
Sit at Dino's Beach Bar
Drink beer
Play Hearts (I especially like this one since I won three times in a row)

Since it's difficult to write about doing nothing and make it interesting, I'll just show you some of my photos:
Enjoying lunch at Dino's Beach Bar:


Walking down Tofo Beach (note the flying egret....baller):


My preferred mode of sitting (Casa John House #5's amazing porch swing):


Strolling down the beach to Tofo town center:


Our local town market, where Kunal's new girlfriend sells her delicious chili sauce:



Tofo and Tofinho are absolutely gorgeous. The beaches are completely unobstructed, and stretch for miles (literally - from Tofo town center down to the point on one side is 6KM) in either direction. Casa John, where we set up camp for the week, is a 20-minute walk from the town center in Tofo by dirt / sand road over the dunes (the very same dunes that offered me my first sand-driving experience), and 30-40 minutes along the beach. The beach route was my preferred mode of travel, since we got to see cool things like a blowfish that had exploded from the inside with guts all over the place (Kunal wouldn't let me take a picture...meanie), little blue jellyfish with foot-long tentacles, and people learning how to surf on the giant windy-season waves that rolled in all day long.

After two days of the previously aforementioned "nothing", we decided to do "something", and chartered a fishing boat for an afternoon. We met Chad, the fishing captain from Casa Barry, at 1PM on Wednesday, and headed out to sea in his 21-foot flat-bottomed motorboat (with twin Yamaha 85's...that thing had juice). Well, headed out to sea after putting all of our combined effort and strength, as well as the effort of a Land Cruiser and strength of a few chains, into launching the boat directly off of the beach into 6-foot waves. It was wet. And completely unsafe. And completely AWESOME. Five minutes into our boat ride, while zig-zagging 100M offshore, we found ourselves surrounded by a school of dolphins. This made me think I would like to be a dolphin - you get to swim all day, play with your friends, and jump around a lot. So fun! After two hours of watching, waiting, and boating, we finally got a bite on one of the six lines we had trailing off the back of the boat, and Greg reeled this guy in:


Yep, that's right. It's an 11-kilo, 1-meter bludger kingfish. And it was DELICIOUS on the grill at our place later that night, accompanied by a pot of homemade piri-piri rice and a fresh avocado salad. Yummy.


Thursday brought another day of activities, in the form of an Ocean Safari through Tofo-based dive operator Diversity Scuba. We spent the first 30 minutes with Leo, our ocean tracker, learning about the proper procedure for dealing with whale sharks, then hit the (very rough) seas. Again, within five minutes we were surrounded by dolphins, and within fifteen, there was this:


Yes, ladies and gents. That is a whale head. A humpback whale head. A head which is attached to a 30-ton humpback whale. Which was six feet from our tiny pontoon boat. Pretty incredible. And, according to KG, "insanely dangerous and totally unreasonable". But also incredible. A few more minutes of getting tossed around in the waves ensued (August is the windiest month in Tofo) before our tracker spotted a whale shark, shouted "GO!!!", and we all frantically pitched backwards off the pontoons, snorkels in hand, kicking each other in the face violently with our rented flippers trying to swim towards the shark. The visibility wasn't great, but luckily we were able to get pretty close. Even more lucky? Greg has an underwater camera. Here's our whale shark:


You obviously can't tell that it was 15 feet long in this picture, so you'll have to take my word for it. But it was huge. As I swam over it, I can't say I wasn't nervous, but we couldn't keep up for long because that sucker was FAST. I was swimming a full-on front crawl as fast as I could, choking on sea water that kept splashing into my snorkel, and the shark still got away from me. But at least we got to see one. Super cool. Winter is the low season for whale sharks in Tofo so we only got to hang with the one big/little guy, but that was enough for me. Plus, being six feet from a giant humpback whale was sort of okay, too.

Friday morning brought our departure from Tofo, which was sad. However, barring any drastic unfortunate events, I will DEFINITELY be back. Greg and Andrew got on a flight to Jo'burg as soon as we got back to Maputo (with zero damage to the car, might I add), and to console ourselves from leaving Tofo and losing the company of our friends, Kunal and I promptly checked into the nicest hotel in Maputo (which will remain unnamed because I don't want my dad to be able to figure out the nightly rate). As I write this post from our sea-facing balcony overlooking Maputo Bay, I can safely say that this was an awesome, incredible, amazing beach vacation that will be repeated.

Up next: a safari through South Africa's Krueger National Park with Erin and Ali...will let you know as soon as I see some rhinos.

Thanks to my boys for being such good friends, companions, and eaters this week. You rock. I'm going to miss this...




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Location:Praia Tofinho, Mocambique

We built a house!

Well, we did it. Team Bain built a house. A real two-bedroom house made out of cement blocks, steel and mortar. Our house is so good I'm thinking it may be a good idea to add "amateur stone mason" to my business card. Well, maybe not. But you get the idea. However, despite the whole homebuilding thing, I would say the greatest accomplishment of our Habitat trip was the fact that we all actually made it to Mozambique. Jackie and I arrived at the airport in Dar es Salaam at 7AM on Friday, August 3rd, for a 9:30AM departure to Johannesburg, where we'd connect to Maputo. A Precision Air steward took our passports and itineraries, looked at us suspiciously, and said "sit down please". So we did. And we waited. And we waited. And we waited. About an hour later, another airline representative walked over us (she found us deeply entrenched in a heated game of War - I was losing so I welcomed the interruption) and said, sweetly, "has my colleague told you yet that you don't have a flight?" Um....no? Fast forward nine hours and we have weaseled our way onto a South African airways flight to OR Tambo, and we're sitting pretty watching a horrible Zach Efron movie and drinking crappy merlot. Apparently waiting patiently and smiling a lot works wonders when dealing with African travel disasters.

Five of us Bainies finally arrived in Maputo not knowing what to expect. The rest of our Habitat group (save for Ross, who got stuck in the US for three extra days due to a canceled flight) was scheduled to come in at various times over the next 24 hours, so we got a chance to explore the city on our own. The Lonely Planet guidebook I bought before the trip led me to believe downtown Maputo would be an adventure of small, winding streets dotted with quaint Portuguese colonial architecture, gardens, cafes, restaurants, friendly locals, and jazz clubs. Not so much. Here is the quaint architecture:


Here are the gardens:


And here are the friendly locals:


Turns out the nicest part of town, Avenida Julius Nyerere, went right past our little hotel, so we ended up walking up and down (and up and down) that street for the rest of our time in Maputo. Which, luckily, was brief. We met the rest of the Habitat group for dinner on Saturday night, and got to know the people we'd be spending the week with over a meal of delicious (and incredibly spicy...arguably my fault since I took the liberty of dousing my half-chicken in ALL of the extra sauce on the table) piri-piri chicken. Here's the roster:
Christine (trip leader), 30s, nurse, DC
Randy, 50s, high school teacher / engineer, Michigan
Sara, 40s, OB-GYN, DC
Carol Ann, 20s, college student, Pittsburgh
Claire, 20s, photographer, San Francisco
Dimi, 20s, pharmacy student, California
Shannon, 20s, college student, Canada (yes, I am aware that Canada is a big place, I just can't recall right now exactly where she's from...Shan, if you're reading this, I'm sorry)
Team Bain (We Build for Bill): Jackie O'Brien, Caroline Watkins, Greg Olwell, Andrew Pearsons, Nick Baer, Ross Clements, Yours Truly

While all of the Bainies were first-time Habitat-ers, many of the non-Bain folks were on their third, fourth, or fifth Habitat trip. Some had even traveled together to Nepal and Malawi on previous trips. Pretty cool. All in all, a great mix of people, personalities and professions - and I learned a heck of a lot about gynecology. Fun fact from Sara: the average placenta weighs 1.2 pounds. Who knew?

We departed for Xai-Xai at 1PM on Sunday. Destination: The Honey Pot hotel. Which, as it turns out, was an absolutely adorable little place. Wood cabins, campfires, a small restaurant, and lovely signs like this in the driveway that warned us about the presence of Mosquitos ("mozzies"):


Upon arrival at The Honey Pot, we settled in, had a nice group dinner, and got to bed early to prepare for the build. I would like to point out that I read the first 200 pages of the first "Game of Thrones" book on this day. Which was excellent.

The next morning, as we pulled into the tiny village (read: 2,000 people) outside the 3 De Fevriero settlement in Gaza province where we'd be spending the week, little kids chased the car up the dirt road, and my heart was 100% won over. So adorable. Plus, it sort of made me feel like a celebrity. As we hopped off the bus, we were greeted by a village full of women singing, clapping, and dancing to welcome us. We shortly learned that all the women welcomed us to the village because there are only women that live in the village...most of the men have died from AIDS contracted while working in the mines in South Africa. Which meant that we were building homes for children and families who either had no fathers or were orphans being taken care of by their grandmothers. Which was reason enough for me to be there.

The two families selected by Habitat (after a careful screening process which involves working with local village leaders to determine those most in need, as well as enforcing a regimen of ARV drugs) were:
1) Maria, a 50-something grandmother with five of her children and grandchildren under the age of five living under her (one-room) roof, and
2) Adele, a 91-year-old grandmother who lives with and is raising her 14-year old grandson (who mixes a mean concrete) and )15-year-old granddaughter
We split the group into two teams, and my team of seven had the privilege of working with Adele and her family to build them a home. Let me tell you that granddaughter of hers carried a mean water jug. Those things are HEAVY.

The houses went up quickly with the help of all of the women in the village and a couple of professional stonemasons contracted by Habitat. I would like to take this opportunity to point out that the wall Caroline and I put up on the first day is clearly the prettiest and most structurally-sound portion of the house:


Spending a few hours a day hauling cement blocks was rewarding but exhausting, so of course we had to take frequent breaks to play with adorable children. See exhibits below.
Exhibit A:


Exhibit B:


Exhibit C:


Exhibit D:


We also made friends with some of the local women (breaking through two language barriers - Portuguese and the local tribal dialect), who loved to try to teach us how to dance like Africans and spent an entire afternoon braiding Claire and Carol Ann's hair (which apparently is very painful).


...and we ended each day with cocktail hour in our cabin, consisting of a variety of items purchased at the Duty-Free shop at the Johannesburg airport:


By the end of the week, the fourteen of us on the trip had not only built two houses, we had changed the lives of two families forever, and had made new friends both at home and in Africa. The best part of the trip was the dedication and closing ceremonies, where the women chanted our names (well, sort of....Greg = Georgie, Caroline = Carol, etc) while the Habitat representative presented us with certificates of achievement, then helped the Habitat team bless the home and did another song and dance to see us off. All of the music, dancing, and laughter served as a poignant reminder that it doesn't take much to be happy, which, in addition to helping a family thousands of miles away, is something I will take with me from this wonderful experience...
Maria and her grandchildren celebrating their new home (grandma Adele is standing in the left of the frame in a blue t-shirt...she looks damn good for ninety-plus):


Team Bain and one of the houses (the local kids LOVED being in photos and apparently ran into this one, unbeknownst to us...):


The amazing local ladies singing and dancing in the closing ceremonies:


After an afternoon on the beach in Xai-Xai to celebrate our success, it was time to head back to Maputo to start our next adventure, a week on the much-fabled beaches of Mozambique watching calving humpbacks and swimming with whale sharks (that'll be the next post). On the whole, I'd say the Habitat trip was a resounding success, and I'm thankful to my friends, my future employer, and all of the amazing, strong, passionate, beautiful, and hard-working women of the tiny village outside Xai-Xai, Mozambique, for an incredible and unforgettable experience. Thanks, Team Bain. On to the next...

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Location:Xai-Xai, Gaza Province, Mocambique

I'm not gonna make it, but I'll order it from ZANZIBAR!

First, I'm sorry to do this to all of you, but I just have to brag. I'm here right now:


Zanzibar has proved to be the perfect place to relax and unwind between the Kili climb and our upcoming Habitat build, and we've really enjoyed our time here. And, aside from the occasional crabbiness that results when traveling with a group of people for an extended period of time, we've gotten along swimmingly. I mean, how could we not when we're surrounded by such incredible scenery?

The first two days in Zanzibar had us poking around Stone Town, the historic old town portion of Zanzibar Town, which is also where we met up with two additional vagabond friends who joined us from Chicago (welcome, Pearsons and Caroline!). While activities were somewhat lacking, it was fun to explore the town's twisting back alleyways and admire all of the Indian and Arabic architecture (including ornate spiked doors, apparently a decorative import from India, where they were used to ward off elephants! See below for illustration). We enjoyed sunset drinks (at restaurant Lulu! Hi Lulu!) on our beautiful hotel's rooftop, as well as at the Africa House hotel in town. I must say there are few things better than sitting on a rooftop overlooking the sea at sunset in Zanzibar, sipping a shandy made of Stoney Tangawizi ginger soda and Kilimanjaro lager, and watching wooden dhow boats lazily sail by. Pretty. Sweet. Other activities in Stone Town included visiting the palace museum, where we learned Zanzibar citizens vote for not one, but TWO presidents (one Zanzibar president, and one Tanzanian president), and dinner by the water at the Forodhani Gardens night market where local fisherman bring their daily catch. While snacking on freshly-caught grilled octopus was a treat, I especially enjoyed giving my leftovers to the adorable little kittens that gathered around our feet while we ate. So cute! I have a stray cat problem. I love them.
The "main drag" in Stone Town, where most of the shops and hotels are located:


Sunset on the roof of the Seyyida Hotel:


"Mister Happiness" table at Forodhani Gardens night market:


Super-adorable kitties waiting for my leftovers:


Greg showing how one of Stone Town's ornate doors may have been used to ward off elephants:


A day and a half in Stone Town had us ready to hit the beach. We took a taxi up to the Doubletree Hotel in Nungwi fishing village, a tiny town at the northern tip of the island. Some things we saw on our ride:
1) Oxen carts competing for road space with cars and trucks.
2) Cows eating burning piles of trash on the side of the road.
3) A thief, already bloodied, getting chased across the street by a huge crowd of people holding sticks and rocks. Our driver kindly clarified the situation for us, saying, "Oh, yes, he probably steal a banana. This is how local people do in Zanzibar. If you steal, they chase you and they BEAT YOU." Effective, I guess?
The hotel is situated right on the water, with a raised private beach overlooking the ocean. The tides are dramatic here, and, while in the morning we watch local women and children walk what seem like miles offshore to gather shellfish, in the afternoon the waves are crashing against the hotel's rock wall and splashing our beach chairs. We have spent most of each day, with the exception of a snorkeling trip yesterday, sitting. And reading. And sitting some more. And watching sunsets. Not a bad life. The water here is clearer than any water I've ever seen - seriously, it felt like we were snorkeling in a pool yesterday...a pool filled with giant starfish and a billion angelfish - and the sand is so soft and fine it almost feels like clay. Check it out.
This does not suck:


This also does not suck:


This doesn't suck either:


This most definitely does not suck:


Also, it doesn't hurt that the seafood is delicious...


...and I found some cows on the beach:


We start our journey to Maputo today, with a ferry to Dar es Salaam and a night at an airport hotel before flying through Jo'burg tomorrow. While it's sad to say goodbye to Zanzibar, and the nice brain atrophy I've been recently enjoying, I think we're all looking forward to a change of scenery and getting our hands dirty (Nick - can you bring me some work gloves? Thanks). My next update will probably be post-Habitat around the 12th of August, so until then, stay cool. And crazy like a banana.

Thanks to my Zanz travel buddies for a great trip. And for eating a record number of Doubletree chocolate chip cookies.



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Location:Nungwi Village, Zanzibar