Truck malaria, breaching the peace, leopard poo & Pricey

I've decided I've gone off Malawi seeing as it gave two of our trip members a serious bout of malaria that ended up with them on an intravenous drip in a Zimbabwe hospital. Luckily, they're both on the mend, have rejoined the trip and yes I've been taking my tablets religiously - honest!

So Zim has taken over as my second favourite country in Africa after Uganda, despite its crooked police officers that tried to arrest Lauren on a Friday afternoon for taking a photograph outside a supermarket and wanted to keep her in the cells until a court appearance the following Wednesday!
After a three hour interrogation and the eventual intervention of the Chief of Police (who confirmed she hadn't done anything wrong in the first place!), Lauren had to sign an Admission of Guilt form for breaching the peace and pay a $10 fine. We're not quite sure how or when she breached the peace during the whole debacle, but she has the certificate / receipt to prove it!

After this unexpected and (eventually) entertaining hold up, we arrived at Antelope Park in Gweru much later than expected and it was bloody freezing!
As we're moving more south and deeper into Winter, the nights are getting much, much colder but happily the days are still warm and sunny.
Yesterday, I wore shorts, a vest top and factor 30 in the day and was wrapped up my sleeping bag and sleeping bag liner whilst wearing long leggings, walking trousers, a t shirt, a fleece, a hat and ski socks last night!

There were loads of great things to do at Antelope Park, including elephant training and riding, lions walks, kayaking and biking. My favourite activity was the lion feeding with the 'teenage' males who are being trained to survive when they are released back into the wild.
We stood behind a wire fence with a pile of meat about a foot in front of us. The lions were then released from their temporary cage and raced towards their food, each aiming to get there first to prove they were the alpha male of the group. It really was phenomenal to watch them battle so ferociously for group dominance - despite the minging bloody animal guts and lion slobber splashback that dirtied my nice clean white top.

I'll remember Antelope Park for three other things :

1. Straightening my hair for the first time since January
2. The most amazing upgrade we've had to date - a 16 bed manor house (that reminded me of Shell Cottage from Harry Potter) between three of us for $15 a night
3. Our free snake viewing. The activity sheet said it was $8 to do the snake handling activity but those sitting in the front row of our talk got to see it for free. Bad choice of shorts buddy!

After leaving Gweru, we headed towards Matapos National Park for a game drive.
This game drive was different to others we've done. Our guide, Ian, explained not only about the animals, but also about the local indigenous tribes and their ancestors' cave rock paintings which are said to be some of the oldest in the world, found us some 20 minute old leopard poo (the closest we've come to seeing the real thing - elusive little buggers!), and 'bush medicine'. Personally, I'd rather take my chances with a dodgy stomach rather than sipping elephant poo tea.

He also took us deep into the bush to see his 'babies', a family of black Rhinos. At one point, we managed to get within about 15 metres of them which was amazing albeit a little scary when they all suddenly stood up and started huffing, puffing and grunting at us!

By the end of the day, I think we were all a little bit in love with Ian, even the boys! He's one of those people that has such natural charisma that's well as his passion and charisma for what he does, you can't helped but be mesmerised by him - and his really short shorts!

We then left Matapos and headed towards Victoria falls where I met Pricey.
My plan to calmly approach her, hand outstretched with the words, "Miss Price I presume" didn't work out exactly as planned. Instead, I excitedly screamed, "Anwen!!!!!!!" from across the other side of the bar and much to her embarrassment and discomfort, ran across to her sun lounger and jumped on top of her before asking, "now, where is my Haribo, chocolate, asking boots and waxing strips?"

We've already run out of Haribo and chocolate. Anyone fancy bringing us some more?

(This is the second time I've written this blog as I just lost the whole lot as I pressed publish! Arghh!

However, due to our malaria-ridden travellers, we've had to change our schedule. Tonight we're happily staying at a campsite with wifi instead of our intended one. Wifi makes me very, very happy these days!)



Photos:

1. Our guide Ian and the Absoluters
2. Lions eating at Antelope Park
3. The Manor!
4. 20 minute old leopard poo - the closest we've come to seeing a leopard!
5. Elephant training
6. Trying to blend in with the locals. Maybe I should have ditched the sunnies...
7. Elephant ride
8. Rhino trekking.

Rachel's getting hitched!

(I'm writing this now in case I can't get online before next weekend)

Writing this from an internet cafe in Zimbabwe, I'm both ridiculously happy and deeply sad because in a few days time, one of my girls getting married thousands and thousands of miles away.The girl in question is one of my most beloved friends that I've known for about 10 years.

On paper, the (piss) artist formerly known as Miss Rachel Kay Thomas is a Welsh speaking, RE teaching, 33 year old genetically modified giant from Bargoed, daughter of Wyndham and Patricia, sister to Cerys, mam to Gruff and by this time next week, wife to Ian.
But the reality is, she's so, so much more than that. As well as being all of these things, she's quite simply a wonderful person who is one of my closest friends.

She's kind, thoughtful, caring, reliable, generous and funny (most, but not all, of the time we're laughing with her) and does the most hilarious chicken impression when playing Tregaron's Got Talent.

But she's far, far from perfect is our Rach - she snores, pukes in waste paper bins and on motorways, rarely makes a decent cup of coffee, cheers on Japan instead of Wales at the rugby ("but they look so little and sad, poor dabs. I'm cheering for them now. They're losing by too much.") and is generally a bit of a tit but we all love her to bits just the same.

Together and with others, we've shared happy times, drunken times, sober times, times when we've laughed so hard a little bit of pee came out (her, not me), completed the See How Many Things You Can Buy in Asda For a Pound Excluding Food Challenge (I won hands down), we've had WOFs, DOFs, NOFs, 16 HIDs, extreme laugh offs, speed dance offs, rap offs, crock offs, worst insult you can think of offs, sunny days, rainy days, nights in, nights out, and so many other fantastic times that I'll always laugh out loud to.

On the other hand, we've helped each other through some difficult and truly tragic times that neither of us will ever forget. Without realising it at the time, this is probably the foundation of our friendship and what makes you so special to me Rach.
And not just because we know too much about each other, but also because we both have photographic evidence of each other's grubby halos!

From the moment you first told us about Ian, the sparkle in your eyes, huge smile on your face and the air of unusual girly shyness about you told us your life had changed forever before your words did.
Admittedly, we didn't expect it to change quite as quickly as it did, but when your little (!) bundle of joy eventually (!) arrived on that snowed in (!) December day, you and Ian began your biggest adventure together. Gruff is evidence that you're as amazing as parents as you are with each other.

So Rach, I'm going to stop rambling now.
I love you to bits and back and am so, so sorry I won't be there in person watching you get married on Saturday. You're beautiful, inside and outside and I bet you'll look breathtaking in that new posh frock of yours!
But please don't ruin the illusion by doing the whole chicken act on Saturday. Let Ian enjoy being married to you before you inflict that on him.

I hope you have a wonderful wedding day.
You don't need luck for the future because I know the Bendall family will have an amazing life together.

Caru chi i gyd.

X

Ps. I have the Tregaron's Got Talent video footage if anyone is interested.

Flying through Zambia & into Zimbabwe

(Just to let you non-face bookers know, my Ugandan phone hasn't worked since Malawi so that's the reason you cant get through (although it should start to work again by the time we get to Botswana). So that's why I haven't been responding to texts - I'm not ignoring you honest!

I have my work mobile with me so you can use that number (ends with 494) in the meantime. Otherwise, email my yahoo email account. The next time I pick up emails should be on the 16th)

* * *

We only had a two day flying visit through Zambia. I'd like to say something really profound about it, like talk about its dreamy landscapes, beautiful blood red sunsets or its nighttime eruption of shimmering stars, but to be totally honest, my lasting memory of it will be the luxurious flushing toilets, Nandos and my footlong steak and cheese Sub at the newly opened Manda (!) Hill shopping mall.

In comparison to the rest of the countries we've travelled through, the capital, Lusaka, was positively cosmopolitan with its American style shopping malls, chain restaurants and ex-pat style bars. Internet still didn't bloody work though.

We crossed the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe at the Kariba Dam and were immediately warned not to take any photographs of any police officers, Government buildings, critical infrastructure which is illegal in Zim.
(Remember this for my next blog which will probably be entitled Arrested in Zim!)

Lake Kariba was created sometime in the 60s when low lying land was flooded to feed the Kariba Dam Hydropower scheme. The edges of the lake are dotted with ghostly dead trees that stick up out of the water in a really eerie fashion, crocodile and hippos. Luckily, the crocs and elephants that inhabit the lake fringes don't like deep water so nobody got eaten alive when, after a few VnTs for dutch courage, we decided to jump off the roof of our houseboat which was about 15 metres high! (preparation for the Vic Falls bungee!)

As soon as we arrived at our houseboat (which came, for our exclusive use, complete with an on-board chef, hot tub and speed boats!), we were welcomed by the owner - a lady from Dolgellau who was delighted to be able to speak Welsh with me and paraded me proudly to her staff telling them to take extra good care of me. Us Welshies like to look after each other!

Anyway, there have been loads of other brilliant things we've done and seen in here, but in an attempt to get this blog up to date, I'm going to stop there ... but not before I tell you my favourite thing about Zimbabwe.

Because the economy here crashed a few years back, the country now uses US dollars as its currency but only dollar notes. So if you go to a supermarket and your bill comes to $4.30, you're due 70 cents change (that's Maths even I can do!). But because they don't use any US coins here, you get your change in sweets - yesterday, I got 7 lollies and a chocolate as change from my weekly shop!

Malawi

(This is all way, way out at date! I'm actually in Zimbabwe at the moment but haven't been able to publish anything)

We've just spent three days in Malawi which was chuffing brilliant - definitely my favourite country after Uganda so far.
Just half an hour or so after we crossed the border from Tanzania, you could tell we were in a different country. Apparently, Malawi is considered to be one of the poorest countries in the world which was reflected almost immediately in the lack of cars on the road. Everywhere we went, people were walking on the roads which made discreet bush pees a challenge.
Our big yellow truck isn't exactly inconspicuous so we tend to gain a lot of attention wherever we go - 16 muzungos peeing against a tree or squatting in the long grass has provided much entertainment for a number of Malawi villagers!

The other thing I've noticed about Malawi is how happy everyone seems to be. Almost without exception, kids in rural areas of the countries we've travelled through so far wave excitedly when they see the truck, but here even the adults smile and give us a cheery wave.

I was doing really well by not doing my usual thing of getting carried away and buying loads of African stuff... Until Malawi!
Not quite sure how my new teak chair, massive teak serving tray and teak African people will fit into my Welsh slate and oak living room, let alone how I'll get it back to Ton Teg!
Funny how a few midday beers can cloud your judgement!

Some of the places we've stayed in during this trip have been amazing and Kande Beach has been one of my favourites to date. It was on the shores of Lake Malawi, served fresh coffee, cold beer and gorgeous burritos, and most importantly, the weather was bloody gorgeous so I spent every spare second on the beach trying to rejuvenate my lovely Ugandan tan!

During our time here, we also had a hog roast followed by a fancy dress party.
The pig was from a nearby village and as it was so close to our resort, we were asked if we wanted to watch it being slaughtered. As someone who loves Sunday morning bacon buttie with the papers, I went because I thought I should know a bit more about it. I won't go into detail but the experience wasn't half as bad as I expected it to be - I almost expected to come back a veggie.

A few hours later, the pig was roasting over the charcoals and we were getting ready for the fancy dress. The party involved picking someone's name out of a hat and buying them as ridiculous an outfit as possible from a nearby town. Luckily for me, I got off lightly (Thanks Holly!) and ended up with an Aladdin-esque number that covered all my essential parts for the cereal box game which was won by our bendy PE teacher, Lauren. Other people weren't so lucky with their outfits!

The following night, we went to a village house and sat cross-legged on the floor eating local food whilst being entertained by some village kids dancing. Some of the bum wiggling, gyrating and thrusting Malawi dance moves wouldn't be out of place in a 50 Cent video- it was quite disconcerting to be ground up against by a six year old little girl!

They finished the night by asking us to do a sing and a dance for them but the only songs we could think of that we all knew were Jingle Bell Rock, I'm a Little Tea Pot and Incey Wincey Spider! To be fair, the kids hide their confusion fairly well, but you could see they were pretty underwhelmed, looking at each other as if to say, "Really? This is the best this bunch of muppets can do?!"

We left Malawi yesterday and have just arrived at Lusaka, the capital city of Zambia, where we will be able to get online - yippee!

Megan is a big sister!

Well, I've missed out on another big occasion back home. My friend Cath has gone and had a baby and made Megan Elizabeth Carey a very special big sister to Pippa Rose Carey.

For those of you who don't know Meg, she's a beautiful and very stylish eight year old who lives with her mum, Cath, and dad, Rob, in North Cornelly.

So Meg, being a big sister myself, I thought I'd pass on some words of wisdom and advice on how to survive and make the most of the experience.

Meg,

Even though Pippa is a super cute baby (you were totally gorgeous too - she's so lucky she takes after you!), I bet she'll be really, REALLY boring to start with - all she'll do is drink milk, sleep, cry and do really stinky poos!
(Have you changed a nappy yet? Was it really gross?! You'll have to show me how to do it when I get home. Then again, maybe we should leave that job to Auntie Manda)

You'll be able to do much cooler stuff that Pippa definitely won't be able to do for ages, like learning dance moves to all the latest cool songs, going to the cinema, swimming and horse riding, going shopping then having coffee and cake with Mum, me, Auntie Manda and the other girls, and there's no way in the world she'll will be able to give Mum the fashion advice you give her!

Other cool stuff about being a big sister include :

* You get to go to bed later
* You can watch better stuff on tv
* You get to do stuff first, like staying over friends houses, going away for weekends without the Old Folks
* You can tell their friends really embarassing stories about them when they grow up and start to annoy you
* You will be able to tell Pippa all about the latest fashion trends and make her look really cool. Or, if she starts to get on your nerves a bit, you can tell her what to wear and make her look a little bit silly!
* Because you have a bedroom on the top floor, you can tell her monsters live up there so she doesn't mess with your stuff! (I did this with my brothers for years and it worked a treat)

Make the most of being the bigger and cooler sister - and make sure you use the tickle hand of doom that someone (not me) taught you before I left.

I bet you'll be an amazing Big Sister. Can't wait to see you and meet Pippa in June. You both owe me loads and loads of massive sloppy, slobbery kisses and cwtches!!

Lots n lotsa love.

Xxx

(Ps. Congrats Cath and Rob on becoming parents to yet another gorgeous baby girl. The photo of her made me cry my eyes out in Zambia!)

Ta ra Tanzania!

Our four days in Zanzibar have sadly come to an end.
No longer will we be able to get lost in the labyrinth-like narrow alleys of Stone Town, sip Mojitos from gently rocking hammocks, take a dip in the warm Indian ocean or, 'wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle' on soft white sand beaches. * Sigh *
On the plus side, even though we're leaving a country whose traditional dish seems to be a chip omelette (lush), we've just arrived in Malawi which I've really been looking forward to following many discussions with Patrick from CURE hospital about his homeland.

I liked Zanzibar from the moment we arrived and were offered fake designer sunglasses. I bought two pairs to replace my (genuine but doomed) Oakleys - Ray Dans and Guci.

Zanzibar really did live up to its well deserved reputation and legendary allure.
The African, Arabic and Indian influences can be seen and smelled throughout Stone Town. With its cobbled streets, courtyards and squares, bazaars and mosques, cathedral and gardens, it felt like an exotic melting pot of cultures with a bustling rhythm to match. It was mesmerising (and quite exhausting!) to watch from the comfort of a rooftop balcony, glass of red in hand!

Zanzibar is an extremely conservative, Muslim society. Women wear full Islamic clothing that cover all of their bodies and a lot of the men (when not wearing football shirts - Arsenal seems to be the team of choice over here btw) wear what look like long nighties (Ok, I know that's not politically correct but I don't know what they're called or how else to describe them and neither does anyone I'm with at the moment).

To respect their traditions and beliefs, us girls covered up our knees and shoulders in the stifling heat so in a way, we were glad to leave and hit the beach in Kendwa at the north of the island.

Kendwa's trump card is its idyllic, coconut tree lined, white sand beach and turquoise sea and whose 'fun time' reputation is based on its legendary full moon parties... and we had a lot of fun there!

Our time on Zanzibar was more like a normal holiday than truck life - no chores, no 4.30am wake up calls to go game driving and no bloody camping. I'm truly over tents.

We managed to pack a lot into Zanzibar though - swimming with wild dolphins in the sea (won't be doing that again - almost drowned in the massive waves), swimming with turtles in a sea lagoon (nice idea on paper, not so much in practice. Especially when you don't know if you're standing on rock or some variety of endangered turtle), going to a spice farm (boring), getting lost without a map in the Stone Town maze (frustrating but we got to see some beautiful sights and - randomly - some really intricate wooden front doors) as well as sinking some local brews (fun) and dancing on a dance floor made of sand (lots and lots of fun).

The beach resort we stayed at was gorgeous. (It reminded me a lot of where we went horse riding in Brazil Trace, only without the driving rain!)
The sea was so clear you could see fish - including jelly fish, ych - swimming round and the shells and pieces of coral on the shoreline were much more exotic (and hygienic) than anything I've seen washed up at Porthcawl.

Our beach cottages were lovely too - 30 seconds walk to the bar, 40 seconds to the massage hut and less than a minute to the sea. In the time we were there, I managed to rack up an unquantifiable number of Tuskers, mojitos and GnTs, four massages (wonderful and cheap - £8 for an hour!), one leg wax (very unsatisfactory), 40 + new mozzie bites (that have turned into what looks like little volcanic eruptions on my skin), a few dips (mostly wearing bathers) in the sea and a considerable laundry bill (I can't be doing with hand washing any more - somehow my clothes end up dirtier than when they went in).

So here we are now in Malawi. After being here for about three hours, I think I'm going to like it. Although at the moment, that is solely based on the fact the local beer is called something that sounds like cwtchy cwtchy.

(We're in Zambia now. I wrote this blog in Malawi but the internet kept crashing wasn't so I couldn't publish it)

Serengeti & Ngorongoro Crater

Over the past days, we've put some serious mileage behind us and have just arrived in Zanzibar (which is totally living up to its heavenly reputation of flour-soft white sand, beautiful sunsets and coconut-cupped cocktails!)

We've been in Tanzania for a week now and have travelled through, visited and stayed in a number of places including Lake Victoria in Mwanza, the Serengeti National Park and the Ngorongoro Crater.

For a few nights, we stayed in unfenced campsites in the Serengeti - none of which had upgrade options, hot water or flushing toilets! Because the camps are unfenced, we had security guards to make sure no animals got peckish in the middle of the night. It was a little unnerving hearing roaring lions from our tent (particularly when we'd seen them tearing a fresh zebra carcass to pieces just hours before) so it was a case of holding it in until the morning rather than risking a midnight toilet run!

Even though the Serengeti is Tanzania's most famous national park, I wasn't all that fussed in comparison to the Crater.
The Serengeti was exactly as I'd imagined though - it was the classic east African scenery, full of endless grassy plains with distinctive flat topped acia trees dotting the savannah.
In some parts, the scenery was so perfect and stereotypically African, it almost looked animated, like a scene out of Lion King! We even saw some lions looking out from their very own Pride Rock (although good luck with spotting them in the photo below - I could only see them through binoculars!).

Everything about the Ngorongoro Crater was amazing, even the drive to get there (during which the truck journey turned into a heavy drinking session resulting in hangovers kicking in at about 7pm)
When we arrived, we couldn't see anything except the jagged, rocky peaks of the surrounding extinct volcanoes and the thick white cloud gathered inside - it reminded me of a massive cappuccino from O'Briens!

It looked like the animals had also been on a massive binge drinking session when we arrived, with rhinos and buffalos lolling around, flaked out in the early morning sun and even a male lion throwing up about 10 metres away from one of our 4x4s! To be fair, we were up at 4.30am so we didn't look too sharp either.

As the clouds evaporated and the animals woke up, the Crater revealed its previously hidden expanse that was teeming with wildlife, including lions, rhino, elephant, buffalo (we only have leopard to tick off until we have Big Five Bingo!), zebra, wildebeest, gazelles, hyenas, jackals, waterbucks, flamingos, ostriches and loads, loads more.

But rather than the breathtaking beauty of the rugged Ngorongoro Crater, seeing lions and so many other animals interact at such close range, the highlight of the day was trying to push our 4x4s out of the mud.
I'm happy to report that as I was wearing flip flops (Thank God I was running late and couldn't find my walking boots!), I could barely stand in the calf deep mud, let alone push a truck out of it so provided the troops with strategic advice, direction and general encouragement!

My camera broke a few days ago (so gutted - Anwen, remember to bring yours with you) so I haven't got any photos showing how muddy they got but they were covered, from head to toe whilst I was got away with a few splatters.

However, the whole debacle was caught on film by a CBS camera crew (they were passing in some of the vehicles that helped to tow us out!) so look out for 16 mud slathered people waving at a camera, jumping up and down shouting, "We love CBS!" on a tv screen near you!