This is a rather lengthly post. Stay with it until the end. You can do it. At least there are a lot of pictures along the way.
Camp Glow
The day after school was over last term, we had a week long camp in Windhoek for 80 Namibian students from all over Namibia. The students selected were pretty much the best students from volunteer’s schools. In order to be chosen they had to fill out an application and be nominated by a Peace Corps Volunteer. It was nice to be around students that understood and responded to everything. There were also 13 Peace Corps Volunteers teamed up with 16 Namibian facilitators to be the counselors for the week.
Glow stands for Girls and Guys Leading Our World - so it was essentially a leadership camp. We did a lot of team building activities and had a lot of interactive sessions with the students. One day, a bus came and picked us all up and we spent the day in downtown Windhoek. We went to the parliament building, the University of Namibia, the mall, and stopped along the way for ice cream. It was an amazing experience for a lot of the students. Windhoek is not a big city by American standards, but a lot of kids with us had never even left their village. For many of them, it was the first time they had ever seen buildings bigger than their school, not to mention 30 story skyscrapers.
Cape Town
After Camp Glow, we hopped on a bus from Windhoek to Cape Town in a journey that lasted 20 hours - fun right? Luckily, we were able to grab a few hours of sleep on the bus so we showed up with at least a mild amount of energy. Cape Town is amazing. It is surrounded by mountains, the ocean, wine vineyards that stretch for miles, restaurants of all kinds (even McDonalds, Namibia doesn’t have any), and everything there is actually cheaper than in Namibia. A group of 8 Peace Corps Volunteers met up there, and we all stayed at the same hostel.
Shark diving
Our first activity in Cape Town was of course, diving with Great White Sharks. It sounds scary to most people, but it literally isn’t scary at all. If the movie Jaws had never been made, we all probably wouldn’t really fear sharks, or at least not as much. Anyway, we were picked up by a van at 5:30 AM from our hostel and we drove two hours down the coast to a town called Gansbaai where people are allowed to go cage diving. Our guide said that if cage diving were allowed in Cape Town (it is not), it would be really easy to find sharks right off the shore because there are certainly plenty of them there as well. We were given a brief tutorial on how to properly hold on to the cage once we were in the water, and our guide emphasized repeatedly that it was important not stick your hands out of the cage to try to touch the sharks when they swam by - I decided it was best to keep my arms intact so I followed his advice. We went about 2 miles offshore, to a spot where the sharks tend to hang around where the water was roughly 20 feet deep. The deck hands started to throw chum (chopped up fish bits) into the water to attract the sharks, and within 2 minutes we already had a monster swimming around the boat under us. We all put on wetsuits and in groups of 5, took turns in the cage for 15 minutes at a time. I spent more time in the cage than anyone on the boat so I was really cold because the water was ice cold. 
The visibility in the water was only around 10 feet, so the sharks had to get really close in order to be seen. You actually don’t use any scuba gear or snorkels or anything like that when you go, you just hold your breath and pull yourself underwater by holding the cage as the sharks swim by. You chill with your head above the water until one of the guides sees a shark coming, and then he yells “DOWN!” You grab a quick breath of air and go underwater to watch the shark glide by. You are underwater for less than 10 seconds usually before they disappear again, so there is no need for scuba gear. The guide also puts a chopped off tuna head on a line right in front of the cage (kind of like fishing and it is to give the shark a target) so the shark is constantly drawn to the area right in front of the cage by this tuna head.
All in all, it was an amazing experience. Our guide said we saw 7 different Great Whites, and the biggest one was a male and probably around 18 feet long.
Table Mountain
Cape Town is famous for a giant mountain that is almost perfectly flat on the top, almost just like a table, hence the name of Table Mountain. I think we took the ridiculously long route, but it took us nearly 3 hours to climb to the top and it was not an easy hike by any means. The view from the top was great. You can see the Cape of Good Hope off in the distance, and you tower above the city and ocean that surrounds it. We decided that rather than hiking back down the mountain, it would be better to stay at the top and watch the sunset over the ocean and then just take the cable car down. It was a pretty exhausting day, but totally worth the view.
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| Just to the left of my foot, you can see the 2010 World Cup stadium |
Wine Tour
The whole area surrounding Cape Town is full of wine vineyards, so we of course wanted to go on a wine tour and sample some of the best wines in the world. We signed up with a company called Wine Flies, who brought us to 5 different vineyards where we got to try 25 different types of wine, various cheeses, chocolate, and had a scrumptious lunch on a tour that lasted almost 10 hours. Wine is good stuff.
Old Biscuit Mill
Every Saturday in Cape Town, there is a giant fair (that has a free entrance by the way) where local vendors come and set up stands which serve gourmet food and drinks. The reason we went was for the free samples. Almost every stand had samples of food, and after 2 hours of sampling the best Cape Town has to offer, it was more than a meal - it was a free meal. They also had free wine samples - fancy that.
Livingstone
After Cape Town and all its glory, we got back on the same bus that we used to get there but this time, the trip took 23 hours - talk about brutal. We then got on another bus from Windhoek that took us all the way to Livingstone, Zambia - the town with Victoria Falls.
Victoria Falls
The falls are stunning. The area inside the Victoria Falls Park is a densely vegetated jungle, full of monkeys and birds and mist. The Zambezi River is very high right now, so there is a TON of water pouring over the side of the falls. It is a sight to see because the tremendous amount of water causes a spray of mist to fly up into the air nearly 300 feet above the falls, and then literally pour back down on you when you are inside the park and close to the falls. It was like standing in a torrential downpour - no joke. The mist was an experience in itself, but it unfortunately also blocks the view of the falls in most places. Luckily we were close enough to the falls that we will probably go back at least 2 more times (we are only about 6 hours away), so we will also get to see the falls in the dry season when the water is low.
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| We were there on Mother's Day - so happy Mother's Day! |
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| That is what the mist looks like from a distance. |
Crafty Baboons
I mentioned earlier than the park was full of monkeys - well it was mainly baboons, and they were everywhere. They were in the trees around us and on the trials in front of us. I mistakenly asked Lindsey if I could have a sandwich at one point while we were walking on a trail, and she pulled out a bag full of three sandwiches. A baboon started to quickly approach her and she screamed and threw the bag full of our sandwiches on the ground in a panic. The baboon grabbed the bag and quickly ate all three delicious, Lindsey-made sandwiches. The interesting part is that he did not eat the crust of any of the bread...... he just threw it on the ground. So not only was this baboon a thief, he was also a picky eater. We were mad that we lost my lunch but it ended up being pretty dang funny after the fact.
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| Notice the crust he didn't eat on the ground.... |
Bungee Jumping
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| I was actually terrified in this picture. |
Victoria Falls is home to the second highest bungee jump in the world (the first is in Cape Town). There is a bridge that spans the gorge between Zambia and Zimbabwe (that was actually the highest bridge in the world when it was built) and out in the middle of the bridge is where the fun begins. And why stop at bungee jumping? For just 30 USD extra, I also zip lined and did this thing called “the gorge swing” off of the bridge. It was intense. The wind was blowing, rainbows were everywhere, and the water from the Zambezi River was raging underneath me as I stepped to the edge. Everyone counted down from three and I took a leap off into the canyon. Let me tell you, gravity is no joke. I have been skydiving before, but when you skydive, you honestly can’t even tell that you’re falling because the perspective changes so slowly. With bungee jumping, the ground in front of your face approaches real fast. Needless to say, I survived and it was thrilling. The gorge swing was actually the most fun of the three and even Lindsey says that she also wants to do it the next time we go. Will shall see.
Lions, Cheetahs, and Elephants
We spent half of a day at a game park nearby Livingstone where we rode elephants through the bush and got to feed them, pet cheetahs and walked them (like a dog on a leash haha), pet lions and accompanied them on a walk (we certainly didn’t/couldn’t walk them like a dog). I never thought that I would actually pet a cheetah or a lion, and we got to do both in the same day.
We started the day with an elephant ride through part of their game park. They are massive animals. The ones that we rode were very well trained and we were able to feed them after our venture. Pretty cool stuff.
Last December, we went to a cheetah reserve and were able to “get close” to some cheetahs - that didn’t even compare to this. Cheetahs are the largest cat that still purr when they are content, and we were able to actually make them purr - kind of a weird thing to say, but really cool when you think about it. We were able to pet three cheetahs and spend about an hour with them. We pet them just like you would pet a house cat. On the head, the neck, anywhere on the body really, except for the feet - the guide said they are ticklish and will think you are trying to play with them if you touch their feet. They were even licking us. Cheetahs are just big softies at heart. Really fast, big softies.
The lions on the other hand were a little different. You can’t actually pet lions (because they too are ticklish and will think you are playing), so you have to almost smack them with your hand in a semi-hard, semi-light fashion so they know that you are there but they are not being tickled. We also had sticks to distract the lions incase they took an interest in playing with us. The guides said if the lions look at you, step back and put the stick in front of their face to distract them. These were very tame lions of course, but a tame lion can still be dangerous if it wants to play. So we had the sticks not to hit them or anything (because what good would a little stick do for that anyway right?) but to distract them from us if they wanted to play.
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| Just walking some lions.... |
It was cool because we got to go straight from the cheetahs to the lions, so it was easy to see the shear size difference between the two. I mean, cheetahs are pretty big cats - they are really skinny, but they are about as tall as a Great Dane. The lions though, oh my gosh, are simply huge. They’re thick and tall and long and their heads are bigger than five of my own. That is why it was so invigorating to be so close to them. They had two females that we were able to get close to. One was a typical brownish female lion, and the other was a white lion. She was not albino, but the guide said it is some recessive gene that some lions have but it is extremely rare. She wasn’t really pure white - it was more like creamy white.
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| The male white lion |
We pet them for a few minutes and then went on a walk with them as part of their daily exercise. They were really well behaved and even let us play with their tails. Afterwards, we got to see a male white lion and pet him for a few minutes, and then got to hang out with some lion cubs. It was a good day.
Side note: if you are like, “Why would they get so close to those lions? That is so dumb!” Think about this - lions don’t kill very many people each year but do you know what does? Elephants. Elephants kill way more people than lions. Did you think it was dumb when I said we were riding elephants because you were afraid for our safety? Probably not. If you were there, you certainly would have pet them too.
Croc Park
Livingstone is also home to a big crocodile park where they have lots and lots of crocs. Apparently they can live to be 150 years old and they never stop growing until the day that they die. They had one that was 80 years old and was seriously twice as big as any crocodile I have ever seen. It was nearly 20 feet long and looked like a dang dinosaur. Our guide got in the pin with them and started to poke them with a stick to irritate them to show us their roar (which also sounds like a dinosaur from Jurassic Park). He said that all the ones they had were so big and heavy, that they have a really hard time moving on land - so they are very slow once you are out of the water. He even let us get in for a few pokes.
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| It is hard to tell from the picture, but this guy was huge!! |
Back to the village
So here we are again in Mayara after a month full of adventure and crazy activities. I was just telling Lindsey how strange it is how fluidly we can bounce between two extremes of living. Just two nights ago we were having a drink on the balcony of a hotel in Livingstone that cost a minimum of $600 a night while watching the sunset over Vic Falls, and today we are in a dirty mud hut without running water. It just seems normal now. School starts back up next Tuesday, so we have a few days to relax before we go back to work. Let me know if you have any questions or if there is anything you would like me to talk about in the next post!
Peace,
Tim
