I like camping

It is a fairly simple statement, but there is so much delight when I say it! Camping offers the ideal lifestyle routine for me.  Apart from putting up and pulling apart my awesome tent (Danke Schön Mark) every day, I thoroughly enjoy snuggling up in my chrysalis sleeping bag and falling asleep to the various sounds of my surroundings.  Whether it be a flowing river, desert silence (except that hungry jackal or whatever that thing was that got into the rubbish bin one night), Atlantic ocean waves or comforting night animal sounds, I love it all! 

The thing about camping is, when it gets dark, it gets a little chilly and once we have had dinner, watched an episode of ‘Long Way Down’ or read a bit from the Bradt (Fiver), Lonely Planet (me) or Getaway Guide (Stuart) on the current country it is pretty much bed time.  This is like 8pm…max! 

When one goes to bed so early, one can only sleep for so long, so I am wide awake and crawling out of my awesome tent before dawn nearly every morning with absolute ease! AND IT’S FABULOUS!

Dad, you would be so proud of my newfound eagerness for early mornings. However, Fiver does not always share my joy and actually she has a few words for you every morning that I prance around the campsite singing ‘wakey wakey’ with more enthusiasm than you could throw a stick at, while she wishes she could keep sleeping. 

 

I like camping

It is a fairly simple statement, but there is so much delight when I say it! Camping offers the ideal lifestyle routine for me.  Apart from putting up and pulling apart my awesome tent (Danke Schön Mark) every day, I thoroughly enjoy snuggling up in my chrysalis sleeping bag and falling asleep to the various sounds of my surroundings.  Whether it be a flowing river, desert silence (except that hungry jackal or whatever that thing was that got into the rubbish bin one night), Atlantic ocean waves or comforting night animal sounds, I love it all! 

The thing about camping is, when it gets dark, it gets a little chilly and once we have had dinner, watched an episode of ‘Long Way Down’ or read a bit from the Bradt (Fiver), Lonely Planet (me) or Getaway Guide (Stuart) on the current country it is pretty much bed time.  This is like 8pm…max! 

When one goes to bed so early, one can only sleep for so long, so I am wide awake and crawling out of my awesome tent before dawn nearly every morning with absolute ease! AND IT’S FABULOUS!

Dad, you would be so proud of my newfound eagerness for early mornings. However, Fiver does not always share my joy and actually she has a few words for you every morning that I prance around the campsite singing ‘wakey wakey’ with more enthusiasm than you could throw a stick at, while she wishes she could keep sleeping. 

 

Border Crossing Nummer Eins

My first border crossing was kind of like eating a whole packet of M & M’s in the blink of an eye without even noticing. 

We got out of the car at the South African border, all raring to go with all of our documents at hand, Fiver’s big yellow folder at the ready and a very apprehensive me waiting to be asked some very difficult question.  I walked in after Fiver and Stuart, the man said ‘Passport’, I gave it to him, he stamped it, I walked out, and we drove off.  Crunch crunch, more M & M’s down the hatch….

 

‘Ok ok, so the Namibia end will be different’ I thought, and we were prepared to be there for hours especially because a giant bus of young tourists just nipped in line before us. 

After stressing that Stuart’s yellow fever certificate was not where it was supposed to be and there was no other place that it possibly could have been, but then finding it in the place that it was said to be, (after looking a little more thoroughly) and 7-10 minutes in line we were out of there.  We got in the car and drove off once again. 

…ooo  M & M’s are fantastic!

Fiver turned to me in the back seat and yelped “We are in Namibia now Merryl!”

Well shit, we were too!

 

But when did this all happen?  How did I manage to eat all of those M & M’s without any struggle or warning? I’m sure the next packet will be different.

 

..Maybe 11 minutes. 

Aucklington or Wellyland?

Even though we didn’t stay very long in Cape Town, I felt a great deal of comfort from the way the waterfront was laid out, but I couldn’t figure out why. On our last day, I emailed Jennifer describing what it was like in C.T.  It was like I was at the Viaduct, only 10 times bigger  (Jenny `I probably exaggerated to you a bit more, as per).  Every genre of restaurant such as South African cuisine, Seafood; featuring terribly small (very illegal NZ) sized crayfish, tasty Thai, Indian, Italian and so on.  I suppose the abundance in restaurant choice is getting pretty standard these days, but not when these restaurants are surrounding a shopping mall bigger than St Lukes, and are still on the waterfront. Groups were always performing song and dance or traditional music, which filled the atmosphere and attracted crowds all day long. So like I said, the Viaduct…haha but better.

 

On the other hand I was sitting in this bowl-shaped city just like Wellington…only 10 times bigger.  I looked around me and instead of Mt Vic being the lovely background (and the local 15 minute fitness ascent), there was Table Mountain – a more than 10 times bigger and far more interesting sight to look at. Plus it had gondolas! I thought it fitted to scale rather appropriately. 

The sights of the largest ‘Townships’ or ‘Black Housing’ establishments in South Africa were obviously not comparable at all. I had never seen anything as bad as these housing situations and wouldn’t wish it on any part of our lovely little Land of the Long White Cloud. 

 

Cape Town

We arrived in Cape Town in the afternoon after a gorgeous drive down from the top of the mountains. I was taking photos left right and centre out of the window until flat top of Table Mountain came into view and I had to stop snapping just so I could take it all in.   WOW, Cape Town!

 

We plonked ourselves in the car park of the Formula 1 ‘Hotel’.  (see Fiver's blog for an explanation to my quotation marks) Soon enough half of it was taken up by all of our belongings that exploded out all the doors and windows along with 3 very tired adventurers trailing behind.  We had been on the road almost a week and were starting to take the strain on everything being so tightly packed - There is only so much one can take of my heavily packed backpack tumbling down onto their head in the back seat you see – one week later we are in Swakopmund sending a very relieving and successfully maxed out 30kg bag to Germany.  Stuart can now sleep easy in the back seat without fear of my hauntingly heavy backpack base jumping down onto him, or the daunting feeling that Five is about to ask for something out of her enormous solar powered backpack that is either: a) impossible to get to because the zip is facing the wrong way to the back door and not the back seat passenger. b) impossible to remove from its post because it is shoved too tightly into the only space that even resembles enough room for it.   Or c) it is so crammed with stuff that you can’t even get to the laptop to plug the charger in.  Haha, it was such a laugh.  A great bag though, fantastic bag even. I mean, solar powered!

 

Top 5 for Cape Town

• 1. Getting underwater footage at the Aquarium
• 2. Formula 1 motel - a bunk on top of a double bed and a shower that splashes all over your dry clean clothes which were 'safely' placed on the toilet lid.
• 3. How can Cape Town Waterfront possibly be out of stock with Travel Mugs?
• 4. Cape Aguhlas - may not be in Cape Town, but its the southernmost point of South Africa, and that makes it cool enough to make the C.T Top 5
• 5. Finding out, according to studies on evolution (and from a great convo with Stuart) my 4th finger being longer than my index finger indicates higher levels of testosterone than females with index finger longer than their 4th finger.. 

Top 5 for Joburg.

Top 5 list of Johannesburg.

1. OBSERVATION: Guys selling random (yet fantastically well timed) items at traffic light junctions - Get a flag for the game, fluffy socks for cold weather, or for sudden unexpected, unprepared downpours, you'll even be able to get your hands on an umbrella!

2. ACTIVITY: Virgin Active Gym:  Never worry about remembering your towel when you work out at this jeez-louise flash-ass gym, they give you one on arrival! There is a room with all this fruit and cucumber water to max on, plus 2 saunas a steam room and a spa. No Biggy.  Also, our personal trainer Mario is.. Super

3. ANIMAL: My first Camel: At a random outdoor expo - you saw the pictures

4. FOOD FIND: Cranberry/Kiwifruit juice by Ceres - its delicious!

     5. PET PEEVE:  tbc

1 week to go!

One week until we leave for the big trip!

The hardest thing I am going to struggle with in this final week is handling my excitement! 

Every time we are out about organising things for the trip, we always end up discussing our exciting plans with the latest staff member.  People are so fascinated and often openly jealous, and quite frankly I don't blame them :)

Just one wee note for now. (ooo good pun Mez).

This afternoon we popped into see some South African friends of Fiver and Stuart's - Paolo and Daniella.  They showed us some fantastic pictures of places we must see and people we must meet along our way.  I found out a bit about the Zimbabwean dollar and its troubles and decided to look it up a little more.

Paolo showed me a Zimbabwean dollar note.....a 5billion dollar one!  Due to inflation in just one year (07-08), the $10 dollar note skyrocketed to a 100 billion dollar note (around USD .64, which wasn't quite enough for a loaf of bread).

I was also told some people could afford a taxi to work in the morning, but by the end of the work day they wouldn't be able to afford to get home again.  For others, when they did have money, they would rush out to buy bread or other basics before the unmeasurable prices soared once again. 

  In feb this year, ZWR300Trillion was equivalent to 1USD. 

People use old notes for toilet paper.