From La Fortuna we bid farewell to the Volcano views and headed to a jungle lodge 2 hours by van and 1 hour by tractor into the jungle. The Jungle lodge was nestled beside a large national park set along a river bank. The first night we put on some rubber boots to protect us from mud and snakes and headed out on a hunt for night time crawlers. It didn't take us long to find our first frog than another species and another. We also came across stick insects the size of my forearm, lizards in all shapes and sizes and large toads. There wasn't much mammal action but the frogs and reptiles were fantastic! The photos below I can't take credit for, our camera is shit at night so these were collected from everyone else on our tour. After a horrible nights sleep under a bug net with 30+ degree heat and humidity we woke up the next morning for 5am and headed out on a bird watching walk. That's the thing with wildlife spotting you have to work around their schedule. We managed to spot some beautiful toucans and other pretty birds. I can't say it was worth the early wake up but not a bad way to start the day either. We spent the afternoon walking through the jungle to a near by swimming spot in the stream that was wonderfully refreshing in the heat and beautiful surroundings. After our swim we spent the day hanging out making home made empanadas, reading books, playing cards (exploding kittens was a huge hit!). That night we topped off our Jungle lodge visit with a bonfire. Despite the poor sleep we really loved the jungle lodge, completely away from society in nature. Next we headed to beautiful Tortuguero. To reach Tortuguero we had to take an hour long boat ride through rivers surrounded by wildlife. The name Tortuguero translates to Land of Turtles which couldn't be more true. Every year thousands of turtles return to the beaches of Tortuguero each year to lay their eggs. Researchers have studied the turtles here for over 50 years, one of the longest animal research centers on earth, to figure out how and why the turtles return each year. Many years back an American came and collected hundreds of eggs and brought them to Florida in an attempt to bring a turtle population to the US thinking that the baby turtles would hatch, remember their birth place and return 30 years later when they were mature to breed. However these turtles 30 years later didn't return to Florida as planned and instead showed up in Tortuguero, how and why unknown. We were sadly not here the right time of year for the turtles and didn't see any. However the national parks and beaches make it the visit still well worth it. The town of Totuguero is small and touristy but really nice with lots of artisan shops and an amazing Smoothie shop near the National Park entrance called Fresh Foods. The town is extremely environmentally conscious and recycles everything, plant holders and even the children's playground are made from old tires and recycled bits and pieces. Our second day here I headed out on a 3 hour kayak trip through the national park and Chris took a motorized canoe to avoid using his injured shoulder. Seeing the park on the river is the best way to get up close to the local wildlife without disturbing them. We managed to see spider monkeys, howler monkeys, white faced monkeys, caiman, all sorts of birds and lizards and some nasty looking spiders. It was absolutely amazing and one of the highlights on this trip for sure! Our finale stop before returning to San Jose was Puerto Viejo. It's a funky little beach bum town on the Caribbean cost offering up a cool mix of Afro Caribbean culture and Costa Rican traditions. Our second day our G guide (aka CEO) Eddie hooked us up with bikes for the day at no extra cost and took us down to a local beach. It was easily the best beach we went to in Costa Rica, white sand, hardly any people, warm Caribbean water and lots of shade. We bummed around the beach for the first part of the day and went into town later with the bikes. One of the girls on our tour found a restaurant called Bread and Chocolate which was incredible, highly recommend it! They make everything from scratch and use local cocoa to make vegan cakes, truffles and pies (so goooood!) After 2 1/2 days in Puerto Viejo it was time to leave and make the long drive back to San Jose. As we drove back Chris and I had a moment where we realized this was it. The end of our 8 months was happening! I'm writting this blog as we sit in the San Jose airport awaiting our flight back to Vancouver. In some ways it feels surreal that our 8 months of travel is ending but in most other ways we're excited to be getting home.
Costa Rica was a fantastic way to top off our travels, we both agreed it was a great last adventure before we start our next adventure at home.
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Costa Rica has been incredible! We arrived here from Ontario after vising my family on April 12th into San Jose. It's not the most exciting city in the world but has its charm. We made the mistake of arriving on Easter weekend when everything was closed for the week, however we managed to find a couple of places to eat and had a relaxing day 1/2 before meeting up with our tour group. We're on G Adventures Costa Rican Adventure 16 day tour. Day 1 we departed San Jose on a local bus 3 hours to Quepos, a popular beach town with locals and visitors. We arrived late afternoon and headed straight for the beach. The beach was packed with Easter Weekenders but that didn't matter much to us because we all b-lined for the ocean and body surfed big waves for the better part of an hour before sunset set us home. The other big draw to Quepos is the small but mighty Manuel Antonio National Park. Costa Rica has over 30 protected zones and national parks. Conservation and Eco tourism has made Costa Rica a unique and popular destination, it's what drew us here. Manuel Antonio National Park is one of the smallest parks in Costa Rica but one of the most beautiful. The park is lined with trails that are easy to walk through and leads to small beaches only accessible through the park. We left at 7am so we could get a prime location on the beach before it filled with visitors. We did a few of the trails and managed to spot sloths (even a baby and mother!), black iguanas, a huge group of flying squirrel monkeys and the ever so mischievous white faced monkeys and raccoons. We saw a bunch of the white faced monkeys and raccoons sneak into people's bags all along the beach, you really have to watch your stuff around them! After 2 nights in Quepos we continued our journey to Monteverde, one of the coolest places on earth! Along our drive there we stopped for a pee break and to see a river filled with massive crocodiles measuring 5-6 meters. Thankfully there was a bridge separating us and the crocs! Getting up to Monteverde was a bumpy ride into the mountains but worth it for the views. Monteverde is made famous for the Cloud Forest Nature Reserve, one of the most bio-diverse places in Costa Rica and incredible zip lines! During our 2 days in Monteverde we did a night walk. The idea of tarantulas and 23 species of poisonous snakes was unsettling to say the least. We managed to spot the elusive 2 toed sloth early into our walk. They are more active at night with thick grey fur compared to the cuter 3 toed sloth we spotted in Quepos. We also saw sleeping birds, a green viper and lots of bugs including the tarantula hawk - a wasp that offers the second most painful sting of any bug on the planet. We got through our walk unharmed and then went for a fantastic local dinner trying some local moonshine to top off the day. Our second day we got up early and headed to the Cloud Forest. The cloud forest borders the Pacific coast and the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica attracting a wide range of wild life from both sides. That combined with the fact it's a perpetually wet climate in the clouds the forest is teaming with life. Prior to 1972 when the government purchased the land the cloud forest was farm land largely cleared of trees. Since then the land has been allowed to regrow and is now a thriving ecosystem. The unique thing about the Cloud Forest is that it's managed by the Education Board. This allowed Monteverde to create schools teaching young people about eco-management, tourism and studying the bio-diversity of the area setting up camera traps and so on to record the health of the ecosystem. It was an amazing morning walk, we didn't see too much because it's so thick with trees but was really fun regardless. After our morning walk in the cloud forest we went zip lining! The first few were good starter runs before we did 2 long runs and 2 superman zips waaaaay up above the trees. For the superman runs you lay on your stomach and they stop you at the other end. The one superman run was 2000 meters long, the longest zip line in Costa Rica! After 10 thrilling zip lines we finished the day off with a Tarzan swing, basically a bungee jump sitting down. It was terrifying to make the leap but so worth it! After 2 incredible days in Monteverde it was time to leave and drive, boat and drive again to La Fortuna. The name 'La Fortuna' came from the the 1968 eruption of the local volcano that thankfully blew out towards the lake and not the town resulting in a relatively few fatalities. The town offers fantastic views of the two crater volcano and local adventure activities. Our first day we kept it chill and went to a local water hole under a bridge with a huge rope swing into the deep water surrounding the waterfalls. It was a beautiful afternoon. Theft is pretty common here so you really have to watch your belongings, some of our group nearly lots their bags but fortunately caught the thief before he got too far. The next day in La Fortuna we went on a waterfall jumping excursion. It was amazing! We started by repelling down a 43 meter cliff near a waterfall then jumping our way down 10 waterfalls. The highest waterfall jump of 7 meters was saved for the end. Felt like a kid again, was an amazing day! At the last point there was also a small rock face we could rock climb over the water which we really enjoyed. Part two of our tour being posted soon!
It's been way too long since our last post, apologies for the delay, we've been travelling all over Spain, Germany, Paris and London since our last post! I'll try to summarize the last 2 months to give you an idea of what we've been up to and why we've been neglecting our blog! We began in Madrid, the capital of Spain back in mid February. After 7 days in Madrid (see our last post for details) we took a train to Sevilla, probably our favourite place in Spain! We explored the largest Gothic cathedral in the world, the Real Alcazar (royal palace) and caught a traditional Flamenco show. We stopped at a ton of plazas for tapas and wine in the afternoons and chilled out on the roof top bar at our hostel with fellow nomads. To top off our stay we spent some time in the Plaza Espana, a large park and building complex built for the 1929 expo. From Sevilla we rented a car for 10 days and visited Cadiz (oldest city in Western Europe), the current British territory of Gibraltar (see what Brexit has to say about this), Ronda, Malaga, Granada and Cordoba. I've included some pictures below of the highlights from these places. The history here is unique to south Spain with Moorish Muslim rule for hundreds of years. The English Catholics reconquered Spain ending in Granada in 1492, converted most of the mosques into Catholic cathedrals and started the Spanish Inquisition that drove out the Muslim and Jewish population. This unique history is show cased in South Spain with Roman, Moorish and Catholic designs fused together to create some of the most beautiful places in Europe. After a fantastic few weeks in the South we flew north to Bilbao, home to the Gugenhiem. Before the Gugenhiem was built Bilbao was not a popular vacation spot, often over looked by San Sebastian just an hour away and our next stop. However Bilbao was a nice surprise, on top of having one of the best modern art museums we've ever been to it was really beautiful little city! We bused up to San Sebastian after a few days in Bilbao to enjoy the foodie capital of Spain! The downside to the world class Pintxos is that Chris is allergic to basically all of them! Finding food in Spain was difficult most of our time but reached new levels in the North. We managed to find a Quebec crepe/ Canadian food restaurant near our hotel which served up some of the only food in the city Chris could eat! The beach and views in San Sebastian were fantastic the first day of our visit, sadly the second and third day rained so we hunkered down inside mostly and took a good ol' siesta. Next we trained over to Pamplona, home to the insane annual event of running with the bulls. The city is nuts during the festival however the rest of the year, including during our visit, it's a sleepy little town rich with history and fun places to relax. We didn't get up to too much here aside from walking around, eating, drinking and relaxing in the cities beautiful fortified park. We ended our 5 weeks in Spain with a 5 day stop in Barcelona, another favourite of ours! Between the Sagrada Famillia, Park Guell, Beaches and more Barcelona was fantastic! It was an excellent way to end our time in Spain. We headed up to Nurnberg from Barcelona to visit our friend Rashpal. The highlight aside from seeing our friend was definitely the Nazi Party Rally Grounds. The Museum was a great surprise with an excellent exhibition explaining the rise and fall of Hitler and the Nazi Party. The tour ends with a view into the old rally grounds where the Nazi party would gather in the thousands each year. It is an intense and tough history to revisit and this museum did it with tact and respect for those affected. That weekend the three of us flew to Berlin for a few days. Berlin is an awesome city! We went and saw the Berlin wall at several places, East Berlin street art, and enjoyed Berlin's Sunday Markets. It was really great to catch up with an old friend and spend time in this super hip city! After a great few days visiting Rashpal we headed down to Paris for a couple days! Chris wasn't feeling very well on the first day in Paris so we just went for a nice walk by the Louvre/ Notre Dame before heading back to our AirBnB. We ended up getting a Museum pass to make life a bit easier and cheaper and managed to fit in the Louvre, L'Orangerie, Musee d'Orsay and Rodin Museum over 2 days. We ended our second day off with a relaxing afternoon sitting on the grass by the Eiffel Tower with some drinks. It was a really lovely few days with great weather. To finish our time in Europe we headed up to London to visit our friends Derek and Ali! It was great catching up with them and we also got to see our friends Emma and Brad! A very productive visit plus we did a bit of the usual sight seeing. We've both been to London before so we kept it pretty relaxed and enjoyed our 3 days. We're back in Canada now! We spent a couple days in Montreal with Chris' brother before heading to the County to visit my family. We've got about 6 days here before we continue and finish our around the world journey in Costa Rica! It's our last stop before we return to our old lives. Mostly we love travelling and it's been a really awesome 8 months but a big part of us is craving our old life back and we're excited to see our way back home soon!
Tapas, Churros, Art, Music, Dance. Seriously Spain what can't you do! We've decided to spend the next month or so in Spain and kicked it off in Madrid. We had a week in the city center in an awesome Air BnB. With only a week we didn't waste any time getting out to visit the sights. We started at the Museo Prado, a world class art gallery that had some incredible pieces. We spent an easy 4 hours in the Prado and can hardly say we saw it all. If you're not a huge art fan but want to take in some of the Spanish greats this is a great gallery to visit because of their world class collection. If you're an art nerd like myself than you'll need to give yourself the full day to properly enjoy their massive collection. The next day we tried to visit the Royal Palace but the King was in town and they shut the place down for him, we got to enjoy the exterior at least! Madrid is made up of plazas, areas filled with restaurants, people and live music. We spent most of our afternoons sipping coffee or wine enjoying the brisk but sunny days. After a few days in Madrid we decided to take a day trip out to Toledo. It was definitely not long enough, in hind sight we should have spent a few full days here to take in the 2200 years + of history the city offers. We took a 3 hour walking tour through the city which gave us a great snap shot of what Toledo has to offer. Our guide highlighted the Jewish District, the Cathedral, a chapel that homes a famous El Greco painting (no pics permitted) and took us through the winding side streets. It's an absolute maze of a city but I think getting lost is half the fun here, wandering down narrow streets filled with shops and cafes. With a few days left in Madrid we headed to the Thyssen Museum opposite the Prado. This is a private collection and was extremely impressive. They housed art from Renaissance, Romanticism and 20th Century pop art. The collection is fairly large taking us 2 -3 hours, was well done gallery minus the horrible choice of wall colour. ![]() There are other fantastic galleries in Madrid but too much of a good thing and so on.... Instead we spent our time eating churros and chocolate, drinking wine and relaxing. Our last day we had a beautiful sunny day so headed over to a park near the Royal palace that is home the Debod Temple, a real life Egyptian temple! It was a gift from Egypt to Spain in 1968 as a thank you to for Spain's help saving the Abu Simbel Temple during the construction of the Aswan Dam. The Debod temple would have also been destroyed by the dam if not relocated so they deconstructed the temple and rebuilt it in Madrid. We've been busy travelling and are behind in our blogs. We've spent 4 days in Seville and are in Gibraltar today! We're spending the next 10 days driving around southern Spain visiting Gibraltar, Malaga, Granada, Cordoba and the interesting towns in between. We'll get our next post up asap with highlights from Seville (which was incredible!).
Capetown is an incredible place. Ocean on one side, beautiful mountains on the other, makes us miss home! We've rented an AirBnB overlooking table mountain in a fantastic spot in the city for walking. Our first day we headed out to the Green Market Square, a mix of lively streets selling African made goods. We put our new found haggling skills to the test and walked away with 3 new paintings! On top of the street pubs and craft market there were multiple street artists providing some music and dancing. The market has a lot of really interesting finds and friendly vendors. It's a great way to spend a few hours. Shortly into our stay we headed out to Gansbaai, a cute little coastal town famous for shark diving. It was a super early start with a 4 am pick up and a 2 hour drive but well worth it. After a quick breakfast and safety briefing off we went. We quickly found the sharks about 10 minutes from shore where they live year round. South Africa is the Great White Shark capital of the world, sadly the numbers have dwindled to 500 or less in recent years. There isn't an exact number of great whites known in the world but we do known the numbers are shrinking due to over fishing, shark fin poaching and effects from global warming. I went in the cage first along with 6 others. We waited on a short while before our first shark was lured in by the smell of dead fish being dumped into the water. A 3.5 meter shark casually swam by my face only inches away checking out the smells before continuing on. At first my heart was thumping away making it hard to hold my breath. By the second shark I managed to collect myself and relax and really enjoy the second encounter. Chris went in the cage next and had an even better view as a different shark about the same size gave him a smile. It was really cool to be in the water with the sharks but watching them from the boat really gave us the full extent of their size. We also saw some massive sting rays coming up to take some nibbles from fish head on a string used to lure the sharks. Our guides were professional and fun and it was an incredible 3 hours. The only down side was poor visibility because of the algae blooms summer weather causes. Funny thing about Capetown is that the ocean is warmer in the winter and the water is clearer so if you're coming for sharks come in during winter (june/ july) After an thrilling day we kept it low key for a few days and headed to some local museums. The National Art Gallery was an eye opening experience with the main exhibition highlighting South Africa's dark past during apartheid. We couldn't help but think back to home and everything that's gone on recently in Quebec and in the US. South Africa has realized there is strength in diversity. Not every tension has been soothed here but they've come along way. The best way to get around and see Capetown as a visitor is with the Hop on Hop Off. There are 4 loops to hop on with various popular stops. We started with a Cable Car ride up Table mountain. The que to get up the mountain was insane, thankfully we bought our tickets in advance which helped a bit. It's worth the wait for the stunning views! We headed down and hopped back on the bus and continued our loop to V&A Waterfront. Named after Queen Victoria and her son Alfred, it was once an extremely busy harbour for trade goods until the Suez Canal was built. Since then the harbour has been reinvented and is now home to new trade, luxury cruises and fishing. The harbour is amazing for shopping and eating. We had a fantastic lunch at a brew pub rocking live music down here at Quay 4. With the Hop on Hop off we got a free canal boat ride from the V&A Waterfront. It wasn't particularly exciting but we did get to see a bunch of harbour seals playing around and sleeping in the large tires used as bumpers. Day two with our bus ticket we headed out to Kirstenbosch Gardens. It's an incredible, though some what maze like, garden. The views are epic, especially on the tree canopy walk recently installed that gives you a view over the city 12 meters off the ground. They have great interpretive signs all over the gardens explaining various uses and history of the unique plants. Even if you're not that into gardens it's a fantastic place to visit. After taking in the roses we headed to the oldest wine region in South Africa, Constantia. There are 3 wineries on the bus route. We made it to two before the generous portions and sun shut us down. Our first stop was Beau Constantia pouring up some incredible whites and reds with hill top views. We really liked the Pas de Nom White and bought 2 bottles (only $9.00 each!) plus one bottles of a red Cab Franc/ Merlot blend. Next stop is the oldest estate in South Africa, Groot Constantia. The estate is massive and beautiful. We did a tasting here and the wine was fantastic! We decided cheapest way to do stuff outside the city was with a car rental, prices are really reasonable for the rental though gas is a bit high (similar to Vancouver). We first headed out to Simon's Town and Boulder Beach the home to South African penguins! The town is super cute, small shops and waterfront restaurants serving up fresh fish. The fish and chips were amazing! A short distance from the main street is boulder beach, a nature reserve for the hundreds of penguins that call the beach home. There is a small entrance fee to get in but worth it for the well maintained walk ways installed to protect the birds. The views are amazing and the birds are fun to watch waddle around and surf the waves in the bay. Before leaving Africa we decided to make a last ditch effort to see some big cats in the wild. We booked a 2 day stay at Aquila game drive, 2 hours from Cape Town. The drive there was gorgeous taking us through the mountains and wine lands surrounding the city. The Aquila resort was beautiful with a large pool and lounge area over looking the game reserve and very comfortable rooms. They even grow most of their own organic vegetables on site using aquaponics. The basic idea is that the fish water and waste is used to fertilize the vegetables and the plant roots filter the water for the fish in a symbiotic relationship. The result is fantastic tasting fish and vegetables with each meal! Aquila is a private 10 000 hectares conservancy and home to the big 5 and many other animals. They also have a Animal Rescue Centre where they've taken in animals unfit for the wild, including 2 cheetahs, lions, leopards and crocodiles. We did 2 game drives during our visit. The first one in the evening we were extremely eager to see a lion. It was game drive #6 for us by this point and we hadn't seen a single large cat in Africa. When we started the game drive the first thing we came across were the giraffes and zebras, always fan favourites. As we were watching the giraffes and hearing about random facts we spotted rhinos up ahead. Our driver in this instance liked to go into extreme detail with each animal before moving on so Chris and I sat not so patiently to get up to the rhinos. Were losing our minds a bit on the inside wanting to see one up close! After hearing about the gestation period of a zebra we finally headed to the rhinos up ahead. They were incredible to get up close to! The females have the long, scary looking horns to protect their infants and the males have the smaller, blunter horns. They were fantastic to see and let us know when were getting too close by placing the pointy end of their meter + long horn straight at our truck. These were white rhinos which are exactly the same colour as black rhinos except for the white lip which distinguishes them. After a good while with the rhinos we continued on ward in search of new wild life. We came across some Elands, the largest antelope species and a very important animal to early African people. When we were at a museum in Cape Town the week before we saw some San rock art that were over 1000 years old depicting the elands in relation to the people. It described how vitally important this animal was to their culture and survival. We also caught sight of what is often referred to as the ugliest animal alive, the wildebeest. It's easy to tell how it got this title but despite it's odd pieced together appearance I liked them! Our guide described it as being an animal made form all the left over parts of other animals, head of a wart hog, rump of a hyena, neck of a buffalo etc. We continued on ward hearing more in depth descriptions of water buffalos, elephants, spring bok (South Africa's national animal). Finally our guide says the magic words, 'lets go see if we can spot some lions'. YES, this is why we were here, show us the lions! As we drove around he said the last thing we wanted to hear ' lets take a break fist'. NO, we want lions first than we can break. Of course this isn't fare to the rest of the people on our game drive so we sat tight, enjoyed our free champagne and snacks. Chris was getting less and less patient understandably by this point. Finally the break was over and we entered a gated area of the park. Within a minute we saw a massive female lion casually walking down the dirt path in front of us! What we didn't realize is that Aquila keeps the lions caged in an extremely large enclosure so they don't get out and kill everything in the park and also because they are rescued lions. As we continued we saw a few more lions high up and well hidden on the ridge of a cliff. Though they weren't exactly in the wild the way we had really wanted to see them it was fantastic none the less to see lions up close. The next morning on our second game drive we had a chance to go back through the lion enclosure where most of the lions had come down from there perch. It was fantastic, especially knowing these guys were at one time the potential trophy for some rich hunter. If you're not familiar with the term 'canned hunting', it's basically a practice in certain parts of Africa where lions are held in captivity for hunting. If you're in Africa and offered cub petting or walking with cubs it's best to avoid it. The cubs are taken from their mother shortly after birth and hand reared, this makes it impossible to release them back into the wild once they're older because they lack the essential skills for survival. These cubs are very often used for tourists to take photos with until they get too big. Once they've outgrown the photo ops they are sold to hunters or breeders. No true sanctuary will allow you to walk or touch the lion cubs, this is to protect you from them and to protect the cats from harmful diseases and stress. My general rule of thumb is if it's not something that would happen naturally in the animals life it shouldn't happen at all. The 2 days at Aquila were fantastic. after our stay we had a few day left in Cape Town before leaving. We spent them enjoying the sun, going for picnics in the park, shopping in Green Square and lunching at the V&A Waterfront. This city has everything from amazing food, fantastic coffee (Truth Coffee is seriously good), music and friendly faces. I don't say this lightly but I could happily live in the city and was very sad to be leaving.
We're now in Madrid where it's much colder but really fun! More updates to come! Anyone who's been to this continent will understand when I say that there is something indescribable about Africa that sucks you in. The people, the scenery, the wild life all works to lure your senses to fall in love with the place! We've just finished an epic journey that took us from Tanzania to Zimbabwe across 5 countries and many MANY kilometers. I apologize in advance, this post is a bit long, If you don't have the time there are tons of cool pics to skim through at least! We met up with our tour group in Dar es Salam, Tanzania after a week in beautiful Zanzibar. Our first day on the road with the group took us through Mikumi National Park in Tanzania where we got our first peak at Africa's incredible wild life! Elephants, zebras, impala, water buffalo, baboons and giraffes. Tanzania is beautiful country to drive through but the roads are rough and the police are, lets just say, less than honest. Our driver Steve suggested we were lucky for only getting stopped once. We reached the Malawi border after 2 days of 14 hour drives down dirt roads and endless construction. We each paid our $75.00 visa fee at the Malawi boarder and waited. Our guide Chris was quickly approached by a boarder guard and told straight up he had to pay a 'fee' if he wanted to get us out of there quickly or they'd make us wait over 4 hours! We've emailed the Malawi government regarding the Songwe border so hopefully something changes for future travelers but it's difficult to imagine. Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the wold with mass starvation and limited means. Tobacco is the the largest export and beyond this farmers can only afford to grow cassava for themselves which doesn't have very much nutritional value. Starvation is common and it's difficult to image living here. We reached our camp and had 3 days on Lake Malawi which makes up 40% of all of Malawi! It's a massive fresh water lake with one of the most diverse fresh water fish populations on earth making for fantastic scuba and snorkeling. Unfortunately during our time here it poured buckets and thunder storms most of our stay. This resulted in some serious pool tournaments at the camp bar! We did a bit of shopping at the craft stalls near our camp where we bought some jewelry and a painting. We really wished we had known to bring goods, the locals were more eager for stuff than money it seemed. They asked to trade art for socks or clothing, old head phones etc. In the end we didn't have much to give away because we packed so light and paid in Malawi Kwacha in the end. Had we known we would have bought some stuff from Thailand to trade/ give away for sure. Malawi is a stunning country with high cliffs, beautiful lake views, extremely lush forests (thanks to all that freaking rain) and the nicest people anywhere! Despite mass poverty the locals couldn't be nicer, farmers waved from the fields, women waved with huge stacks of items carefully balanced on their heads and the children would dance, sing and be silly towards us. This is where they get the nick name 'the warm heart of Africa', a well deserved nick name. We continued our trip into Zambia where we had 4 days. We spent our first night at the South Luangwa National Park. Our camp was set on the South Luangwe river the park is named after, home to hundreds of hippos! As we were setting up our tents we were advised to keep them at least 1.5 meters apart so hippos and elephants could easily get between them. This was reassuring! We dinned with impalas, baboons and long tail monkeys eager to get our crumbs. That night I stuck ear plugs in to remain blissfully unaware of the wildlife surrounding our tent and get some much needed sleep. 4:30 the next morning we got up, packed up the tent to the sound of hippos calling at each other. It was really cool and kind of haunting! 6am we hopped on a game drive into South Luangwe National Park. Before we entered the park we spotted bush bucks, huge groups of baboons, hippos and crocks. Once we got in the park we were greeted by massive herds of impala, zebras, water bucks, warthogs, amazing birds and a few elephants. We met another truck during our drive that had been following a leopard! We searched for a good while but never found it sadly. The second truck with the rest of our group did see it however. It's a beautiful park teaming with life and was an incredible morning despite missing out on the leopard. Driving through Zambia is amazing, each small village looks like a post card for the country. Though it's much wealthier a nation than Malawi there are still struggles for many villages. The capital city of Zambia is in stark contrast to Malawi with malls, huge grocery stores and fast food restaurants but traditional life styles are still opted by many in the country. Our last camp in Zambia before entering Botswana was near the Zambia side of Victoria Falls. We took this opportunity to take a Microlight over the falls! A micro light is like a hang glider that you sit in with a huge fan to keep you going. We went one a time for 15 minutes over the falls with a pilot telling us about it. It was spectacular! We were able to see just how massive the falls really are from up there and even spotted a few hippos from the air! It was an absolute high light and was made even better by staying at a camp that night teaming with giraffes, zebras and impalas hanging out by our tents! Very epic day. The next day we arrived in Botswana and headed to Chobe National Park. This place is unbelievable it's a shame we only had 2 days here! It happened to be Australia day upon our arrival and with more than half our group originating from down under we celebrated in style. With a fully loaded cooler of beers and an Australian flag flying we headed out on a Chobe River boat ride. We entered Chobe park and were greeted by a lonely hippo. We got within a few feet before he got out of water and sprayed his shit all over the place to mark his territory. It was amazing to see him hulled out of the water right in front of us but could have passed on the poo. They look cute but are extremely dangerous so it was especially cool to see one up close. We continued our journey down river and found some impalas, water buffalo, crocodiles and a huge herd of hippos out of the water casually grazing on grass. No matter how much Discovery Channel and Planet Earth you watch (and I watch a lot) it's nothing compared to seeing these animals in the wild behaving normally. To finish the boat trip off we got up close and personal with an elephant taking a swim. Right after finishing the boat ride we hopped on a game drive. Everyone was feeling pretty good by this point and the cooler was considerably lighter. The party continued through Chobe National Park and we weren't disappointed! We got a first hand view of the huge elephants herds that make Chobe famous. At several points we could count over 50 elephants surrounding us! We accidentally scared one of the babies and got a good scolding from the mother who swung her trunk at us and charged a bit. We were in a large over-lander so our game driver wasn't concerned but I backed up a bit in my seat when she got close. The wet season in Botswana has it's challenges as far as spotting animals in the thick brush and the constant threat of rain. However it's worth it to see all the babies! Every animal was in baby mode, wart hogs, impala, elephants, hippos, too many babies to count! I think every 10 minutes someone would let out an 'awww' or 'super cute'! We were really hoping to see a lion on this drive but no luck. That night we stayed in Chobe exposed to the wild life. Our guide gave us a safety briefing that basically went 'if you really have to pee at night flash your light out, green eyes go ahead, fire eyes slowly back into your tent keeping the light shining on the eyes'. I held it to say the least! That night elephants, lions and hyenas could be heard around our camp, I don't think anybody slept very well but it was a really neat experience. 4:30am wake up call we packed up the tents, quick breakfast and out for another game drive. Our guide was really keen to find us a lion so we started tracking foot prints right away. We tracked it for long time until we eventually lost the prints in the bush. We headed out to try and find fresh prints when a call came in which resulted in us taking off down the game trail like a bat out of hell. We thought for sure another ranger had seen a lion but when we pulled up we were thrilled to discover it was actually African Painted Dogs! These dogs are extremely rare, so rare in fact many guides have never seen them! There are only 5000 left in the wold and we got to see 12 of them! They are one of the most successful hunters in Africa with more than 85% success rate! They lose around half these meals to larger predators in many cases however. We hung with them for a while as they trotted then rested and then trotted some more with breaks to play with sticks and be dogs. They cover vast areas of land this way. They were really cool to watch and made up for the lack of cat action so far in our trip! We continued our drive and saw jackals, kudu, more elephants, giraffes, and so much more! Chobe is by far our favourite park that we've been to. Our last stop on the tour was Zimbabwe at Victoria Falls. Zimbabwe is another extremely poor country. Not because there isn't wealth in the land but due to greedy leadership. In 2009 with massive inflation the country adopted the USD to replace the local currency. We went to an ATM to take out some cash and all of them in town were out. There were lines of people waiting for them to be refilled. It was a really crazy sight to see the locals lining up each day for the machines to be refilled. As we walked around the streets guys tried to sell us 50 billion dollar bills that are absolutely worthless now. It was pretty shocking and puts the value of cash into perspective. The highlight here is of course Victoria falls. The Zimbabwe side is much more impressive than the Zambia side to view from land. Walking distance from our camp were walking paths that show off the powerful falls. The walk is made up several stops each getting your progressively more wet. The views are spectacular with rainbows, huge sprays of water and the crashing sound of water. We've seen a lot of water falls including those in Iceland, Niagara and many more but nothing quite compares to Victoria Falls, it's super impressive! We had one extra day in Victoria Falls so we decided to give one more go at finding cats and booked a night time game drive at a private game reserve near our camp. There were just 8 of us on this drive and the game driver was fantastic! The private reserve is actually a black rhino breading sanctuary. The government permitted the land owner to do it after he installed electric fences around the 6000 acres of land to ensure the rhinos couldn't escape and poachers couldn't get in. They started with 2 females and 1 male now they're up to 11 black rhinos! We tracked one group of rhinos for a while, a mum, dad and baby through the bush. We found fresh tracks but lost them in the thick brush. We saw loads of animals but still no freaking lions! After 3 hours of game drive we had a bush dinner that was fantastic. By the time dinner was done it was totally pitch black out so our guide used a spot light to shine into the bushes looking for eyes. We saw many shiny eyes staring back at us but they all belonged to impalas. The game drive was great but disappointing when we didn't see a lion. This is where the band broke up. It was hard to say good bye we met fantastic people on this tour and got extremely lucky with our group!
We're now in Capetown for 2 weeks and have A LOT of really cool things planned! We're in freakin Africa! Being on a new continent is fantastic and starting our African adventure in Zanzibar is incredible. Our first 3 days we stayed in Stonetown, a Unesco heritage town and the hub of Zanzibar. It's a lively place with friendly locals, world class beaches and historic building after historic building! We stayed at Tembo House, very conveniently located in Stonetown and on the beach! It was a long day of travel to get here from Bangkok, thankfully everything went off without a hitch. We even got to fly over Kilimanjaro which was cloud covered but still pretty cool! Our first day here we started at the Arab Fort and House of Wonders located literally next to our hotel. We weren't able to go inside either but the outside was pretty cool. The downfall of this area is the dozens of locals offering walking tours. They are friendly but annoyingly persistent! We expected the typical harassment you find when you travel but this place is next level! It's an expected side effect of a poor economy and an influx in tourists but is never the less frustrating. After a couple days here we learned how to say no the right way so they go away. Basically just shaking your head, not saying a word and walking on seems to work best. The architecture in Zanzibar is fantastic. It's a fusion of Swahili and Arabic styles, largely unchanged since the 19th century which put this town on the Unesco list in 2000. One of the best ways to explore Stonetown is by getting lost wandering down the tiny back streets lined with shops. When I say lost I mean lost, it's an absolute maze of streets. Thankfully it's not a very big place so eventually we popped out in a clearing and reoriented ourselves pretty easily. One top of incredible architecture are the doors. Zanzibar is renowned for it's ornately decorated doors studded with large protruding spikes and elaborate carvings. The brass studded doors are a design brought over from India. In India the studs were used to keep Elephants from crashing the doors, in Zanzibar they are used purely for decoration and a display of wealth. The designs on the doors are used to tell you about the resident, their occupation and wealth. We noticed a lot of thick chains on the doors as well and apparently these are in part to keep out evil spirits but also to show wealth. Most of the designs are floral and abstract since during the Arab occupation they forbid depictions of people and animals. After wondering around side streets we made our way to Mercury's Bar, a must visit for any Queen fan! In case you didn't know (we didn't before now) Freddie Mercury of Queen was born in Zanzibar! His family house has a plaque on it you can visit, though we never found it. Instead we visited the bar named after him which serves up nice food, drinks, excellent views, and of course lots of Queen's music! To finish it all off we stopped in at Forohani gardens at night for some dinner. The park comes alive after dark with food vendors light by oil lamps with cheap eats. We had to watch out for some scammy people trying to get us to exchange their USD into local currency, sneaky children trying to steal your food, beggars and the 200 cats that come out of nowhere. Once we got our food and found a bench we were good to go and the food was amazing. Our second day here we hired a boat man and headed to Prison Island. It's about a 15-20 minute boat ride from Stonetown depending on the sea and cost us about $22 each. Prison Island, also known as Changuu, has had a colourful history. In the 19th century it was used a prison for slaves until it was purchased by a British man who built a prison on it. It was never used however because it was converted into a quarantine station when Yellow fever and other diseases became rampant. After visiting the island ourselves we both agreed it's not the worst place you could be quarantined with gorgeous white sand beaches and lots of shady trees. Now it's home to a tortoise sanctuary for the endangered Aldabran Giant Tortoise brought over in the 19th century as a gift from the Seychelles. The government owns the island now and keeps the tortoises safe from poaching and provides them a good life where they can roam around and do what they like while allowing visitors to feed them and take photos for a $4.00 entrance fee. On top of tortoise the island is home to peacocks and an unusually small species of antelope called Duikers. We were lucky enough to spot one about the size of a small dog well hidden in the bushes. Today we're heading over to our second hotel in the North East or Zanzibar called Villa Kiva. It's located on a beautiful beach away from the hustle and bustle of Stonetown. Unfortunately Chris is under the weather today, not sure if it's something he ate or just too much sun so we're trying to keep it low key. We had a booked spice tour today to do en-route to the next hotel but decided to bail on it. We still have 4 more days here so lots of time to recover and find other fun activities!
Surviving is maybe a bit dramatic but there certainly moments here it felt like an apt expression. Before coming to Bangkok received several warnings about various scams to watch out for and other suggestions to take extra caution. The only reason we're here is because after all the warnings they would finish with, 'but it's a really cool city!'. So here we are! Getting to the hotel from the airport via taxi was easy thankfully. We're staying at the Marriott Appartment Suites in Sukhumvit, an area rich with shopping, eating and nightlife. Bangkok is a bit more costly than the other areas of Thailand so having a kitchen has been a nice change and a good way to save money, groceries are very resonable. After 6 days in Bangkok I'm really happy we decided to stay at a nicer hotel that has a pool, gym, kitchen in the room etc. If you are someone who dislikes large crowds (like myself) having a safe haven to retreat back to was incredibly great. On top of that it was just really nice to wake up everyday, make ourselves a nice breakfast, use the gym, have a swim and a steam before we head out for the day! Almost made us feel normal after 4 months of living out of hotels. When people think of Bangkok one of the first things that comes to mind is the shopping! There are an insane number of malls located around the city to chose from. We decided to check out Terminal 21, a half hour walk from our hotel and one of the largest malls in Bangkok. I don't usually like malls but we thoroughly enjoyed this one. It's themed like an airport and each floor of the mall is a city around the world! They've included airport like signage and amazing small details on each floor so you know what country your in without seeing a sign. A double decker bus and tube signs in London, a 3 story oscar statue leading up to Hollywood (where the movie theatre is) and tiled 'streets' to wander through Istanbul. Even if you don't want to buy anything it's fun to get lost in this mall for a couple hours. We would suggest you head down to the Carribbean to get some incredible baked goods and treats or head up to San Francisco to have a birds eye view over Bangkok while sipping a fancy latte. Our second day in Bangkok we headed to the Grand Palace. It's a huge complex of buildings and official residence for the King of Siam since 1782. When we arrived it was absolute chaios of cars, police and people. We found an entrance, got body scanned and countinued through. Upon getting through the other side there were hundreds of people wearing black scurrying around. There were also hundreds of tents set up for these people. We later assumed they were here to pay respect to the recently deceased King or perhaps to the new King. It was a bit confusing tying to figure out where we were meant to go in all this action. We were starving when we arrived which didn't help matters and had a bit of a hard time finding food. I was getting pretty hangry and the crowds were insufferable, thank god we found a Subway or I'm pretty sure Chris would have sent me home, lol! We were feeling a bit better after lunch and headed into the Grand Palace. I was advisded my lulu tights were no good and I needed to borrow a skirt. As we lined up to borrow one of the free skirts they offer we were shuffled aside with a couple hundred other people so that the Princess' presension could make their way in. They had soldiers and trumpets going building up our anticipation only for a few cars with tinted windows to quickly pass through the gates towards the residence. 2pm is apparently not a good time to visit the Palace, although I doubt there is ever a good time. We got the skirt and went to line up for tickets (500 baht each, bit expensive) and the masses of people seemed to be growing. I decided it wasn't worth it for me to go in because I was miserable in the crowds and inside the palace temple was even worse. Chris thought about going in on his own but he decided he didn't feel like dealing with the crowds either. We got some nice pictures from the outside at least and of the crowds. There was a bit of drama trying to get back to the hotel. We hailed down a taxi and told him where we wanted to go and he laughed at us and drove away. The hotel was 45 minutes away and apparently nobody wanted to deal with the traffic. We got another taxi to stop told him where we wanted to go and got the same reaction. Before he drove away I offered him twice the fare (500 baht instead of 250) which he happily excepted and took us back. At that point he probably could have talked us up and we would have said yes lol. Our last couple of days in Bangkok we kept it pretty low key. We watched Rogue One at the Terminal 21 theatre. The Thai subtitles were easy to ingnore and the theatre was super comfy. We also spent a ton of time searching for sleeping bags! We need them while in Africa but apparently camping hasn't caught on in Thailand yet. After searching several stores we finally found Outdoor Unlimited a few metro stops away from our hotel which had all sorts of camping gear including sleeping bags.
Over all Bangkok hasn't been my favourite place, cities usually aren't to be fare. It does derserve some credit however for being a very interesting city with something for everybody. Chris and I both agreed we'd probably have enjoyed Bangkok a lot more if we hadn't spent 2 months in South East Asia prior. Temples and markets all start to blend together when thats all you've been doing for that long. I'm sure if we come back in the future we'll have a much different experience with fresh eyes. Thailand, and all of South East Asia for that matter was incredible. We really loved the people, the food and the sights. Now we're onto Stage 3 of our journey, Africa! We have a week in Zanzibar split between Stonetown and a beach region before we meet up with On The Go Tours for our trip through to Vic Falls! First we have a looooong day of flying ahead of us! A milestone birthday has come and gone, spent spoiling myself silly (as one should)! I feel like I got 2 day's of birthday celebration, Jan 2nd in Thailand and Jan 2nd back home the next day. I'll take it! On Jan 2nd in Thailand we went on a full day snorkeling trip out to Koh Rok. It was a 40 minute speed boat ride from the main Island of Koh Lanta to this relatively untouched island. It's gained some popularity in recent years but compared to Koh Phi Phi and other famous coral areas the Koh Rok coral is very well preserved with fewer people making there way out here. They took us first to 2 spots near Koh Rok to snorkel. The first place was fantastic! Clear, turqouise water filled with a ton of different species of fish. The coral was vibrant and filled with life unlike the other corals we've been to. The second spot was more exposed to wind and the current was much stronger making swimming a good work out. There were quite a few jellies in the area so I didn't care for this spot as much though there was an abundance of fish here as well! For lunch they set up a nice beach buffet for us and gave us some free time to explore the island. It's a small island you can walk the whole thing in a couple hours probably. After lunch we found a trail that hikes up to a view points. It was a sweaty climb but worth it for the view! We even saw a giant Monitor Lizard and a ton of hermit crabs. We were taken out to one more spot for snorkeling after lunch and it was the best yet! There were puffer fish, Needlefish, Moorish Idol, tons of different parrot fish and most importantly Chris found nemo! After a long day at sea we took a nerve wracking ride back to our hotel in the back on a truck with 10 other people hanging on for dear life. We decided after this it was time for some pampering. We headed to the beach and snagged a massage before sitting to dinner. It was a wonderful way to spend my 30th birthday!
To top it all off Chris crafted me a gift! Now I can get unlimited 20 minute massages from the hubs. He may come to regret this gift lol. It's been great to recieve all the birthday messages on FB and email and can feel the love from back home. xo Today is our last day in Koh Lanta, tomorrow we fly to Bangkok where we have several days before we leave for Africa! Koh Lanta has lived up to every expectation and more. It's an absolutely beautiful little island with relatively few visitors compared to the big name beaches in Koh Samui and Phuket. Life is laid back and easy here. We've been enjoying lazy afternoons, reading on the beach, swimming in the ocean, Thai massages and eating our way down the beach. We took a trip with Lanta Longtail Tours which was one of the best value companies we found in Koh Lanta. They took us to 2 pretty decent snorkeling spots, the coral was in pretty poor condition but there were still quite a few fish. They also took us swimming through a super cool cave! As you swim through the entrance the water is a shimmering emerald green (hence the nickname Emerald Cave) and leads to an amazing secret little beach on the other side that feels like it's out a movie. This was definitely a highlight of the day! The buffet lunch served dock side was great and the staff were fun. Overall was a fantastic day! The best way to see this island is definitely by motorbike. The roads are pretty decent and there isn't too much traffic so it was a nice way to get around the Island. For 250 Baht (approx. $10.00) we got a pink automatic scooter and helmets for the day. Tuk Tuks are expensive on the island so it's better to be adventurous and drive yourself. There were only a couple oh-shit moments as we flew over speed bumps hidden by shadows and a couple sketchy passing cars. Once Chris got the hang of driving we felt like locals zooming around the Island. We headed 50 minutes south and ended up at the National Park on the southern most tip of the island. The National Park is fantastic, it's teaming with monkeys eager to steal your snacks and has beautiful beaches! You need to be careful swimming here though because there are painful jelly fish warnings. The park has a well groomed 1.7 km hike, the views were great as you climb up the first portion but the rest of the hike is in the woods. It has interprative signs along the way telling about the forest which helps keep your mind off the freaking humidity. It was a sweaty hike but a lot of fun! It's easy to find some crazy New Years parties in South Thailand but Koh Lanta sticks to it's laid back attitude about life and keep everything low key. We headed down the beach and enjoyed a little too much wine but had a fantastic night watching people set off floating lanterns until midnight hit and the beach lit up with fireworks from one end to the other! My phone was dead by the time midnight came round but I don't think the pictures would have properly captured the beauty of it.
I am a little worse for wear today, a fantastic way to start a new year, laying in bed nursing a hangover, lol. 2016 had it's ups and downs for us. We're just about half way through our trip and Chris and I have talked quite a bit about our goals for when we get back. Everything is pointing to a very exciting 2017 for us and we're looking forward to see what this year brings! Happy New Year! xo |
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