To celebrate our graduation from Duke, after two long, hard years of studying (well, not really), we decided to travel for 3 months over the Summer of '99 before we started our jobs at Deloitte in NYC in the Fall of '99. After a few weeks of research and planning, we decided to spend the summer in South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Israel, Greece, Turkey and Switzerland. Throughout the trip, we met up with friends from Fuqua (Tracy, Dave, Danelle, Mark, and Fran) and Keith's friend, Russ, who joined us for certain portions of the trip.
We packed all of our items into each a backpack and with a budget of approximately $100/day, we backpacked around these countries, staying in youth hostels along the way. We had an amazing time, got great tans and gained several pounds after 3 months of eating and drinking.
This portion of the blog covers the Africa part of the trip (which is the first part of the trip) including the countries of South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Egypt. The second part of the trip can be found in the Mediterranean blog and the last part of this trip can be found in the Switzerland/France blog.
Amsterdam
OK, so this is not really Africa but we had a layover in Amsterdam for several hours and decided see a bit of the city. We met with Dave, John, and Julie (who were there for a portion of their trips) for a brief tour of the city.
We visited the Rijks Museum which is a famous art museum and Anne Frank's house. And, of course, it would not be a trip to Amsterdam without a brief walk through the Red Light District. We were quite amused by the fact that you could buy 'brownies' (the kind that make you happy) in almost every coffee shop! After a quick bite to eat (we did not eat the brownies), we said our goodbyes and left for the airport to fly to Cape Town.
South Africa
We arrived in Cape Town and met with Dave and Tracy who traveled with us throughout Southern Africa, Egypt and Israel. During our first afternoon there, we went to a food festival at the Castle of Good Hope where we had some cheap, but yummy food and wine for lunch. We also walked along the waterfront, stopped for an email fix at an internet cafe and then had dinner at Papa Luke's Cantina, a Mexican restaurant.
The following day, we did a tour of the townships with Grass Route Tours where we saw thousands of people living in 'lean-to sheds'. It was quite a humbling experience to see this much poverty. We stopped at one of the community schools where the children sang for us and we met Gordon, who made and sold flowers from aluminum cans. He shared a story with us that he had a vision from God that told him to make these cans. Interestingly, we met someone else a few blocks away who had the same vision and who was making and selling the same aluminum flowers!! Later that day, we drove to the Cape of Good Hope where we say beautiful ocean scenery.
The boys decided that they wanted to swim with sharks. Tracy and Shawna opted out of this, so we went our separate ways. Keith and Dave headed to Gansbaai where they boarded a boat to 'Shark Alley'. They spent a few hours diving in metal cages (which looked like they were made of chicken wire) while sharks swam around them, trying to get into the cages. The guys who ran the boat threw chum into the water to attract the sharks. Because the water was choppy, Keith ended up blowing chunks through his regulator which of course drew the sharks in closer!
While the men were trying to prove their manliness with this insane activity, the girls decided to take in some culture and took a ferry to Robben Island where Mandela was imprisoned. We toured the grounds which included the prison, a leper colony and a military site from WWII. Our tour guide had been in prison there for 5 years so we got to hear stories from an insider. Later that evening, we all met at the hostel, shared our stories from the day, and had dinner at Cafe Bardeli, where we ate tapas.
For our last day in Cape Town, we had planned to go to Table Mountain. However, when we woke up, it was raining so we opted to drive to the Stellenbosch wine region instead. We went wine tasting at a few wineries (including Uitkyk and Sonnsig) - some were good, some not so good. We were amazed at how cheap the wine was! At the Spier Winery, we visited the cheetah preservation where we went into one of the cages and pet one of the cheetahs named Inca. We had an amazing lunch at 96 Winery Road and then went cheese tasting. Back in Cape Town, we all did some laundry and had a light dinner at Cafe Bardeli. We capped the evening with some drumming at the Drum Cafe -- it was a lot of fun but our hands hurt after a while!
Botswana
We flew to Maun to meet with our guide, Jannie, from Thebe River Safaris, who was taking us on a 15-day safari throughout Botswana. Keith was a bit nervous as we had paid for the safari in advance from the US (only $100/day per person which we thought was a great deal) and he had visions that we would show up with no one to greet us. We walked through the crowd and finally found our guide, dressed in the typical khaki attire. We later found out that the guides say that female tourists who have a crush on the guides have 'khaki fever'. He took us to the company's campsite in Maun where we spent one night before we left for one of the parks. We also met, Kilos, who joined us on the safari as the cook and keeper of the campsites. Throughout the safari, we slept in tents and ate at each of the campsites, often having meat (pork, steak or chicken) with vegetables (potatoes, corn, and/or squash). The food was surprisingly good! We also drove in a 4WD truck with bench seating that had a canopy top and was open on the sides for easy viewing of the animals.
We began our safari with a drive to Nxai Pan National Park, known for its salt pans. Along the drive there, we saw wildlife including steinbok, springbok, jackal, ostrich, red-eyed bul bul (which is a type of bird) and pale chanting goshawk (which is another type of bird). Our guide had to tell us to slow down on the picture taking (at this point, we probably had taken about 50 pictures) as we would see plenty of wildlife over the next 14 days. We arrived at our campsite where we planned to spend two nights. Later that day, we went for a sunset drive where we saw guinea fowl, impala, giraffe and the famous cori bastard (only famous because we like saying the name).
The next day was an amazing day as we witnessed a kill! We started the morning early (6am) with a drive to the water hole where we say 4 lionesses and 1 lion on the prowl. Apparently, the lionesses do all of the work while the lion watches. There were many springbok tentatively trying to drink but they did not drink for long since the lions where there. The lions made several failed attempts to kill a springbok until finally they met with success. It was amazing to watch the process, as they slowly slinked toward the water hole, stopping each time a springbok turned it's head. One of the lions crept up on one of the springboks and just as the springbok tried to run away, another lion that was hiding behind a rock, pounced on it and began to suffocate it while the other lions started their feast. It did not take them long to eat the poor animal. Right after this, three elephants showed up so we watched them spray themselves with water.
During our last morning at the Pan, we returned to the water hole to see if we can catch more action. We watched as two of the lions attempted to take down a giraffe. Giraffes are very vulnerable when they are drinking as they have to spread their legs in order to get their mouth to the water! Well, this giraffe lived to see another day -- the lions ran for it but the giraffe outran them. On our drive back to Maun, we stopped to see the famous Baine's Baobob Trees -- these trees are huge and look like they are stuck upside down in the ground.
The next morning, we drove to the Okavonga Delta where we would spend two nights. In town, we picked up George who was supposed to be our boat guide (called head polers) in the Delta but when we arrived at the village in the Delta, we found out that the rules had changed -- the town kept a list of polers who could be hired and they assigned them in the order that they appeared on the list. So, we dumped George (not sure how he got back home) and picked up Foster and Kaiser. We got into 2 makoro boats that had straw at the bottom to cushion our seats (which after a few hours did not feel too much like a cushion) and floated off down the canals of the Delta. We poled for about 3.5 hours along narrow passageways, seeing a hippo (in the water), many elephants along the banks and other wildlife, including otters, iguana, giraffe and birds. After we arrived at our campsite, we went for a short walk where we saw baboons and more elephants.
The next day, we had a few close encounters! After a three hour walk in the morning, we went for a makoro ride in the afternoon and stopped at one point for another walk. Our guide saw vultures flying around so decided that we should go check it out. We walked over a ridge where we came across 9 lionesses feasting on a buffalo -- we were only 12 meters away from them! Our first instinct was to run but our guide (who thankfully was carrying a gun) told us to stop and slowly walk backwards -- apparently, you should never turn your back to a lion! The lions did not seem to be too bothered by us -- they took one look at us and returned to their feast! The saying is true - a bird in the hand is worth more than two in the bush! On the boat ride back to the camp, we got a little too close for comfort to an elephant who was none too pleased with our presence -- the elephant stomped his feat and roared at us. We waited until it walked away and then we continued along our merry way. We capped off this part of the trip with a flight over the Delta -- it was quite cool to see all of the animals from the air and to see how extensive the canal system is.
We spent another night in Maun, got more supplies and then drove to Moremi where we spent 5 nights at various campsites in the park - at Third Bridge, Xakanaxa, and North Gate. In this park, we say kudu, impala, zebra, elephant, giraffe, red lechwe, wildebeest, warthog, hyena, baboon, lion, hippo, crocodile, waterbuck, cheetah and many types of birds (including slender and banded mongoose, white spoonbill, lilac breasted rola, secretary bird and red-billed quelia). On several instances, we saw lions feasting on an animal. We say a film crew for ESPN with someone who looked exactly like Jay Peterman from Seinfeld - we later found out that he was not who we thought but rather a soap opera star who played the evil twin on Loving. We also learned why the tales of warthogs stick up while running -- to avoid dust from getting in their eyes, warthogs squint their eyes while running and since their skin is so tight, it forces the tail to pull up (nothing like a little bit of bush humor)! And, along the way, we experienced a few 'natural' scenes - humping hippos, farting elephants, a zebra with an erection and hippos pooping (which oddly sounds like a bird flapping its wings).
The close encounters with animals continued in this park as well. On two occasions we returned to the campsite to find Kilos hiding (once in the tent and another time in the trailer that we pulled behind the truck that stored all of the supplies) -- lions had come to the campsite to check out the food situation! Almost every evening, we had 'visitors' including lions and elephants who walked through our campsite. And one evening, Tracy and Shawna swore that there were animals in the bushes (we could see red eyes staring back) -- turns out it was a campfire from another campsite!
After Maremi, we drove to Savuti where we spent one night. We saw all of the usual suspects but was also treated with a sighting of roen antelope (which is endangered) and a leopard who was resting next to a kill. We woke up early to find hyenas attempting to steal our food containers (large metal boxes that they were trying to drag away into the woods). Thankfully, our guide caught them and we got our food back. That morning, we climbed Bushman's Painting Rock where we watched the sunrise and saw 300 year old paintings in the rocks.
We then went on to Chobe where we spent two nights, one of which was Shawna's birthday. We stopped along the way to buy birthday cake and champagne to share later that evening. Turns out the birthday cake was hard as a rock so we threw it away only to find a band of monkeys enjoying it the next morning - it was so cute to see their faces covered in icing. We also feasted on the best lamb stew which I swore she would try to replicate but has not done so to this day. Aside from all of the usual animals, we saw buffalo (which made 4 of the big 5 animals on the trip) and sable antelope.
We ended the trip at the Thebe campsite in Kasane where we spent 1 night and met all of Jannie's family. It was here where we celebrated Keith's birthday, feasting on a yummy meal prepared by Jannie's sister and drinking the local beer and doing a few springbok shots (made of Creme de Menthe and Bailey's).
Zimbabwe
Jannie drove us to Victoria Falls where we stayed three nights at the Inyathi Valley Lodge and had planned a few days of adventure. After we said our goodbyes to him, we walked around the falls, getting drenched and also walked around the local market. We spent the next day rafting the Zambezi River with Shearwater Rafting Company (Shawna did not get much sleep the night before, worrying about drowning in the river or worse getting eaten by a crocodile). It was an exhilarating rafting trip, one that we will never forget! We walked down a steep gorge to our put in point which was before rapid #11. When we got to rapid #13 (named the Narrows), we had to get out of our boats and walk around the rapid as it was too dangerous to raft. We later came upon rapid #16 (aptly named the Terminator II) where our boat flipped. We all went flying out with Keith, Dave and Shawna holding on to the rope on the side of the boat while we floated through the rapids. Tracy and our guide were not holding on to the boat so they floated down on their own. Once we got to calmer waters, Keith and Dave got on top of our boat and flipped it. We then got in and rowed over to another boat which had picked up Tracy and our guide. We made it the rest of the way with no more flipping. We later celebrated this day of adrenaline at the Spur Steakhouse in town.
The next day we went micro lighting over the falls. If you have never seen what a microlight looks like, picture a lawn mower with wings!! While Shawna was biting my nails given my fear of heights, she totally enjoyed it. We each took our turn flying over the falls, as the pilot banked the plane several times so we could look straight down over the falls. We met up with Tracy and Dave and walked over to the Zambia side of the falls to see the views from there - quite beautiful. We grabbed lunch at the Victoria Falls Safari Lodge (really nice lodge) and then went on a relaxing 2.5 hour cruise on the Zambezi River. We later celebrated our last night in Zimbabwe with a meat lovers meal at the Pride Rock Carnivore Restaurant where we had our first ostrich, kudu and impala among other grilled meats.
Egypt
Our next adventure was to Egypt where we spent 15 days. Danelle and Russ joined us (including Tracy and Dave) for portions of this leg of the trip. Once we arrived in Cairo, Keith, Russ and Shawna went straight to Luxor while Tracy, Dave and Danelle stayed in Cairo for a few days. In Luxor, we stayed at the Windsor Hotel - we upgraded to a place that had air conditioning (which was much needed) for $30/night! After walking around town, we took a felucca sunset boat ride with Yassar, who proclaimed himself to be the King of the Nile! We were only on the boat for an hour so needless to say we didn't get very far. We later dined on some yummy Egyptian food at the Ali Baba Rooftop Restaurant.
The next day, we spent most of the day at the Valley of the Kings where we almost got arrested - Russ and Keith tried to pass off tickets to get in one person for free and the guards were not too happy. Thankfully, they did not cart us away to jail! While there, we saw Nefertiti's Tomb, 3 tombs at the Valley of the Queens (which we not as impressive), and the tombs of Tuthmosis III, Ramses VI and Septah which were amazing -- we couldn't believe how well preserved they were. We also visited Hathseputt (which was the mother of all temples) and Ramesseum (which was mostly in ruins). It was so flipping hot (aka Africa hot) that we had to cool down at what has got to be the coldest McDonalds on the face of the planet. Later that evening, we went to the sound and light show at the Karnak Temple (yes, it was a cheesy as it sounds). The temple is amazing but the show was over the top with melodramatic narration about the lives of some of the kings who had lived there. We made the best of it, sipping Egyptian wine and munching on wheat thins and cheese whiz (classy, right?). On the way back to the hotel, we caught a ride with Mohammed (a unique name for Egypt!) on his buggy -- well, we got a flat so Mohammed just taped the tire together and kept going -- a mechanics work at its best! Later that night, Dave, Tracy and Danelle met up with us at the hotel.
We returned to the Karnak Temple during the day which was much more impressive than our previous evening's experience. We also visited the Luxor Museum and then took a motor boat over to Banana Island which is a banana plantation. We had the pleasure of meeting Mr Lovely (the captain of the island) whom we watched smoke hashish from a huge bong.
Keith, Russ and Shawna left the gang to fly to Sharm-el-Sheikh, a resort town on the Red Sea, where we spent the next few days diving with the Red Sea Dive College. There were not any 'budget' accommodations in this town so we ended up at the Sanifir in Na'ama Bay. Keith and Russ went out on dives together, while I completed the open water course -- I got certified even though I never quite perfected the buoyancy thing!
After two days of diving, we rented a car and drove to the town of Dhaba (a cute, beach town) and then on to St. Catherine's Monastery where we stayed one night. We got up super early the next day (2am) to start our hike up Mt. Sinai in order to arrive at the summit in time for sunrise. After about 2 hours of hiking, we made it to the top and found a relaxing spot on a rock. As the sun rose, we realized that there were hundreds of people around us so it was not quite a romantic sunrise! We returned to Na'ama Bay for a few more days of diving where Tracy, Dave and Danelle met up with us. We took the advance course to go on deep dives; however, I never made it as my ears were not cooperating below 8 meters -- after seeing a doctor at one of the hotels, it turns out that I had a sinus infection which was blocking one of my ears! Keith completed the advanced course, doing drift dives, deep water drives, wreck dives and even a couple of night dives. While Tracy, Dave and Keith dove, Danelle and Shawna relaxed on the beach for a couple of days and went snorkeling.
We left the gang behind again and took a bus to Alexandria on a quest to see the famous light house there. We arrived to find that not only was the light house no longer there, but the town is nothing to write home about. We walked around the Fort and saw Pompey's Pillar, and the catacombs (which were quite interesting). We did have one funny experience -- we decided to see Blade with Wesley Snipes in the movie theater for $1/person. The Egyptians in the crowd talked through the whole movie (since it had subtitles in Egyptian, I guess they didn't need the sound) and there was construction going on outside of the theater so we never really heard much of the dialog (not that there was much dialog to hear given that it's an action film).
We returned to Cairo for one night and thankfully only one night. The hotel (and we use that word loosely) was disgusting. The halls were dark and dirty and the room was even worse. We toured the city for a day and a half, seeing Muhammed Ali's Mosque at the Citadel, Ibn Tulun Mosque (one of the biggest in the world), and the Cairo Museum where we saw King Tut's exhibit. We also spent about a half a day at the Pyramids in Giza where we saw the Sphinz and climbed into one of the pyramids. The passageway was quite narrow and Keith got claustrophobic (big time), knocking people over as he climbed back out. Of course, it would not be a trip to Cairo without a camel ride (including a turban on the head) and a visit to a carpet factory -- so we obliged. We were skeptical about how many of the carpets were truly made by hand at the carpet factory as they had thousands for sale -- they would have had to start in the era when the pyramids were being built to get that many carpets made!
At the airport in Cairo we went separate ways. Keith had to fly back to the States to attend Deborah and Damian's wedding while Shawna flew to Israel to meet up with Tracy, Dave and Danelle. Keith met up with the gang in Israel a week later. Shawna did not have the best experience at the Cairo airport, as they grilled her with many questions (apparently a single girl traveling alone is suspicious), went through all of her personal items (including reading my journal) and took away my camera, telling her that I could collect it at the airport in Israel -- she really thought I would never see the camera again. The security also escorted her to the gate where I was searched again. With this much security, it's a wonder that terrorists still get away with what they do!
Continue on to our Mediterranean blog for more information about this trip.
For more photos of this leg of the trip:
We packed all of our items into each a backpack and with a budget of approximately $100/day, we backpacked around these countries, staying in youth hostels along the way. We had an amazing time, got great tans and gained several pounds after 3 months of eating and drinking.
This portion of the blog covers the Africa part of the trip (which is the first part of the trip) including the countries of South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Egypt. The second part of the trip can be found in the Mediterranean blog and the last part of this trip can be found in the Switzerland/France blog.
Amsterdam
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| Amsterdam |
We visited the Rijks Museum which is a famous art museum and Anne Frank's house. And, of course, it would not be a trip to Amsterdam without a brief walk through the Red Light District. We were quite amused by the fact that you could buy 'brownies' (the kind that make you happy) in almost every coffee shop! After a quick bite to eat (we did not eat the brownies), we said our goodbyes and left for the airport to fly to Cape Town.
South Africa
We arrived in Cape Town and met with Dave and Tracy who traveled with us throughout Southern Africa, Egypt and Israel. During our first afternoon there, we went to a food festival at the Castle of Good Hope where we had some cheap, but yummy food and wine for lunch. We also walked along the waterfront, stopped for an email fix at an internet cafe and then had dinner at Papa Luke's Cantina, a Mexican restaurant.
The following day, we did a tour of the townships with Grass Route Tours where we saw thousands of people living in 'lean-to sheds'. It was quite a humbling experience to see this much poverty. We stopped at one of the community schools where the children sang for us and we met Gordon, who made and sold flowers from aluminum cans. He shared a story with us that he had a vision from God that told him to make these cans. Interestingly, we met someone else a few blocks away who had the same vision and who was making and selling the same aluminum flowers!! Later that day, we drove to the Cape of Good Hope where we say beautiful ocean scenery.
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| Dave, Tracy, Shawna and Keith Cape of Good Hope |
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| Shark Diving |
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| Table Mountain |
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| Shawna, Keith, Tracy, Dave Spier Winery |
We flew to Maun to meet with our guide, Jannie, from Thebe River Safaris, who was taking us on a 15-day safari throughout Botswana. Keith was a bit nervous as we had paid for the safari in advance from the US (only $100/day per person which we thought was a great deal) and he had visions that we would show up with no one to greet us. We walked through the crowd and finally found our guide, dressed in the typical khaki attire. We later found out that the guides say that female tourists who have a crush on the guides have 'khaki fever'. He took us to the company's campsite in Maun where we spent one night before we left for one of the parks. We also met, Kilos, who joined us on the safari as the cook and keeper of the campsites. Throughout the safari, we slept in tents and ate at each of the campsites, often having meat (pork, steak or chicken) with vegetables (potatoes, corn, and/or squash). The food was surprisingly good! We also drove in a 4WD truck with bench seating that had a canopy top and was open on the sides for easy viewing of the animals.
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| Jannie (Our Guide), Shawna, Tracy, Dave and Keith |
The next day was an amazing day as we witnessed a kill! We started the morning early (6am) with a drive to the water hole where we say 4 lionesses and 1 lion on the prowl. Apparently, the lionesses do all of the work while the lion watches. There were many springbok tentatively trying to drink but they did not drink for long since the lions where there. The lions made several failed attempts to kill a springbok until finally they met with success. It was amazing to watch the process, as they slowly slinked toward the water hole, stopping each time a springbok turned it's head. One of the lions crept up on one of the springboks and just as the springbok tried to run away, another lion that was hiding behind a rock, pounced on it and began to suffocate it while the other lions started their feast. It did not take them long to eat the poor animal. Right after this, three elephants showed up so we watched them spray themselves with water.
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| Elephants |
The next morning, we drove to the Okavonga Delta where we would spend two nights. In town, we picked up George who was supposed to be our boat guide (called head polers) in the Delta but when we arrived at the village in the Delta, we found out that the rules had changed -- the town kept a list of polers who could be hired and they assigned them in the order that they appeared on the list. So, we dumped George (not sure how he got back home) and picked up Foster and Kaiser. We got into 2 makoro boats that had straw at the bottom to cushion our seats (which after a few hours did not feel too much like a cushion) and floated off down the canals of the Delta. We poled for about 3.5 hours along narrow passageways, seeing a hippo (in the water), many elephants along the banks and other wildlife, including otters, iguana, giraffe and birds. After we arrived at our campsite, we went for a short walk where we saw baboons and more elephants.
The next day, we had a few close encounters! After a three hour walk in the morning, we went for a makoro ride in the afternoon and stopped at one point for another walk. Our guide saw vultures flying around so decided that we should go check it out. We walked over a ridge where we came across 9 lionesses feasting on a buffalo -- we were only 12 meters away from them! Our first instinct was to run but our guide (who thankfully was carrying a gun) told us to stop and slowly walk backwards -- apparently, you should never turn your back to a lion! The lions did not seem to be too bothered by us -- they took one look at us and returned to their feast! The saying is true - a bird in the hand is worth more than two in the bush! On the boat ride back to the camp, we got a little too close for comfort to an elephant who was none too pleased with our presence -- the elephant stomped his feat and roared at us. We waited until it walked away and then we continued along our merry way. We capped off this part of the trip with a flight over the Delta -- it was quite cool to see all of the animals from the air and to see how extensive the canal system is.
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| Lion |
The close encounters with animals continued in this park as well. On two occasions we returned to the campsite to find Kilos hiding (once in the tent and another time in the trailer that we pulled behind the truck that stored all of the supplies) -- lions had come to the campsite to check out the food situation! Almost every evening, we had 'visitors' including lions and elephants who walked through our campsite. And one evening, Tracy and Shawna swore that there were animals in the bushes (we could see red eyes staring back) -- turns out it was a campfire from another campsite!
After Maremi, we drove to Savuti where we spent one night. We saw all of the usual suspects but was also treated with a sighting of roen antelope (which is endangered) and a leopard who was resting next to a kill. We woke up early to find hyenas attempting to steal our food containers (large metal boxes that they were trying to drag away into the woods). Thankfully, our guide caught them and we got our food back. That morning, we climbed Bushman's Painting Rock where we watched the sunrise and saw 300 year old paintings in the rocks.
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| Cheetah |
We ended the trip at the Thebe campsite in Kasane where we spent 1 night and met all of Jannie's family. It was here where we celebrated Keith's birthday, feasting on a yummy meal prepared by Jannie's sister and drinking the local beer and doing a few springbok shots (made of Creme de Menthe and Bailey's).
Zimbabwe
Jannie drove us to Victoria Falls where we stayed three nights at the Inyathi Valley Lodge and had planned a few days of adventure. After we said our goodbyes to him, we walked around the falls, getting drenched and also walked around the local market. We spent the next day rafting the Zambezi River with Shearwater Rafting Company (Shawna did not get much sleep the night before, worrying about drowning in the river or worse getting eaten by a crocodile). It was an exhilarating rafting trip, one that we will never forget! We walked down a steep gorge to our put in point which was before rapid #11. When we got to rapid #13 (named the Narrows), we had to get out of our boats and walk around the rapid as it was too dangerous to raft. We later came upon rapid #16 (aptly named the Terminator II) where our boat flipped. We all went flying out with Keith, Dave and Shawna holding on to the rope on the side of the boat while we floated through the rapids. Tracy and our guide were not holding on to the boat so they floated down on their own. Once we got to calmer waters, Keith and Dave got on top of our boat and flipped it. We then got in and rowed over to another boat which had picked up Tracy and our guide. We made it the rest of the way with no more flipping. We later celebrated this day of adrenaline at the Spur Steakhouse in town.
The next day we went micro lighting over the falls. If you have never seen what a microlight looks like, picture a lawn mower with wings!! While Shawna was biting my nails given my fear of heights, she totally enjoyed it. We each took our turn flying over the falls, as the pilot banked the plane several times so we could look straight down over the falls. We met up with Tracy and Dave and walked over to the Zambia side of the falls to see the views from there - quite beautiful. We grabbed lunch at the Victoria Falls Safari Lodge (really nice lodge) and then went on a relaxing 2.5 hour cruise on the Zambezi River. We later celebrated our last night in Zimbabwe with a meat lovers meal at the Pride Rock Carnivore Restaurant where we had our first ostrich, kudu and impala among other grilled meats.
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| Micro Lighting Over the Falls |
Our next adventure was to Egypt where we spent 15 days. Danelle and Russ joined us (including Tracy and Dave) for portions of this leg of the trip. Once we arrived in Cairo, Keith, Russ and Shawna went straight to Luxor while Tracy, Dave and Danelle stayed in Cairo for a few days. In Luxor, we stayed at the Windsor Hotel - we upgraded to a place that had air conditioning (which was much needed) for $30/night! After walking around town, we took a felucca sunset boat ride with Yassar, who proclaimed himself to be the King of the Nile! We were only on the boat for an hour so needless to say we didn't get very far. We later dined on some yummy Egyptian food at the Ali Baba Rooftop Restaurant.
The next day, we spent most of the day at the Valley of the Kings where we almost got arrested - Russ and Keith tried to pass off tickets to get in one person for free and the guards were not too happy. Thankfully, they did not cart us away to jail! While there, we saw Nefertiti's Tomb, 3 tombs at the Valley of the Queens (which we not as impressive), and the tombs of Tuthmosis III, Ramses VI and Septah which were amazing -- we couldn't believe how well preserved they were. We also visited Hathseputt (which was the mother of all temples) and Ramesseum (which was mostly in ruins). It was so flipping hot (aka Africa hot) that we had to cool down at what has got to be the coldest McDonalds on the face of the planet. Later that evening, we went to the sound and light show at the Karnak Temple (yes, it was a cheesy as it sounds). The temple is amazing but the show was over the top with melodramatic narration about the lives of some of the kings who had lived there. We made the best of it, sipping Egyptian wine and munching on wheat thins and cheese whiz (classy, right?). On the way back to the hotel, we caught a ride with Mohammed (a unique name for Egypt!) on his buggy -- well, we got a flat so Mohammed just taped the tire together and kept going -- a mechanics work at its best! Later that night, Dave, Tracy and Danelle met up with us at the hotel.
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| Hathseputt |
Keith, Russ and Shawna left the gang to fly to Sharm-el-Sheikh, a resort town on the Red Sea, where we spent the next few days diving with the Red Sea Dive College. There were not any 'budget' accommodations in this town so we ended up at the Sanifir in Na'ama Bay. Keith and Russ went out on dives together, while I completed the open water course -- I got certified even though I never quite perfected the buoyancy thing!
We left the gang behind again and took a bus to Alexandria on a quest to see the famous light house there. We arrived to find that not only was the light house no longer there, but the town is nothing to write home about. We walked around the Fort and saw Pompey's Pillar, and the catacombs (which were quite interesting). We did have one funny experience -- we decided to see Blade with Wesley Snipes in the movie theater for $1/person. The Egyptians in the crowd talked through the whole movie (since it had subtitles in Egyptian, I guess they didn't need the sound) and there was construction going on outside of the theater so we never really heard much of the dialog (not that there was much dialog to hear given that it's an action film).
We returned to Cairo for one night and thankfully only one night. The hotel (and we use that word loosely) was disgusting. The halls were dark and dirty and the room was even worse. We toured the city for a day and a half, seeing Muhammed Ali's Mosque at the Citadel, Ibn Tulun Mosque (one of the biggest in the world), and the Cairo Museum where we saw King Tut's exhibit. We also spent about a half a day at the Pyramids in Giza where we saw the Sphinz and climbed into one of the pyramids. The passageway was quite narrow and Keith got claustrophobic (big time), knocking people over as he climbed back out. Of course, it would not be a trip to Cairo without a camel ride (including a turban on the head) and a visit to a carpet factory -- so we obliged. We were skeptical about how many of the carpets were truly made by hand at the carpet factory as they had thousands for sale -- they would have had to start in the era when the pyramids were being built to get that many carpets made!
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| Pyramids of Giza |
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| Obligatory Camel Ride |
For more photos of this leg of the trip:
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