Seeing as I probably won’t be blogging until my next Ugandan trip (hopefully not long now!), I thought I’d write a few words to explain what www.ugandanielle.blogspot.com is about for people who have been directed to / stumbled across this blog.
On an average September day last year, I opened an innocuously entitled email to find out I’d been successful in my application for a Welsh Government International Learning Opportunity assignment from the (relative) comfort of my desk in the Environment Agency Wales office at St Mellons, Cardiff.
Fast forward to February and I somehow find myself sweating buckets in 35 degree heat after walking up a crumbling Ugandan mountain in flip flops learning how rural villagers were working as a community to adapt to and mitigate the impacts of climate change whilst wondering how submitting a 500 word expression of interest form to my manager had eventually led to me ending up in a country where warm beer, heart breaking poverty, cutting the grass with a machete, horrendous attitudes towards gay people and bum massages seem to be the norm.
For two months, I had the privilege of calling Mbale, Eastern Uganda, home.
I was there for two months working on a United Nations Development Programme called TACC (Territorial Approach to Climate Change). The TACC project aims to help people living in the Mbale region to adapt to climate change whilst improving their living conditions and livelihoods.
Fast forward some more to the beginning of April until June and I became Danielle Hitt of No Fixed Abode, Somewhere Between Kampala And Cape Town - always within camping distance of a big yellow truck, infrequently within charging distance of an electricity point and almost never within walking distance of a flushing toilet.
It probably won’t come as a surprise that February to June of 2012 provided some of the most amazing experiences of my life – some euphoric, some tragic, some life changing, others life affirming but the most significant (and mundane) of which are described in the blog below.
If you want to read about my assignment in Mbale, it starts on 4th February – you can start of the beginning by clicking on the February tab to the right of your screen.
If you want to start at my trip, you’ll need to start from April 14th. Again, click straight to April on the right.
Hope this makes sense to you. So for the time being, I’m blogging off until my next trip – but that won’t be long!
Wednesday, 22 August 2012
Friday, 15 June 2012
Cape Town & good bye Africa
After three months of excessive eating, drinking and putting over a stone (!) on, I have no idea why Anwen and I thought it would be a good idea to drag ourselves up and down Table Mountain in an afternoon.
(It's so depressing to think how many spin classes I'll have to endure get rid of it all - but at least I had a hell of a lot of fun collecting every single one of those 14 extra pounds!)
Anyway, our little mountain jaunt was an utterly ridiculous idea which resulted in three days of me walking the streets of Cape Town like an old nanna. Even the weirdos of our group (the ones that get up at 6am to go for a run and contort their bodies into all sorts of bizarre shapes for fun) only took the Table on one way.
Turns out they were the sensible ones. It was relentless to climb - like the horrible other side of Corn Du where you have to scramble your way to the top, pulling yourself up on the rocks above you.The view was pretty spectacular though, but not as good as the coffee and triple chocolate muffin at the cafe on the top which somehow duped me into thinking the journey down wouldn't be as bad.
It wasn't as bad. It was worse.
One thing that I wasn't particularly impressed by was Robben Island where Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years' imprisonment.
For a place that could - and should - have brought such a tragic and sadly still relevant issue to life, it didn't.
After being to the genocide memorial museum in Rwanda, which was so moving as well as informative, I think there are a lot of things they could do better as the place was so impersonal and brushed over a lot of important issues that I still don't fully understand.
Other than walking up mountains, hopping on and off the hop on, hop off buses and visiting the most obvious tourist attractions in town, we've drunk buckets of coffee, eaten a lot of cake and shopped loads. My most recent purchases include many packets of springbok, kudu and oryx biltong, a Springboks rugby jersey and a lot of unnecessary tat that will look extremely out of place in my house!
Most of that tat has now been packed away in my big pink rucksack and with the exception of a now one-eared hippo, most things have been packed away in one piece.
Packing it all wasn't fun and I expect lugging it all the way back home won't be either. But, in the words of John Denver, "All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go..."
Even though I've had an amazing time in Africa, I'm really, really looking forward to going home. I'll probably write more about my experiences in a few days once I've had a chance to settle back into real life but for now I'm signing off from my last blog written in Africa as I'll be leaving for the airport soon.
So to finish off, I'll borrow some more words off John Denver -
"'Coz I'm leaving on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again..."
(But I hope it's soon!)
(It's so depressing to think how many spin classes I'll have to endure get rid of it all - but at least I had a hell of a lot of fun collecting every single one of those 14 extra pounds!)
Anyway, our little mountain jaunt was an utterly ridiculous idea which resulted in three days of me walking the streets of Cape Town like an old nanna. Even the weirdos of our group (the ones that get up at 6am to go for a run and contort their bodies into all sorts of bizarre shapes for fun) only took the Table on one way.
Turns out they were the sensible ones. It was relentless to climb - like the horrible other side of Corn Du where you have to scramble your way to the top, pulling yourself up on the rocks above you.The view was pretty spectacular though, but not as good as the coffee and triple chocolate muffin at the cafe on the top which somehow duped me into thinking the journey down wouldn't be as bad.
It wasn't as bad. It was worse.
One thing that I wasn't particularly impressed by was Robben Island where Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years' imprisonment.
For a place that could - and should - have brought such a tragic and sadly still relevant issue to life, it didn't.
After being to the genocide memorial museum in Rwanda, which was so moving as well as informative, I think there are a lot of things they could do better as the place was so impersonal and brushed over a lot of important issues that I still don't fully understand.
Other than walking up mountains, hopping on and off the hop on, hop off buses and visiting the most obvious tourist attractions in town, we've drunk buckets of coffee, eaten a lot of cake and shopped loads. My most recent purchases include many packets of springbok, kudu and oryx biltong, a Springboks rugby jersey and a lot of unnecessary tat that will look extremely out of place in my house!
Most of that tat has now been packed away in my big pink rucksack and with the exception of a now one-eared hippo, most things have been packed away in one piece.
Packing it all wasn't fun and I expect lugging it all the way back home won't be either. But, in the words of John Denver, "All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go..."
Even though I've had an amazing time in Africa, I'm really, really looking forward to going home. I'll probably write more about my experiences in a few days once I've had a chance to settle back into real life but for now I'm signing off from my last blog written in Africa as I'll be leaving for the airport soon.
So to finish off, I'll borrow some more words off John Denver -
"'Coz I'm leaving on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again..."
(But I hope it's soon!)
Thursday, 14 June 2012
I WAS THERE!
As soon as we crossed the border from Namibia into South Africa, the temperature plummeted and the jeans, fleeced walking trousers, long sleeved tops, hat, scarf and gloves were fished out of the bottom of the big rucksack. It felt like we were back home in the middle of winter with the howling wind, horizontal rain and localised flooding.
("You tricked me into coming to Africa. It's supposed to be warm here. Stupid country" - Anwen Price, 10/06/12)
It took almost three months to get from Uganda to South Africa, but we made it to the Wales v New Zealand game of the Junior World Championship with three hours until kick off - perfect timing!
There were four of us who braved the sub-zero temperatures and made it to Stellenbosch university where Baby Wales were playing the Baby Blacks followed by England v Ireland - me & Fani Ani and Sarah & Girl Alex (as their bad luck would have it, both English).
Luckily, a Nanna Glenys from Mold meant that Sarah was supporting Wales and Girl Alex, being the lovely person that she is, also joined in with Welsh chants. (I did have to give Alex a bit of a stern talking to though.
"Look love, if you're going to be sitting next to me at a rugby game, there are two rules.
1. Get a pint in your hand. Now.
2. You can drop that posh little accent of yours as soon as you like and talk tidy like me an' 'er. From now on, it's 'Way-Ulz' or 'C'mon Cymru'. Got it? Good girl. Now, let's cwtch up - it's bloody freezing."
As most Welsh people reading this will know, it was a brilliant game and Baby Wales did us so proud with a 9 - 6 victory (the first time that New Zealand have ever lost a game in the JWC) and I'm so chuffed to be able to say, "I WAS THERE!"
After leaving Stellenbosch, we headed towards Cape Town where we'll be spending the rest of our time in Africa before flying home to the Promised Land of hot showers, comfy beds and beauty salons that don't give you third degree burns as part of a leg wax ... Can't wait!
(In other news ...
There are so many fit blokes in Cape Town! There seems to be a hotty at every corner we turn around.
However, as promised to Dr Morris, I haven't fallen in love with a South African seeing as she, "couldn't stand someone with that dreadful accent hanging round us all the time"!)
("You tricked me into coming to Africa. It's supposed to be warm here. Stupid country" - Anwen Price, 10/06/12)
It took almost three months to get from Uganda to South Africa, but we made it to the Wales v New Zealand game of the Junior World Championship with three hours until kick off - perfect timing!
There were four of us who braved the sub-zero temperatures and made it to Stellenbosch university where Baby Wales were playing the Baby Blacks followed by England v Ireland - me & Fani Ani and Sarah & Girl Alex (as their bad luck would have it, both English).
Luckily, a Nanna Glenys from Mold meant that Sarah was supporting Wales and Girl Alex, being the lovely person that she is, also joined in with Welsh chants. (I did have to give Alex a bit of a stern talking to though.
"Look love, if you're going to be sitting next to me at a rugby game, there are two rules.
1. Get a pint in your hand. Now.
2. You can drop that posh little accent of yours as soon as you like and talk tidy like me an' 'er. From now on, it's 'Way-Ulz' or 'C'mon Cymru'. Got it? Good girl. Now, let's cwtch up - it's bloody freezing."
As most Welsh people reading this will know, it was a brilliant game and Baby Wales did us so proud with a 9 - 6 victory (the first time that New Zealand have ever lost a game in the JWC) and I'm so chuffed to be able to say, "I WAS THERE!"
After leaving Stellenbosch, we headed towards Cape Town where we'll be spending the rest of our time in Africa before flying home to the Promised Land of hot showers, comfy beds and beauty salons that don't give you third degree burns as part of a leg wax ... Can't wait!
(In other news ...
There are so many fit blokes in Cape Town! There seems to be a hotty at every corner we turn around.
However, as promised to Dr Morris, I haven't fallen in love with a South African seeing as she, "couldn't stand someone with that dreadful accent hanging round us all the time"!)
Wednesday, 6 June 2012
Swakopmund, sky diving & sand dunes
After a night of bush camping at Spitzkoppe between some seriously massive orange rocks (technical description unavailable), we made our way to Swakopmund, a town building a reputation as the adrenaline capital of Southern Africa.
If I could only use one word to sum up the journey to Swakopmund, it would be desolate.
Preternaturally bright blue skies hung over vast horizons of inhospitable desert and a nothingness that was quite foreboding to drive through. We drove for miles and miles without seeing another person, vehicle or town which encouraged a sense of uncomfortable isolation we haven't felt anywhere else on the trip (I'd rather break down on the A470 / Manor Way junction at midnight again rather than an unforgiving Namibian desert road!).
With the exception of a few hardy birds, there were no signs of life at all - even the river beds had dried up - so we were more than happy to eventually reach Swakopmund.
Unfortunately, a severe sand storm was due to hit the town and surrounding area when we were there so there was a possibility all activities could be called off. Not wanting to chance it, Gary, Hector and I signed up to sky dive later that day.
(Luckily we hadn't seen the footage of the American woman falling out of her harness earlier that week, although my last words to the tandem master before jumping were, "There are two parachutes in there, right?")
I can't begin to put into words the exhilaration of sky diving so I'm not even going to try as I think the photos below say it all!
We also went on a two hour, stomach churning quad bike ride over the dunes which caused a significant increase in heart rate. We all decided to use semi-automatic bikes which allowed us to navigate some serious hairpin bends at far faster speeds than we should have done. I wasn't too keen on that.
Despite my (small) collection of speeding points, I prefer driving on tarmac roads with white lines in the middle rather than chance the wilderness and sheer drops of shape-shifting sand dunes thank you.
According to some of the boys, it's the closest they'll ever get to realising their childhood dreams of riding a speeder through the deserts of Tatooine (whatever that means!).
Swakopmund is a very bizarre little town - not quite African, not quite German (Namibia was colonised by the Germans) - with its colonial-era infrastructure, pastel coloured buildings, half timbered houses and manicured lawns on a backdrop of swaying palm trees, orange sand dunes and volatile blue ocean.
We're now travelling down to Fish River Canyon (said to be the second largest canyon on the world although there's some debate over that because some say it's a gorge. Potato / Potatoe I say) via Sossusvlei.
Walking up Namibia's most famous and iconic sand dune (imaginatively named Dune 45. Guess how many kms outside of Sossusvlei it is?) was a killer. I was so out of breath, I was concerned I'd dislodged a lung halfway up.
It was worth all the huffing and puffing though as the 360 view of surrounding terracotta dunes was travel brochure stunning.
Whilst climbing up was a real struggle (which was much, much harder than I'd imagined), bounding down the sides was brilliant fun, even when face-planting the soft sand!
(Rivers House walkers, please someone arrange some outings for when I get back. I desperately need to get my fitness level up after three months of excessive eating and drinking!)
Anyway, we only have a few more days in Namibia before we arrive at South Africa where we'll we spending a few days in Stellenbosch - land of wine tours and, for the week we're there, home to the junior rugby world cup.
As luck would have it, we arrive at midday and kick off between Wales and New Zealand is at 2.30!
C'mon Cymru!
If I could only use one word to sum up the journey to Swakopmund, it would be desolate.
Preternaturally bright blue skies hung over vast horizons of inhospitable desert and a nothingness that was quite foreboding to drive through. We drove for miles and miles without seeing another person, vehicle or town which encouraged a sense of uncomfortable isolation we haven't felt anywhere else on the trip (I'd rather break down on the A470 / Manor Way junction at midnight again rather than an unforgiving Namibian desert road!).
With the exception of a few hardy birds, there were no signs of life at all - even the river beds had dried up - so we were more than happy to eventually reach Swakopmund.
Unfortunately, a severe sand storm was due to hit the town and surrounding area when we were there so there was a possibility all activities could be called off. Not wanting to chance it, Gary, Hector and I signed up to sky dive later that day.
(Luckily we hadn't seen the footage of the American woman falling out of her harness earlier that week, although my last words to the tandem master before jumping were, "There are two parachutes in there, right?")
I can't begin to put into words the exhilaration of sky diving so I'm not even going to try as I think the photos below say it all!
We also went on a two hour, stomach churning quad bike ride over the dunes which caused a significant increase in heart rate. We all decided to use semi-automatic bikes which allowed us to navigate some serious hairpin bends at far faster speeds than we should have done. I wasn't too keen on that.
Despite my (small) collection of speeding points, I prefer driving on tarmac roads with white lines in the middle rather than chance the wilderness and sheer drops of shape-shifting sand dunes thank you.
According to some of the boys, it's the closest they'll ever get to realising their childhood dreams of riding a speeder through the deserts of Tatooine (whatever that means!).
Swakopmund is a very bizarre little town - not quite African, not quite German (Namibia was colonised by the Germans) - with its colonial-era infrastructure, pastel coloured buildings, half timbered houses and manicured lawns on a backdrop of swaying palm trees, orange sand dunes and volatile blue ocean.
We're now travelling down to Fish River Canyon (said to be the second largest canyon on the world although there's some debate over that because some say it's a gorge. Potato / Potatoe I say) via Sossusvlei.
Walking up Namibia's most famous and iconic sand dune (imaginatively named Dune 45. Guess how many kms outside of Sossusvlei it is?) was a killer. I was so out of breath, I was concerned I'd dislodged a lung halfway up.
It was worth all the huffing and puffing though as the 360 view of surrounding terracotta dunes was travel brochure stunning.
Whilst climbing up was a real struggle (which was much, much harder than I'd imagined), bounding down the sides was brilliant fun, even when face-planting the soft sand!
(Rivers House walkers, please someone arrange some outings for when I get back. I desperately need to get my fitness level up after three months of excessive eating and drinking!)
Anyway, we only have a few more days in Namibia before we arrive at South Africa where we'll we spending a few days in Stellenbosch - land of wine tours and, for the week we're there, home to the junior rugby world cup.
As luck would have it, we arrive at midday and kick off between Wales and New Zealand is at 2.30!
C'mon Cymru!
Thursday, 31 May 2012
Botswana & catching Dik Dik in Namibia!
I've always said if I ever went on a reality tv programme, it would be I'm a Celebrity (only setback being that I'm not a celebrity but that shouldn't be too much of an issue - I only ever know about 50% of the contestants!)
Two nights camping in the Okavango Delta in Botswana and I feel like I've taken part in it - minus the cameras and bush tucker trials!
After loading everything we needed into mokoros, we arrived at our electricty free, toilet free resort on an island in the middle of the delta, which, as well as being a unique ecosystem, is Botswana's premier tourist attraction, reputed to be teeming with wildlife. They did pretty well at evading us mind - we didn't see much other than a few warthogs, springboks and other deer-like creatures that are all starting to blend into one by now.
A mokoro is a dug out canoe carved out of a single tree and propelled along the Delta by polers. We were told they were surprisingly stable but they felt pretty precarious to me, particularly when a spider lands in between your boobs but you can't freak out or you'd tip the boat ...
For those of you EA people who think all rivers run to the sea ... Not so! The Kavango river starts in Angola before flowing into Namibia and into the vast flat landscape of Botswana where it's swallowed up by the Kalahari sands. The river eventually loses itself in a maze of emerald green lagoons, islands and channels that make up the wetlands of the Okavango Delta.
So for two days, we had to do our business in holes (the door was a shovel - if the shovel wasn't at the side of the designated tree, the toilet was occupied!), cook on a log fire and entertain ourselves with games I haven't played since I was in Brownies, including my new old favourite, wink murderer.
In another (probably vain) attempt to get this blog up to date, I'll stop there abut Botswana seeing as we've been in Namibia for almost a week now!
Catching Dik Dik* in Namibia
I seemed to catch a 24 hour stupid bug as soon as we entered Namibia.
It started by getting up to do breakfast an hour earlier than I should have and ended with me jumping into a swimming pool with my Ugandan phone in my pocket with a million ridiculous things in between.
We have a daily Dik Dik award on the truck for the person who says or does the most ridiculous thing. Until Namibia, I didn't have one single nomination let alone the award, but within 24 hours of being in the country, I'd won with my only competition being my other three nominations.
My favourite Dik Diks have mostly gone to Jaime or Abi. Examples include :
* Jaime asking what time the meteorite would hit so she could go and watch it.
* Abi asking if you needed a parachute to sky dive
* Jaime asking if hippos could climb trees
(Jaime and Abi remind me of a someone who works in SE Corporate Services... Anyone able to guess who?)
Anyway, since being in Naimibia, we have visited a cheetah park, salt plain and a Himba tribe village, seen the worlds biggest meteorite, gone on some game drives and camped in what felt like sub-zero temperatures.
I'm writing this on the way to Swakopmund where we'll be skydiving (with a parachute Abs!), sand boarding and quad biking - can't wait!
There's also free wifi so if it's decent enough, I'll try to Skype / FaceTime.
* Please note this is a small African animal, nothing untoward!
Two nights camping in the Okavango Delta in Botswana and I feel like I've taken part in it - minus the cameras and bush tucker trials!
After loading everything we needed into mokoros, we arrived at our electricty free, toilet free resort on an island in the middle of the delta, which, as well as being a unique ecosystem, is Botswana's premier tourist attraction, reputed to be teeming with wildlife. They did pretty well at evading us mind - we didn't see much other than a few warthogs, springboks and other deer-like creatures that are all starting to blend into one by now.
A mokoro is a dug out canoe carved out of a single tree and propelled along the Delta by polers. We were told they were surprisingly stable but they felt pretty precarious to me, particularly when a spider lands in between your boobs but you can't freak out or you'd tip the boat ...
For those of you EA people who think all rivers run to the sea ... Not so! The Kavango river starts in Angola before flowing into Namibia and into the vast flat landscape of Botswana where it's swallowed up by the Kalahari sands. The river eventually loses itself in a maze of emerald green lagoons, islands and channels that make up the wetlands of the Okavango Delta.
So for two days, we had to do our business in holes (the door was a shovel - if the shovel wasn't at the side of the designated tree, the toilet was occupied!), cook on a log fire and entertain ourselves with games I haven't played since I was in Brownies, including my new old favourite, wink murderer.
In another (probably vain) attempt to get this blog up to date, I'll stop there abut Botswana seeing as we've been in Namibia for almost a week now!
Catching Dik Dik* in Namibia
I seemed to catch a 24 hour stupid bug as soon as we entered Namibia.
It started by getting up to do breakfast an hour earlier than I should have and ended with me jumping into a swimming pool with my Ugandan phone in my pocket with a million ridiculous things in between.
We have a daily Dik Dik award on the truck for the person who says or does the most ridiculous thing. Until Namibia, I didn't have one single nomination let alone the award, but within 24 hours of being in the country, I'd won with my only competition being my other three nominations.
My favourite Dik Diks have mostly gone to Jaime or Abi. Examples include :
* Jaime asking what time the meteorite would hit so she could go and watch it.
* Abi asking if you needed a parachute to sky dive
* Jaime asking if hippos could climb trees
(Jaime and Abi remind me of a someone who works in SE Corporate Services... Anyone able to guess who?)
Anyway, since being in Naimibia, we have visited a cheetah park, salt plain and a Himba tribe village, seen the worlds biggest meteorite, gone on some game drives and camped in what felt like sub-zero temperatures.
I'm writing this on the way to Swakopmund where we'll be skydiving (with a parachute Abs!), sand boarding and quad biking - can't wait!
There's also free wifi so if it's decent enough, I'll try to Skype / FaceTime.
* Please note this is a small African animal, nothing untoward!
Friday, 25 May 2012
Jumping off stuff in Vic Falls
Thanks to the return of Truck Malaria, we're staying in the nice wifi hotel again tonight after two days of living our own version of I'm a Celebrity in the Okavango Delta.
Who knew malaria could bring so many benefits?!
* * *
I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed the time we spent in Zimbabwe (sorry Ange!).
Before coming on this tour, I would never in a million years have planned to go there on holiday as I didn't know anything about what the country had to offer tourists.
Before now, when I thought about Zimbabwe, I thought of Victoria Falls, how inhospitable it was supposed to be for visitors and how bad its international reputation was - mostly due to what I've seen and heard about the Mugabe regime. As soon as he's gone, I really hope the country's reputation improves and tourism takes off as Zim has so, so much more to offer than Vic Falls.
That said, Victoria Falls was amazing and should be on everyone's list of places to visit as far as I'm concerned. We could hear the roar of the raging water from miles way and see the thick clouds of mist above it from at least ten miles away which was impressive enough, but seeing it in person gave me goose bumps and for once made me speechless - not a easy feat.
It was such an odd feeling standing there looking at one of the natural wonders of the world whilst getting drenched from its mist.
And when I say drenched, I mean we left there with our clothes dripping as if someone had thrown buckets and buckets of water directly at us.
It was worth it though as it really was spectacular sight to see the falls in their full rainy season glory - as was seeing a herd of elephants hanging out outside the town's Barclays bank cashpoint!
(I've never been so keen to borrow money!)
Since she booked to meet me in Africa, Anwen said time after time that she wouldn't, under any circumstances, do any adrenaline activities. I thought I'd be able to persuade her when she arrived but there was no chance.
"Like hell. I've bungeed once before and it was the worst thing I've done in my life. No way, no chance, dim gobaith caneri. NA!"
Most of us on the truck signed up for the Full Adrenaline day, which gave us an unlimited number of jumps off the Flying Fox (straight zip line), Zipline (zipline that drops at a ridiculous angle) and the Gorge Swing (same as a bungee only with the harness around your waist instead of your ankles) as well as abseiling forwards and backwards off one of the cliffs.
http://www.afrizim.com/activities/victoria_falls/High_Wire.asp
I'd been looking forward to this since for months and was adamant I'd get my money's worth somehow - even if I wussed some of the activities, I figured I'd eat as near to $150 worth of food as possible from the buffet!
Four gorge swings, four ziplines, few flying foxes later a couple of bruised ribs and some significant bruising later, I was satisfied I'd justified my spend!
Loads of people have asked how I could have done it so many times. The only thing I can answer is that the adrenaline rush it gives you is addictive and weirdly, I wasn't nervous at all.
When the instructor was strapping me into my harness for my first jump at the gorge swing, he asked me how many times I'd done it. When I replied never, he said, "So why are you so relaxed? You look like you're walking into a restaurant!"
So after all of my big talk about doing the Vic Falls bungee ... I didn't do it!
As I enjoyed the other throwing myself off stuff the falls had to offer, I've decided to spend my money (which is rapidly running out!) on bungeeing in Cape Town - the biggest bungee in the world with a free fall twice as much as the Vic Falls jump!
In for a penny, in for a pound, eh?!
* * *
I would have put some decent photos of me doing the gorge swing on here but Anwen didn't take any! Her excuse?
"I thought you'd be faffing around for ages before you jumped so I wasn't ready. To be honest, I thought you would bottle it. Da iawn ti!"
Luckily some of the others took some or I'd have had no evidence of my bravery / stupidity*
* Delete as applicable!
Ps - Rachel's getting married in the morning!!!!!!!!!
Who knew malaria could bring so many benefits?!
* * *
I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed the time we spent in Zimbabwe (sorry Ange!).
Before coming on this tour, I would never in a million years have planned to go there on holiday as I didn't know anything about what the country had to offer tourists.
Before now, when I thought about Zimbabwe, I thought of Victoria Falls, how inhospitable it was supposed to be for visitors and how bad its international reputation was - mostly due to what I've seen and heard about the Mugabe regime. As soon as he's gone, I really hope the country's reputation improves and tourism takes off as Zim has so, so much more to offer than Vic Falls.
That said, Victoria Falls was amazing and should be on everyone's list of places to visit as far as I'm concerned. We could hear the roar of the raging water from miles way and see the thick clouds of mist above it from at least ten miles away which was impressive enough, but seeing it in person gave me goose bumps and for once made me speechless - not a easy feat.
It was such an odd feeling standing there looking at one of the natural wonders of the world whilst getting drenched from its mist.
And when I say drenched, I mean we left there with our clothes dripping as if someone had thrown buckets and buckets of water directly at us.
It was worth it though as it really was spectacular sight to see the falls in their full rainy season glory - as was seeing a herd of elephants hanging out outside the town's Barclays bank cashpoint!
(I've never been so keen to borrow money!)
Since she booked to meet me in Africa, Anwen said time after time that she wouldn't, under any circumstances, do any adrenaline activities. I thought I'd be able to persuade her when she arrived but there was no chance.
"Like hell. I've bungeed once before and it was the worst thing I've done in my life. No way, no chance, dim gobaith caneri. NA!"
Most of us on the truck signed up for the Full Adrenaline day, which gave us an unlimited number of jumps off the Flying Fox (straight zip line), Zipline (zipline that drops at a ridiculous angle) and the Gorge Swing (same as a bungee only with the harness around your waist instead of your ankles) as well as abseiling forwards and backwards off one of the cliffs.
http://www.afrizim.com/activities/victoria_falls/High_Wire.asp
I'd been looking forward to this since for months and was adamant I'd get my money's worth somehow - even if I wussed some of the activities, I figured I'd eat as near to $150 worth of food as possible from the buffet!
Four gorge swings, four ziplines, few flying foxes later a couple of bruised ribs and some significant bruising later, I was satisfied I'd justified my spend!
Loads of people have asked how I could have done it so many times. The only thing I can answer is that the adrenaline rush it gives you is addictive and weirdly, I wasn't nervous at all.
When the instructor was strapping me into my harness for my first jump at the gorge swing, he asked me how many times I'd done it. When I replied never, he said, "So why are you so relaxed? You look like you're walking into a restaurant!"
So after all of my big talk about doing the Vic Falls bungee ... I didn't do it!
As I enjoyed the other throwing myself off stuff the falls had to offer, I've decided to spend my money (which is rapidly running out!) on bungeeing in Cape Town - the biggest bungee in the world with a free fall twice as much as the Vic Falls jump!
In for a penny, in for a pound, eh?!
* * *
I would have put some decent photos of me doing the gorge swing on here but Anwen didn't take any! Her excuse?
"I thought you'd be faffing around for ages before you jumped so I wasn't ready. To be honest, I thought you would bottle it. Da iawn ti!"
Luckily some of the others took some or I'd have had no evidence of my bravery / stupidity*
* Delete as applicable!
Ps - Rachel's getting married in the morning!!!!!!!!!
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