The highlights...

We’re back! Now I must take on the arduous task of documenting all that has happened to us these past three weeks. Interestingly our “relaxing and fun” vacation turned into a giant learning experience filled with ups and downs…an awful lot like the Peace Corps experience as a whole! But, by traveling to two different countries we were given a great perspective on how South Africa and the black culture fits in to the grand scheme of Southern African culture. We were also able to learn a great deal about traveling in Africa in general (dos and don’ts). Plus we learned that we have come to enjoy one another’s company even in the most stressful and confined of situations in unknown locations!

To begin…

We boarded a khumbi to meet up with our fellow travelers on Dec 20. But, due to some unfortunate events at our local post office (which ended with me staging a mini sit-in so they’d give me Jason’s blasted package) we were running 4 hours behind schedule! But, I really wanted Jason to have his Christmas package from his family so I insisted. As such we caught the last khumbis across the country going to Jericho. Until the very last leg…when we arrived in Brits we found we were 30 minutes late to catch the last khumbi…darkness was falling…we fortunately were guided to a rickety old bus that would take us through a corner of Jericho. We boarded and tacked an extra two hours onto our trip.

We recuperated form our 11 hour day of traveling and picked up the rental car on the 21st. We then left at the unearthly hour of 4am on the 22nd to drive to Kosi Bay, Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa. This trip took about 11 hours itself (but it was the start of vacation so we were all still happy) because we got lost!

The map said there was a road that made a more direct route toward Kosi Bay…so we took it! Only to discover it was a crappy dirt road that went over switch backs up a mountain and down the other side! It was beautiful and we met some awesome villagers who lived at the top of this mountain and were offered plenty of beer.

We arrived and found our backpackers, cooked spaghetti from the gas station (because the stores were closed by the time we arrived) and slept.

The Indian Ocean!!

The next day we went to Kosi Bay itself and spent the entire day at the beach! The Indian Ocean!!! It was incredibly beautiful. The water was warm like bath water and crystal clear and amazingly blue. Wow! I body surfed for several hours but the waves were pretty rough and I got banged up rather nicely as one wave hurtled me into the sand below and made ground beef our of my shoulder blade!

We then snorkeled a bit in Kosi Bay itself and I saw about 3 fish before the tide was too high to allow for more snorkeling. Oh well, it was still fun.

The other girls got ridiculously sunburned during the day and were pretty miserable for the next few days…I wasn’t – for the first time in my life – sunburned very badly at all. Boy was I glad for that.

Christmas Eve – SAFARI!!!

The next day we relaxed and went on an afternoon safari. It was at Tembe Elephant Reserve in KZN. These elephants were, get this, REFUGEES from the civil war in Mozambique. These elephant’s natural migratory patterns took them directly through some of the worst of the fighting and as such most elephants in this reserve are scarred from AK-47 fire. As such they are still pretty jumpy and are known to charge with little provocation.

Well, to make my Christmas Eve the BEST Christmas Eve EVER – we saw ELEPHANTS!!! Tons of them. Our Botswanan guide told us that he listens to his spirit and it tells him where the animals are in the park and as such we saw almost everything the park has except the big cats. At one point our guide turned to us and said, “Around that corner will be an elephant, I can feel it.” Sure enough…around that corner was a GIANT bull elephant coming directly toward us. Our guide turned the bacci around for a quick get-away should it charge…but instead it just stared at us and then went back to eating vegetation. It was UNBELIEVABLE. This elephant had significant scarring on its head, which broke my heart. But it was one of the most incredible experiences in my life – to see a wild elephant in the…wild!

We then saw several herds of elephant with babies galore! We also saw a herd of zebra and giraffe (the giraffes were as curious about us as we were about them – they kept waving their ears at us (or swatting flies) so I kept waving back! I know, I’m an idiot, but they seemed to like it, smile!) We saw warthog and even…dun, dun, dun…a very rare BLACK RHINO! That was exciting. Of course we saw kudu up the wazoo and springbok and all forms of –du and – bok there were.

Seeing the elephants was monumental in my life…especially considering how long I’ve loved them and how badly as a child I wanted to come to Africa and study the apes and live with the elephants. Talk about a childhood dream come true. All for 15 dollars! :)!

Christmas Day….the never ending day that just got worse and worse…

This was the day we left for Mozambique. We were already prepared for a day of 8 hours of travel but…the road we were initially going to take straight up the cost required a 4 x 4…which we didn’t have. So…we had to drive back to Mpumalanga and through SWAZILAND to get into Mozambique and onto a road we thought we could navigate. This tacked another 5 hours onto our drive. Several tempers were shot as sunburns were rubbed and tiredness set in.
We finally crossed into MZ and drove to the capitol, Maputo, for lunch. Talk about a socialist influence! Every street was named after some socialist scholar or dictator…Kim Jong Il Boulevard, Karl Marx Street, Vladimir Lenin Avenue, Mao Drive. Hahaha. We got a kick out of that!

We had lunch at a fantastic little seafood restaurant. I loved it and being thirsty drank every glass of water our waiter set in front of me. It wasn’t until we left the restaurant that somebody thought to tell me, “You know you were drinking tap water, don’t you?” Nooooooooooooooooo!!! Well, the worst of that story is yet to come.

Well, we got royally lost leaving Maputo and ended up driving through some slums that were heartbreaking and terrifying at the same time (5 white people in a nice rental car…dumb, dumb, dumb). Most of the major buildings were bombed out and houses still held the scares of the civil war that ended 10 years prior. It was pretty intense, some areas felt like war zones. Quite an experience.

Well we road smoothly to Xai-Xai (Shy-Shy in Portuguese) and in the meantime got a speeding ticket! Good job Jason! :)! It was about 20,000 Meticaix or 40 USD. That was a royal pain but funny nonetheless. Especially because Jason didn’t speak a word of Portuguese (fortunately one of the girls we traveled with had spent a year in Brazil and was conversationally fluent).

After gassing up in Xai-Xai we embarked on what would become the worst part of our journey. We thought we only had 4 more hours of driving to get to Inhambane. Ha. Ha. Ha.

We had been warned by some Afrikaners who take holiday in Inhambane that there was a 200k stretch of roach between there and Xai-Xai that had potholes in it the size of small children. Wow. What an under representation. Try pot holes the size of small CARS. This stretch of ‘freeway’ took us nearly 4.5 hours to navigate and darkness was fast approaching. As with most things it was funny at first…but its humor slowly wore off as the potholes just kept coming and the drivers kept having to swerve violently to keep from breaking our rims – thus slamming the three girls crammed in the backseat into one another and into the doors – which is lovely for one who was already car sick! Smile!

And then it happened. I had to pee! I just couldn’t hold it over another pot hole! We were in the middle of nowhere in deep jungle so I figured what the heck. I’ve been in Peace Corps long enough I can pee in the woods fine. Ha.

I trekked off the road a bit to where the jungle was thicker. Dropped trough and began to release my bladder. All of a sudden I felt something like fire all over my sandal clad left foot! I looked down and instantly saw my mistake. I had decided to pee on the home of a colony of FIRE ANTS!!!! I started screaming and trying to kick the ants off my foot as they chomped away. Nope, they had none of that. So I had to drop hold of my pants and use my hand to swipe them off…all the while screaming and hobbling away from their nest…and all the while continuing to pee!!
To my luck just then a huge bus full of Mozambiquans pulled up to witness the spectacle that my potty break was becoming. Unable to be shy when one is being eaten alive by fire ants I ran behind a small tree to finish my business as quickly as possible as the ants were EVERYWHERE. It should be mentioned that by this point I had peed all over my pants. They were SOAKED. Yeah, lovely.

So I hide behind this tree (which was a palm tree and didn’t offer much privacy) and begged Jason to go to the car to get me some new pants. The people had started getting off the buss and were staring in my direction confused at the white behind they saw poking out from the side of the tree. Jason returned with someone’s pajama pants and I cleaned myself up, got back in the car and had a fantastic laugh!

But then the road didn’t end…for another 3-4 hours. They were excruciating as we were all exhausted and some had been bitten by the grumpy bug! When we finally pulled into Fatima’s Nest (the backpackers we’d be staying at) we were beat. It was shortly after arriving that we realized our fatal mistake…booking a party backpackers in the “high-season.” We were taken to our dorm (a room with bunk-beds that slept 16 – each bed equip with mosquito net but no blanket?) and discovered that the music raging at the bar was clearly audible inside our sleeping quarters. In fact the bar may as well have been INSIDE our sleeping quarters! See, it’s HOT in Mozambique so the walls didn’t meet up with the ceiling in our thatched roof huts to allow for more airflow…

Under these conditions I crawled onto my bunk and subsequently froze to death (again, no blankets) and tried to drown out the music that was vibrating my bunk all night long!

A week in Mozambique.

Let me preface the following by saying Mozambique was amazing. The people were incredibly friendly and welcoming. Their history is fascinating. Their food (fresh from the sea) is to die for! Plus, their women dress in the most fantastic wraps – the colors and patterns were vibrant and full of life (South African women in villages dress similarly but with much less variety of color and pattern). The vegetation was amazing and the Portuguese influence made for some of the most beautiful run-down cities and towns imaginable. Also the villages were made entirely of palm thatch (and believe me I saw several HUNDRED villages on our 16 hour trip up the coast and back!) which was interesting.

But, unfortunately Mozambique was the country where everyone got sick! Jason’s illness turned into an all out sinus infection that kept him up all night (plus the pulsating music didn’t help). And, remember how I mentioned I drank tap water? Yeah, that surely caught up to me.

The day after Christmas we drove into Inhambane to go to the ATM and visit the market for some food. An enjoyable jaunt through town soon turned into a mad dash to find a public toilet! I finally found one in a small alley. The woman charged me 5 meticaix and handed me a wad of toilet paper. I rushed inside to find open squatters that smelled something fierce. Believe it or not, while I’ve used a pit toilet everyday here in SA I have NOT used/seen a squatter since Moscow! Good thing I knew what I was doing because I spent the next 3 hours running into the toilet relieving the explosion that was brewing in my bowls. It was definitely less than fun, and not at all funny at the time!

My friends somehow found some anti-diarrhea meds, which I accidentally overdosed on! (I misread the package…whoops). Oh well, it stopped the problem temporarily!

Well – to summarize our time…we spent it lounging on the beach, eating seafood, body surfing, practicing Portuguese, exploring, and shopping! The outdoor markets were phenomenal and incredibly well priced. We didn’t buy too much but it was still fun looking at the art.

We also were able to meet several white South Africans how frequently vacation in Mozambique. It was an interesting experience. Due to living in the village I have very little personal contact with Afrikaners or English So’ Africans. This was my first opportunity to talk about South Africa and politics with people my age who have a much different take on the situation than the people in the villages. I, naturally, encountered minor hints at racism in their casual speech but overall a sense of understanding that was encouraging. I spent several hours talking to one group of S. Africans who were discussing the political culture in the country and Black Economic Empowerment (BEE). They were shocked to hear that America had affirmative action,

“Why do YOU need that?!”

I told them about emancipation, the Jim Crowe laws, the KKK and the 1964 Civil Rights Act. I then told them how difficult the ideas expressed in the CRA are to implement in the hearts and minds of the people. We were able to relate on that level for it’s the same in SA. Anyway, by far, the best parts of our Mozambique trip were talking to the white So’ Africans. Definitely eye opening. It also helped me be less judgmental of them as a whole – something I’ve desperately needed.

Leaving Mozambique…

The night before we left I slept exactly 45 minutes. Thank you ridiculously loud music that shook my bunk all night! We climbed back in the car and trekked back over the same stretch of pot holed road.

Back in Xai-Xai the most incredible thing happened. It was poignant to me, anyway. We were at a gas station and I was overcome with a stomach cramp that left me doubled over (the runs had stopped, the cramping hadn’t). All of a sudden a Mozambiquan who worked at the station came running up to me very concerned. He then ran me inside and grabbed some medicine off the counter and held it out to me (see we couldn’t communicate…my Portuguese is incredibly minimal). I read it was for stomach cramps. I thanked him and went to pay for it. By this time the whole gas station was in on his little doctoring and they wouldn’t let me pay for it! He then reappeared with a cup full of water and helped me mix the fizzy contents of the package into the glass. I drank it and almost instantly felt better! I was so touched by this incredibly generous outcropping of kindness after such a difficult few days I began to cry. (I know, I know) I thanked him profusely (thank heavens I learned that much in Portuguese!). It wasn’t until we were driving away that I realized….

I JUST DRANK MORE TAP WATER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

The Kingdom of Swaziland.

We had to fly through Mozambique that last day to get to the border crossing before it closed. We got lost several more times and finally arrived at our destination in Swaziland again after dark. We were glad to be there! There was no music at all!!! Plus we each had our own rondevaal which offered long needed privacy.

We were staying inside a game park in Swaziland that was filled with animals that supposedly "won't kill you" so don't be afraid to go on "walking safaris." Hahaha. We definitely took advantage of this and went on several hours worth of walking safaris. I hung out with a herd of zebra for a good hour or so. It was an incredible experience, they are beautiful creatures!

New Years in Swazi was fun, I went to bed at 10. :). The next day we went for a drive and came across a field FULL of men in traditional dress who had formed a processional headed toward a gated off area. The girls we were with jumped out to take pictures when suddenly two of the men with giant spears and axes came running toward us! We were a bit confused...and slightly nervous...until we saw the smiles on their faces and discovered they were inviting us to their New Year's celebration...at the King's Palace!!! WHAT?! We were told that the ladies all had to be wearing skirts though...so we quickly ran to a nearby market and bought skirts (well...I thought mine was a skirt...in fact it turned out to be a table cloth...hahahahahahahahahahahahaha). We rushed to the main gate and we were let inside! We spent the next hour walking around talking to the people and trying to sneak peaks into areas that were clearly marked off as do not enter zones. It was interesting that the King's "palace" was made of sticks and thatched roofs. I enjoyed the authenticity.

Well, I'm really getting tired of writing about this vacation (if anyone's still reading anyway!) and I'm just going to blaze through the last section...

We then returned to SA and went to St. Lucia's UNESCO World Heritage site. Here we went on several more walking safaris where we came waaaaaaaaaay too close to very dangerous hippos and crocodiles. Jason and I also went on a kayaking safari through the estuary and, again, came far too close to hippos and crocodiles...this time we were in the water with them! It was incredible and I'll never forget it...but when one croc popped up in the water literally inches away from me I nearly peed my pants and I never, ever want to be that afraid again. Only in Africa would such a thing be allowed!

St. Lucia overall was amazing - even though I've had nightmares about crocs almost every night since!

We then drove to Pretoria and extended our vacation a few days so we could see some movies! They're only $2/person here in the theater and we saw three in one day! It was a FANTASTIC way to end the vacation - vegging out. I also ate tons of Indian food, which was great.

We then boarded a khumbi back to site (the driver, coincidentally, decided half way into the trip that he didn't want to take us and made the entire khumbi get off and wait for somebody else to pick us up...grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr). It took us 12 hours and I was squished and sweaty. Ah well.

Coming back really felt like I was coming home. The green, lush hills slowly melded into yellow, flat desert with scrub brush and those crazy sideways growing trees that I love so much. I realized my site is BEAUTIFUL and I'm ridiculously lucky. I also learned just how impoverished the people in my village are compared to most other villages in SA. I'm incredibly grateful to be here!

If you've finished this - congratulations! Thanks for the support! I promise to write more interesting things from here on out :).