Port Louis, Mauritius

Saturday February 28, 2009

 

Port Louis, Mauritius

 

Yesterday, we spent the most amazing 12 hours of my life in Port Louis, Mauritius. It was such an amazing place. The island is only 65 km long and 45 km wide (about 40 miles long). We drove the whole island and it only took us an hour. We did a trip called Ile De Deux Coco, and it was beautiful. I didn’t really know what to expect when we went, but it was about an hour drive to the top of the island to the bottom, which is where Ile De Deux Coco was. When we got there, it was the most AMAZINGGG view. The water was crystal clear, blue and green. The sand was white and there were lava rocks everywhere. It was such a beautiful contrast. They took us on a glass bottom boat to get to the island. We could see everything underneath us. It was stunning. The whole island is surrounded by coral reef, so we saw a lot of that, and some small fish and even some sea cucumbers. The island was small but had everything we needed. A bar, lounge chairs, showers, bathrooms, dining area, hammocks, couches under canopies, and all of our snorkeling gear.

So we put all of our things down on some lounge chairs, and headed for the bar. So we bought a bottle of homemade spiced apple rum, put it on ice, and went to go swimming. The water was perfect. It was about 85 degrees out that day, and the water was probably 80 degrees. It was so refreshing, and you could see EVERYTHING, it was that clear. The view was spectacular, and the waves broke about 50 feet out from us, and the current was stronger than we expected, but no problems, no worries. I contemplated hundreds of times that day about being purposely left behind so I could live on this island. Our biggest worry that day was what they were going to be serving us for lunch. After some swimming and snorkeling, we tried some of the apple rum and walked around the island to explore. The sun felt so good and I don’t want to brag (okay, maybe just a little bit), but I’ve got a good tan going on.

After a little exploring and drinking, they had lunch ready for us. Sorry Dad, but this lunch blew your cooking out of the water. They had everything and ANYTHING for us. Shrimp, prongs (a type of crawfish, looks and tastes just like lobster), chicken, tuna, swordfish, pork chops, rice, salad is just half of the buffet. It was like we were kings and queens, I was loving it. It was by far one of the best meals that I’ve had so far. We tried the local beer and wine too. Mauritius, being the most beautiful place in the world, has the fifth best beer in the world, called Phoenix.

After lunch, we laid out for a little and it started getting pretty hot, so we decided to just go snorkeling. The boats were taking people out farther into the water, but we missed the boat, so we just did some snorkeling by the shore. It was just as fun, but we didn’t see too much. We swam for a couple hours and laid out and just relaxed the whole day. Finally around 4, the boats took us back to the buses and we headed back to Port Louis.

When we got back to Port Louis, they dropped us off in the city and a bunch of us went to the local bars and got some drinks and some food. It was a small little city and had a few shops here and there, but nothing spectacular. It was getting closer to 6 so the weather had cooled off a little too, and it was so nice just sitting outside and looking out into the ocean. Our ship time was 800 instead of the normal time, 6. So we got an extra two hours, and the line was pretty long when we came back to get on the ship, but I don’t think anybody got dock time (you get dock time when you are late getting on the ship, like 15 minutes is 3 hours at the next port, 30 is 4 hours, etc. Then at the next port, you have to wait that amount of time to get off the ship).

Then we didn’t really have any down time because the sea Olympics were the next day, and opening ceremonies started that night. Each of our floors is broken up into seas. We are the Yellow Sea, but there is Adriatic Sea, Baltic, Aegean, Red, etc. So everybody has their own color and we had to present our flags and do our chant. We stayed up until 1 am making the flag the night before and it turned out pretty nicely, if I do say so myself. Everybody dressed in their colors and waited outside the Union until they let us in, we all just did our chants. The opening ceremonies lasted about an hour or so, and everybody was pretty pumped. And then they told us that they were going to show us Slumdog Millionaire on the TV’s, but I was so exhausted, I passed out as soon as I turned it on.

 

Sea Olympics

 

Then today we had the actual sea Olympics. Events included mashed potato sculpting, flip cup, limbo, synchronized swimming, a relay, sudoku, Tug-O-War, Scavenger Hunt, Spelling Bee, Hula Hoop, Dodgeball, Volleyball, work out relay, Twister, Poker, and Pictionary. I participated in the relay which had orange passing (where you passed an orange with your neck from person to person), three legged race, wheelbarrow race, and then Fireman’s drill. I did the Fireman’s drill and you basically just pass water along in a line until you fill the pitcher up. We came in second for the relay, and third overall for the day. There was a three way tie for third place.

It was another beautiful day today, and perfect for sea Olympics. But it was an exhausting two days, and I am thankful for the couple days we have until India. We get to India on Thursday and I am very excited. I have heard mixed things about India, but think it will be a mind-blowing experience regardless. I’m doing a Taj Mahal trip and I can’t wait to see everything! I’m also going to be riding an elephant, which should be fun!

I can’t believe it’s already March, and hopefully the weather at home is getting a little bit warmer. I believe Spring Break is coming up, and hope that everybody enjoys their time off. Best of wishes!

 

Cape Town, South Africa

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

 

Cape Town was such an amazing time, for sure! I am in love with it, I can't wait to go back. We arrived in Cape Town on Wednesday, the 18th, and left the 22nd. So we had 5 amazing days in Cape Town, but I could have used 50 more. There was just so much to do! South Africa had everything to do from the wine tasting, to shark diving, climbing Table Mountain, visiting the beaches, going to Cape Point and seeing the penguins, and traveling on safaris.

Day 1:

We arrived Wednesday and were supposed to dock at 8 am, but I guess the fog was really heavy. Jaclyn and I woke up early to see us pull into port, but we literally could not see a single thing around us because the fog was so bad. So we just waited around until they cleared the ship. We finally got into port and they cleared the ship (meaning that everyone is allowed to finally get off) around 10:30. We had decided that we were going to climb Table Mountain with a bunch of people. When we got off the ship though, we decided to just go by ourselves, figured it would be a lot easier in a small group. So we took a cab to the beginning trails of Table Mountain and started our hike. Intense is an understatement. It was all uphill, but beautiful none the less. We looked behind us and literally saw the whole city of Cape Town, the ocean and the beautiful shore and blue water, and all the boats in the waterfront. It was an amazing few. The weather was optimal too, it was a foggy and cool, with a little mist. We ended up taking a wrong turn however, and going on the trail towards the lower cable station. So we ended up back at the bottom of the mountain. But we were determined to get to the top, so we took the cable car up to the top of the mountain.

We got on the cable car and there were a million Asians touring the mountain the same day. So we loaded the cable car with them. It was literally a feeding frenzy. We started ascending up the mountain and they all whipped out their cameras and video cameras. So Jaclyn and me just stepped back and let them do their thing. It was still pretty foggy at the time, and at a certain point, we just saw fog around us. We got off the cable car, and at the top of the mountain is a little café. So we got some food, a boerwohr to be specific. It is a type of African sausage that was recommended to us. So we tried it, and it wasn’t as great as I had hoped, but still good none the less. We took some pictures at the top of the mountain, and I was a little bummed that we couldn’t see the view from the top because it was so foggy, but we still made it to the top, so I was happy with that. And I still got some pretty nice pictures of the view, regardless.

After about an hour or so at the top, we went back down the cable car, and took a cab back to Cape Town. We decided to walk around and shop and see all the local markets and such. We stumbled upon a local crafts market. It was huge and overwhelming; I didn’t even know where to begin. They had everything you could imagine. It was filled with some of the most beautiful and vibrant art, all sorts of jewelry, African masks and carvings, and fertility statues. Then we went to a huge mall, which was honestly like any mall in America. Cape Town was vastly similar to San Francisco (not that I’ve ever been, but it’s what they said), but also so different in many ways. There were people everywhere playing some of the most insane instruments I have never seen, people doing acrobatic, weird things, an all male step team, and just plain beggars. We wandered around the mall for a little while and then went to get some ice cream.

Then at night, we went to a local Irish bar (I know what you’re thinking, Irish bar, in Africa? But it wasn’t all Irish) and got some drinks and dessert. Then we decided to go to a local club, which was extremely classy and upscale. We had a lot of fun and the night life in South Africa was unlike anything I had expected.

 

Day 2:

Thursday I was leaving for my safari…at 4:30 AM. But it was okay, I was all hyped up on Red Bull, so it wasn’t really that bad. We had to meet in the Union at 4:15 AM and got on the buses and drove to the airport. We were at the airport by 5 AM. Two people had thrown up on the bus from the night before, and we could all tell it was going to be a long trip. We had a 6:30 flight to Durban, which was about a 2-hour flight. We walked around the airport for a little until our boarding time. Once we were on the plane, I don’t think I heard a single word from anyone in our group. We had all passed out. International flights are so much nicer than American. Apparently, for a two hour flight, they gave two rounds of sodas, tea, or coffee, and a choice of a chicken omelet or vegetarian omelet. I was asleep, so I chose none; in fact, I didn’t even know they offered it until I had woken up. Then we finally arrived in Durban, and we had another 3 hour bus ride to our camp site.

We arrived at our campsite around 1:30 and they had lunch for us about an hour later. The camp site was really nice. It was on a game reserve that had elephants, wilder beasts, gazelle, crocodiles, and warthogs. The reception center had a bar, a restaurant, an outside area for the braai (which is an African barbeque). Our tents had beds in them, and mosquito netting, thankfully. After lunch, we went on our first safari.

We went to Hluhluwe Imfolozi Park for our safari. It is 40 miles of protective game reserve. It was absolutely breathtaking. On first arrival, we saw a whole family of warthogs, and they are definitely not as cute as Pumba in the Lion King, they are actually really ugly animals. But there was a family of about 8 of them just grazing and eating grass. But apparently, warthogs are vicious animals and our safari guide said she’s even seen one take down a lion. We continued through the park. The grass was greener than anything I’ve ever seen, the hilltops were beautiful, and it was all such amazing scenery, I forgot we were even looking for animals. We came across a few rhinos in the distance and even an elephant in the distance. Zebras were crossing the street right in front of us. They were a lot more beautiful than I thought they would be. They all had different stripes, some on the leg, some not on the leg. Then we got barricaded by about 4 or 5 rhinos just grazing in the middle of the road. They stood there for about 10-15 minutes. Then out of nowhere, they started running for the hills. A few seconds later, we heard an elephant distress call, which was actually extremely loud, but our safari guide told us that it was probably about a km out. So we went looking for the elephants. Our safari guide, Caz, was amazing. She took us to a little clearing in a valley so we could watch the elephants pass. About 100 yards away, we saw about 40-50 elephants passing the clearing to prepare for an oncoming storm. It was amazing, there were so many of them, babies and adults. It was definitely a good way to end the day of safari-ing.

We went back to our campsite, and freshened up before the braai. The trucks came and picked us up to take us to the site. The braai (at the reception center) was about a 10 km drive from our actual campsite. We arrived, and the whole walkway and pavilion had been lined with lights and such. It was different, but beautiful. They had anything and everything we could have asked to eat. They had appetizers, wine and cheese, Cole slaw, 4 different kinds of fish, fruit, crackers, potatoes, like I said, anything and everything. And for our main course, they had steak, gazelle sausage, and chicken. I ate all of it, it was delicious. They also had rice and beans, ate those too. And then for dessert they had cookies, brownies, a type of flan dish, a mousse type thing and a Jell-o dish. I had a little dessert, but I was so stuffed that I could barely even move to get back in the truck. Finally, after an extremely LONG day, we went back to the campsite and I went straight to bed, I was exhausted.

 

Day 3:

The next day our wake up call was at 6 AM. And it basically consisted of a guy walking around to each of our tents banging a drum until we woke up. The trucks picked us up and took us to breakfast, which was just as good as the braai. They had 3 different types of eggs, fruit, two different kinds of sausage, potato pancakes, toast, muffins and tea and coffee. Then we departed again for our second day of safari-ing.

We got into the park, and within 30 minutes, we had a herd of 20 elephants walking literally 20 feet from our truck. They were checking us out to make sure that we weren’t going to harm them; they all looked at us as they passed. There were even several babies who scurried across the street; they were so cute! But one of them apparently thought we were too close and began to approach us. She started her charge position and even picked up her pace, but Caz, reversed the truck before any real damage could have been done. But it definitely woke us all up, and we were ready for more.

We continued driving around the reserve and we stumbled upon another group of zebras who are honestly unbothered by anything. They just stood there for almost a half an hour while we just watched them. Then we continued down the road and found dozens of baboons in the trees. They, however, were quite bothered by us, and it was hard to get a picture of them because they kept running away. Caz drove us down by the stream and we stumbled upon a crocodile just wafting in the water. We spotted another rhino in the brush, until we finally stumbled upon a giraffe! I was so excited to see the giraffe. We watched the giraffe for a solid 20 minutes and he wasn’t bothered by us either, he just continued eating the trees and such.
Then it was time for lunch, so we went to the picnic site and gazelle just casually seemed to populate the area. They didn’t even seem bothered by the fact that we were eating and hanging out there. For lunch, they had more amazingness. Sausages, steak, chicken skewers, beans, etc.

After lunch, we found a watering hole with two buffaloes just resting in the mud. Apparently, buffalo are some of the deadliest animals, I didn’t know that. And that scene in the Lion King when Mufasa gets killed, well apparently, buffaloes, really can kill lions. So we didn’t want to disturb them because they looked grumpy anyways. Caz took us to a spot that she thought we would be likely to see some lions. However, we did not see any. L But the scenery from the top was astonishing, so it made for a good photo opportunity anyways. On our way down from the clearing, we spotted a pack of giraffes just standing in the middle of the street. Then we looked to our left and saw about another 6 giraffes, even one baby. We sat and watched them for a little while. And as if we hadn’t had an already amazing day, an elephant trapped us in the street and was walking towards us, so we had to back up until he finally decided to pass us. He followed us 2 km down the road and then finally decided to take a mud bath. He was having so much fun playing in the mud, spraying himself and splashing.

After an amazing day of safari-ing, we headed back to the campsite and took an afternoon swim in the pool before dinner. Dinner was similar than the night before and the people who owned the campsite gave us a cooler of beer and wine and told us we could take it back to the campsite. We went to all sit by the pool, and decided to have a few drinks before we headed back to the campsite.

 

Day 4:

This was the day we departed back to Cape Town. We drove 3 hours to the airport again and flew back to Cape Town. We got back around 2. The weather was beautiful, so a bunch of us decided to go explore some more of the city. We decided to walk to Long St. which has a lot of the cool shops, and is the local street for nightlife. On our way, we saw a bunch of people gathered by the waterfront. We went to check it out and found out that there was a Chinese boat racing thing going on. It was a bunch of teams basically in really large canoes rowing and one person beats the drum. Apparently it was more a ceremonial type thing than more of a race, but it was really cool. We also saw a bunch of seals posted up on the shore and the barrels nearby. They didn’t smell too great, but were definitely interesting to watch.

When we finally got to Long St. we found a local market called Green St. Market, and it had all sorts of local people trying to sell their arts and crafts. We bargained with a few people, but it was becoming later in the day and mostly everything in the area was closing so we took a taxi back to the ship and got ready for the night out.  

The last night we went to Mitchell’s which is a local bar and got some pizza and drinks. It was a really nice local, low-key place with really good pizza. Then we went to a local club called Hemisphere which was located at the top of a local skyscraper. It was amazing, the view from the top. It was a lot of fun and definitely a good last night.

 

Day 5:

Being that it was our last day, we decided to stay local and try the local cuisine. We went and got lunch and got hot chocolate and some lunch, which had all sorts of salads, and lamb, and quiche. It was amazingly good. 

I also stopped by the local supermarket to grab some things, like shampoo and conditioner and stuff that I was running low on. And since we were already there, we decided to go to the internet café and grab some free internet, since it costs an arm and a leg here on the ship.

We went and got some last minute souvenirs and then headed back for dinner so we could be back in time for ship time at 6. 

We didn’t end up leaving Cape Town until 12 hours later because of rough seas, so hopefully that doesn’t mess up anything for Mauritius. Mauritius is our next stop, and we are only there for 12 hours, but apparently it is the most beautiful place in the world, literally. The magazine I read on the airplane from Durban said it was voted “The Most Beautiful Place in the World”. We have a snorkeling trip planned, and hopefully the weather will be nice.

 

We have about 3 more days until we reach Mauritius. And then another 4 days until we get to India. It’s crazy how fast time is flying by. We’ve already been through 1/3 of the trip. I’m just trying to enjoy every moment as it passes. Even though we are only in Mauritius for 12 hours however, it's a nice stop because it breaks up the days to India so we won't be spending all 9 of them at sea, which gets really repetitive and boring after awhile. I had another test yesterday, and it's so strange and hard to get motivated here on the ship. And I have another one tomorrow. But you look outside and the weather is beautiful or something's going on in the Union, so I'm definently working on managing my time and getting motivated. I hope everyone at home is having a good semester, and the weather is decent. Love you all.

 

Walvis Bay and Sossuvlei, Namibia

Namibia was absolutely amazing. By far, my favorite port so far. I loved it. It was definently a taste of how Africa really is. By far, also the hottest port so far. We arrived on Saturday, and the Girl's Namibian choir greeted us outside the port by singing a few songs and what not. I did a camping in the desert trip which was really amazing. We left Walvis Bay at about 1030 and headed to Sossuvlei which was about a 4 hour drive. The scenery on the way was the most beautiful thing ever. We drove through the mountains, the desert, and even a rainstorm. It was a mixture of everything. We stopped at several places along the way, for water, souvenirs, etc. We stopped at our first place, literally in the middle of the desert, with nothing around for miles and miles. This is where we were going to have a picnic on the mountain top. So we climbed the mountain and took pictures while they prepared lunch for us. As we were coming down the mountain, we found out that the door with our bags and lunch on the bus was broken and they couldn't open it. So, they told us that we were going to drive to find some help, talk about being stranded in the desert. So we drove probably 20 miles until we stumbled upon a guy in a excavator (once again, no idea what he was doing in the desert), and they asked him if he had any tools to help us open the door. And surprisingly he did, and they got the door open for us. So we drove another 15 miles to get to the place where he wanted us to eat lunch. We wandered around again until they had our lunch ready. There were shiny rocks and all sorts of interesting stuff all around the place. It was beautiful. We found a few lizards and random bugs, but nothing too exciting. We ate lunch and then continued on to our campsite.

On our way, our tour guide informed us that the average amount of rain for Namibia was 50 mm a year. As he talked about this, we looked to our left and a huge storm was coming in. We drove to the top of the mountain just to catch the beginning of the storm with thunder and lightning. It was so beautiful, although the sky was dark and the air temperature had dropped a noticable amount, the scenery was beautiful! Then the rain started, at first it was a few drizzles and we all got out of the bus to play in the rain, but then it turned into a downpour. It was incredible. The lightning bolts were incredible and overpowered the mountains, but at the same time, it was a once in a lifetime sight. It continued to rain all the way to our campsite. And we literally drove through rivers, there was so much rain. In one day, the rain doubled the average yearly rainfall. About 7 hours later, we finally got to the campsite. They had already set up our tents for us so we put all of our things in the tent and went to explore. We found the lodge which had a bar and a pool table. Since it was still raining, we hung out up there because it was the only place that was covered. We had a few drinks and played some pool, while we watched the south africa v. australian rugby game. Dinner was to be ready around 830 or so, so we went back down to the campfire to get some dinner. We had sausage, porkchops, and local sides. It was different but really good none the less. Afterwards, we sat by the fire and drank some wine and just hung out.
The next morning we had our wake up call at 530 am, and it was still dark. The bathrooms (aka outhouses) weren't lit so it was interesting trying to put my contacts back in, but I got it done. We had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast and left the campsite at 6 am to start our day. We drove to Sossuvlei and along the way the many mountains began to turn into hundreds of sand dunes. The sand was so dark, darker than any sand I've ever seen. The dunes were SOOOOOO tall. We drove past Dune 45 (each dune is numbered) and saw people climbing it. Then we finally reached the dunes we would be exploring. We had a 5 km walk (about 3.2 miles) to get to the actual dunes. And even at 830 am, the temperature was already in the mid 80s. It took us about two hours to get to the dunes, and the temperature just kept getting hotter. Luckily, I wore my bathing suit underneath my stuff so most of us just walked in our bathing suit tops, and shorts. the temperature probably reached the mid to high 90s. It was extremely, extremely hot, and absolutely no shade. But we all trekked through and made it to the dunes. We were brought to the highest sand dune in the world. So we began to hike up it, and let me tell you. We were ALL huffing and puffing, with the altitude, and the steepness of the dune, it makes it a lot more harder than you would think. So we climbed the dunes and the way down was the most exhilirating thing ever. You basically just run down the dune and it is the steepest thing EVER, but your feet just sink in the sand and carries you down. It was so much fun. It was starting to get to the hottest point in the day so we took the shuttle back to our lunch site because walking back in the desert, without water, at 1230 in 100 degree weather, was not my typical idea of fun. Once we got back to the campsite they had lunch for us, which was very eclectic, eggs, bacon, cole slaw and a carrot casserole thing. Then we traveled to a canyon, but it was still extremely hot, so we didn't stay that long, just long enough to take some pictures and take it all in. Then we stopped at a few gas stations that were small and had many interesting things, and we were back on our way to the campsite. After one of the hottest in the longest time, we took a dip in the pool which was the most refreshing thing ever! Then the storm clouds started coming in again, so we quickly changed and brought some cards and our wine up to the lodge house to play cards and drink some wine while the storm passed. Soon after we went to the campfire again for dinner. This time it was chicken broth and pasta, and some sort of vegetable medley. After dinner, we enjoyed some Namibian brews and wine by the campfire. We ended up talking to our bus driver who was extremely eager to know who we are and things about America, as were we interested to know about Namibia. He loved to talk about politics and Obama and JFK a lot and we nicknamed him JFK throughout the rest of the trip.

The next morning we departed back to Walvis Bay, and left the campsite at 630, and had PB &J for breakfast again. We stopped at a souvenir store called Solitaire which was like the local gas station/market and literally one of two buildings I saw on the drive home. It was so peaceful out in the middle of nowhere. We got to Walvis Bay around 1130 and put our stuff on the boat and went to explore. We ate at a local cafe and ordered cheese grillers, with chips (aka fries), now wouldn't you think that cheese grillers means grilled cheese? Nope, it was sausages filled with cheese, not what we were expecting at all, but still delicious none the less. We explored the local city afterwards and stumbled upon a beautiful beach with flamingos and pelicans. We went to a few shops and met a local lady who told us to make sure we weren't getting ripped off by the cab drivers because the cab drivers were ripping everyone off and laughing at us. But she was an extremely sweet lady. We had a few hours left until we needed to be on the ship, so we stumbled upon a local cafe/bar and had a few drinks on the water. It was beautiful. We jumped in the ocean to cool off and took a cab back to the good old MV Explorer.
It was an awesome time and it had literally everything you could imagine: beaches, mountains, sand dunes, desert, etc. And the people were extremely friendly and always asking how you were and wanted to know about Semester at Sea and everything.

We dock in Cape Town, South Africa tomorrow and we will be there until Sunday! South Africa is supposed to be one of the best ports on the voyage so I cannot wait to experience it all. Tomorrow morning we'll be climbing Table Mountain and then do some local shopping. Then from Thurs to Sat I am going to be doing a Safari, and looking for the "Big Five", which I'm assuming are lions, giraffes, elephants, hippos and rhinos. I'll be sure to take a lot of pictures and maybe catch an internet cafe the last day after sand boarding and put the pictures up. Once again, hope that everyone is doing well at home, lots of love!

Crossing the Equator

Wednesday February 11, 2009

 

Happy 21st Lauren! Live it up!

 

Today’s Quote:

Everything can be taken from man (woman) but one thing: the best of all freedoms –to choose one’s own attitudes in any set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

           -Victor Framble,                         Auschwitz survivor

 

Yesterday, we finally crossed the equator. The air is definently humid and muggy, and I stayed inside yesterday because I was still pretty sunburnt. I have my first exam on Friday which is for my Intro to Art class. It's pretty much open to interpretation, thankfully.

 

They showed a documentary last night called "Cocaine Cowboys" and it was really interesting. It talks about the drug wars and everything in Miami in the late 70s and early 80s. I really liked it a lot. Oh, speaking of drugs. They had the first batch of drug testing yesterday, and yes, yours truly was drug tested. They do it for everybody because they don't want anybody doing drugs while on the voyage, obviously. It was a little weird though, never had to pee in a cup before, and a little intimidating having them watch you. But whatever, it's all said and done and I was clean as a whistle.

 

Three more days until Namibia, and I can't wait. Not too much planned for the upcoming days besides studying and maybe some reading? But anything to make the time go faster so we can be at Namibia already! Hope everyone enjoyed the few pictures I uploaded. It's hard to upload a bunch because the internet here is really limited, but oh well, there's a few to get started. I'll try to put some up of Morocco before I get to Namibia.

Getting directions from the Spanish Policia

 

Gardens in the Alcazar in Cordoba, Spain

 

Us atop of the Cadiz Catedral

 

View from the Cadiz Catedral

 

Arriving into Port in Cadiz, Spain

 

Sunset on the Atlantic

Crossing the Equator en route to Namibia

Saturday, February 7, 2009

So back in the routine of classes, I mean I guess if you want to call it that. We started classes yesterday and it had been almost two weeks since we had had classes, so it's all taking some getting used to. I have a midterm already this week however, which seems strange to me because we have yet to cover a full chapter. Nothing too exciting going on. The waves have gotten a lot calmer which is nice, because I was actually able to make it to the gym today and not having to worry about breaking my face on the treadmill.

Tomorrow is laundry day! Oh, the simple pleasures on the ship. But I literally have not done laundry since I left home, which is a miracle I've gotten by this long. At home, I do laundry every week. So I have been conserving clothes, but it's about time because my jeans are so stretched out and literally falling off my body.

You can tell we are getting closer to the equator. The weather was really nice today, about 67, and a cool breeze. Hopefully tomorrow will be nice enough to lay out between classes. That's about it I guess, hope everyone is enjoying themselves and the snow isn't too bad, if it's even still snowing.



Monday, February 9, 2009
Today is Neptune Day! Mass chaos is all I can say. I'm not quite sure why today was Neptune Day however, because we don't technically cross the equator until tomorrow evening, but eh, I'll take it, we didn't have classes today. The day began at 730, with the "Neptune Gods" raising a parade throughout the hallways and banging on everyones door, chanting some absurd thing. That's when I realized this was gonna be pretty serious, lol.

Me and Jaclyn had planned to wake up early anyways to claim our chairs to lay out all day. So we got our chairs at 745 and got some breakfast. The festivities were to begin at 900 so we have front row seats. At 900, the Neptune Gods were all escorted to the top deck where everyone was already waiting. I mean, of course all of it is in fun, so they recited some sort of "oath" we had to take in order to move from a pollywog (defined as somebody who has never crossed the equator before) to a shellback. The FULL ritual included being poured down with slime (aka food colored pancake batter), kissing the king and queens rings, kissing a fish (which surprisingly, up close, had small teeth), jumping in the pool (which by the way, our pool is literally like 5x5 ft, okay maybe 6x6), and then having your head shaved, no joke. And for all you wondering......................................................I shaved my head....ha, funny, but no, I really didn't, couldn't bring myself to shave these lovely calico locks. However, a lot of guys shaved their heads (obviously), but more surprisingly, I've seen about 6 girls with shaved heads, including some professors and Life Long Learners.

After the festivities, everyone just hung out on the top deck and basted in the sun. Learned something new today: the sun is ALOT stronger near the equator than anywhere else I've ever been. Result: BAKED. I got pretty sunburned, but luckily Jaclyn came prepared with aloe, thank goodness. And to top the awesome day off, they had a barbeque for us! Oh, how I've missed hamburgers and hotdogs, and they had sundaes. It was great. I'm really excited for the warmer weather now, well once my sunburnt is gone, and I can't wait to get to Namibia. We have about 4 more days, so it's going by pretty fast. I heard the weather at home was 60 yesterday, hope everyone is enjoying themselves.

Aladdin-esque

Friday, February 6, 2009

I really don't even know where to begin for this blog. Morocco was absolutely incredible. The day and a half sailing to Morocco was everyone basically just wondering what was ahead. I personally had no idea what to expect from Morocco, hearing things from how dangerous it was to how safe it was. We actually had lost a day in Morocco (we were supposed to arrive February 2) due to rough waters. We stopped in Gibraltar (the southern most tip of Europe before Africa) to fuel up, but due to the rough seas, they were unable to fuel the ship. So we had to wait until the next morning to fuel up when the waves were less calm. Once we fueled up, we headed to Casablanca; it took us about 12 more hours to get there. We got to the port at like 9 pm and we had to turn off the stabilizers so we could enter the port from the side, and let me tell you...it was insane! Me and Jaclyn ran up to the 6th floor to watch people in the dining hall. People were literally flying through the hallways. The waves were the largest we had experienced. The biggest wave hit and people fell out of their chairs, plates broke on the floor, all the furniture shifted to the other side of the room. It was a lot of fun, to be honest. As we walked back to our room, we walked past the bookstore and campus store, and everything had fallen off the shelves, it was a mess, as was our room when we got back.

The next morning I had a Semester at Sea trip planned; the camel trek in Marrakech and Palm Groves. We were leaving at 800, and I woke up feeling kind of sick, but none the less still got up and headed toward the bus. Well, it turns out that I wasn't feeling as well as I had anticipated. I ended up getting sick right before we left, but felt better afterwards and decided to go ahead with the trip, and that I would just sleep on the bus for the 4 hour drive to Marrakech. I originally, and still think, that it was because I was dehydrated. Once we arrived in Marrakech, we had lunch at this beautiful Moroccan style restaurant. It was called Le Palais Des Ibilates. The inside was so beautiful. All the windows were stain glass, and there were huge chandeliers everywhere, and the ceilings were high. They fed us 3 courses, the first being traditional Moroccan appetizers, then we had some type of fried pastries, and then finally cous cous with chicken. For dessert, they brought out oranges, and tea and some type of cookie. I was still feeling sick, so I didn't get to try much, but it all looked delicious, none the less. A lady even came out and did belly dancing, to Big Pimpin’ Moroccan style, none the less. At some point during lunch, I guess I took a turn for the worst and became really dizzy and pale. So being that the next stop was the camel trek, I tried really hard to pull it together and stick it out and push through it, but it just wasn't happening. Needless to say, I didn't get to ride the camels :( But to be honest, it was for the best, I think it would have gone pretty bad if I had tried, and I mean, how different can it be from riding a horse? I guess I will just have to keep it on my list of things to do in my lifetime...I'm going to try to do it in Namibia or South Africa if I can find time. We checked into our hotel which was BEAUTIFUL, and it was located in the new city of Marrakech. It was called Ryad Mogador Opera. Hotels are called Ryads, instead of hotels. There were seven floors, and when you looked up, all you saw was a HUGE chandelier in the middle, going all the way to the top, down to the first floor, and the middle was open, and when you looked up you could see every floor. They offered us tea and cookies again and we checked into our rooms. I decided it would be best to just get sleep and water in me, so I called it a night and recovered for the next day.

The next day was our full day tour of Marrakech. I woke up a brand new person, and was ready to go, thank goodness. They had breakfast for us at 800, which was complete with pastries, literally every kind of thing you could imagine, from a delicious type of coffee cake thing, to chocolate croissants, to cake, it was great. We got on the bus, and left at about 900 to explore the city. Our tour guide looked like Moses, and he was excited to show us all around Marrakech. My first encounter was on our way to look at a mosque, we approached two men, dressed in brightly colored costumes and hats and our tour informed us that in order to take a picture of them, we had to give them money. Just a glimpse of what was to come. After, we went inside another mosque, and it was really similar to the one I saw in Spain. It had similar architecture and intricately detailed walls and ceilings. The weather really wasn't that great this day, unfortunately, it was cold and rainy, but it didn't rain the whole day, which was good.

Next, our tour guide took us in into a huge market type place, but it was called a super market, but it had absolutely no food. They call their food markets something else. It was filled with honestly some of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. It was really overwhelming; they had two HUGEEEE floors of everything and anything. They had clothes, souvenirs, hookahs (which upsettingly we aren't allowed to bring home with us, otherwise, everyone would be getting one, they're cheap here), plates, carpets, jewelry, really everything. We spend about an hour or so, and everyone bought some things, then we had lunch. Lunch was very similar to the day before, only difference being that this time I could actually eat. They didn't give us cous cous, it was a rice dish with tomatoes and pork and olives, which, Jen and Mom, you will be proud, I acquired a taste for green olives, still hate black though. After lunch, we went to the Medina, which is known as the old city, which is literally just like something out of Aladdin. We were immediately approached by the snake charmers and people with monkeys on leashes. My first experience with the medina was having a snake wrapped around my neck (not harmfully of course) and the man making Jaclyn take a picture and then making the snake kiss my forehead for good luck, and thinking, all is well and good. Oh no, that picture right there was worth 2 euros, and of course they haggled us until we paid them, and then we got haggled by the guy with the monkey saying that we took pictures of his monkey and didn't pay, I proceeded with, "I hate monkeys" and walked away. It worked. Surprisingly, people there all assumed we were from the U.K. or Australia. Several times, people yelled out, "Good day, mate" to us, or the ever so popular broken English version of, "What up, homie?" But I was most taken by the fact that many people knew English there. It wasn't as hard as I had expected to get around and communicate with everybody. We walked through the old city and the markets and there was just so much to take in. People were begging, kids probably 7 or 8 years old were selling things to try and get money. Many of the markets and places had brains for sale, which I really would have liked to try (being 100% serious) but we didn't really have anytime. We went back to our Ryad and ate dinner.

After dinner, Jaclyn and Smith had met locals the night before and we were going to meet up with them at a local bar/pub. After our cab driver drove us literally the complete opposite way and dropped us off and told us we could pay "whatever you like", we walked about two miles and finally got where we needed to be. It was an awesome local pub with a live house band, which covered songs from Bob Marley and Amy Winehouse and ACDC. It was amazing. They were soooo good. The singer was this awesome chick who was rocking it, she had an awesome voice. We met up with Rita and her friends, who lived in Marrakech. We had a few drinks and then we headed to another local bar/lounge called Yellow Sub, and yes, it was ALL Beatles music, and you can probably understand how excited I was. Outside of the bathroom, there was literally a Jim Morrison shrine. Jimi Hendrix, Paul McCartney, Andy Warhol, and John Lennon posters were all throughout. They had the Yellow Submarine cartoon playing, and all the songs were like 60s, 70s, and 80s music, some techno remixes, pretty awesome. Then we proceeded to go to the biggest club in Morocco called Teatro. It was awesome, and very fun. After the club, we went to get some late night food at a local café that Rita showed us and it was pretty authentic. Cats and dogs just come up to your table and beg for food, well not quite unlike home (Dad, I hope Jack has learned his table manners).

The next morning our wake up call was for 615 and at about 730 we headed back to Casablanca. Needless to say, everybody pretty much fell asleep on the bus and we woke up in Casablanca. We had about an hour until we had to be on the ship so we walked around and spent the rest of our Durhams (the Moroccan currency). We tried to get to an internet café so I could put some pictures up for you guys to see, but it wouldn’t read our USB drives. So I’m going to try and do it on the ship.

As we departed Casablanca, they had to turn off the ships stabilizers again, and this time was worse than getting in. Our beds literally detached from the wall and rolled all the way to the other side of the room, with us in them. It was a lot of fun to be honest.

Next stop is Namibia. We have about 8 days until we arrive. It’s crazy to think that I have been away for almost 3 weeks. Time is just flying by. We cross the equator on Monday and we don’t have classes because it is Neptune Day. I don’t really know what they have in store, but shaving your head is a tradition. I will obviously not be participating in that part, but surprisingly several girls I have met will be. I am excited for that. The waters a little better today, but still rougher than they have been. The weather is still kind of chilly, low 60s, but I cannot wait until we can layout again after classes! Hopefully within the next couple days, especially with crossing the Equator. Hope everything is going well at home, miss and love everybody!