Day 1- Arriving In Cape Town

Day 1

I am ready for my frost bite to heal and to get out of this frigid Vermont winter. I am about to board a plane to Cape Town South Africa, where I hear the sun shines like Bob Barker's teeth. Ahhhh. I can't wait. I'm wondering if I'll pick up a South African accent? If I return to the states with a sexy foreign accent, then I'll for sure call it a successful abroad experience.

After a 5 and ½ hour flight from JFK to London, I had to run off the plane to catch my next flight to Cape Town that was departing within 20 minutes. I made it to my gate and began to mentally and physically prepare myself for another, and hard to imagine, 13 hour flight. On the plane, I watched District 9 - 3 times in a row - (it takes place in Johannesburg, SA). I thought this movie might get me even more excited about what to expect in Cape Town, instead it scared me into thinking that I should prolly never leave my room.

Finally I arrived at the airport and was greeted by orientation leaders ( students at the University of Cape Town) named Matt and Tiny. There were already some other American students who had arrived and were waiting in a group. But before leaving the airport I needed to change out of my jeans and into some shorts…sooo hot. (finally!) As I walked out of the airport, my tired/grumpy mood quickly transformed into a large smile on my face. I was so happy to be in warm weather and out of the absurdly bitter cold weather in Middlebury, VT. We packed and squeezed our bags into a small mini bus and then the journey commenced. Side note: I quickly found out that I left my sandals at school in Vermont, so for a while the only beach shoes I had were black crocks. I learned quickly that this does not offer the best first impression to others.

Anywho, our orientation leaders took us to a freshmen dormitory in Rondebosch (a small suburb outside of downtown Cape Town), where we stayed for two days before we moved into our semester living accommodations. After eating some lunch in town at Nando’s, which is the one of the yummiest and finger-licking good barbeque chicken places I’ve been too, the orientation leaders took all of the students who had arrived on a tour of the University of Cape Town campus. The campus is beautiful and expansive. We had to walk up a very steep hill to get from lower campus to upper campus, but there are also busses you can take called Jammies to get around campus. After a long first day, I passed out in my room, but then of course woke up at 5 AM due to some powerful jetlag. This unfortunately happened for the next 6 days.

RIght by the beach boiiii

Today some of the orientation leaders took a bunch of us to a beach called Camps Bay. Fourteen of us squished into a small minibus and made our way over. The beach was beautiful. It was located right next to Table Mountain which is this huge mountain that stretches across a large portion of the city of Cape Town. Anyway, while lying on the beach, I tried to put on a sufficient amount of sunscreen that would keep my pale and pasty Vermont skin from getting burnt. I unfortunately did not ask anyone to put sunscreen on my back, so I was burnt to a crisp. My back has been radiating heat for the past three days. The water at the beach was unbelievably cold, so I didn't spend too much time in it….and I’m really scared of sharks so I didn’t go out too far. I’m prolly gonna have to get rid of that shark phobia if I'm going to enjoy the beaches here. But oh my GAITA, a tourist was literally eaten by a “Dinasaur-sized” Great White Shark last week. THE WHOLE BODY!!!! NOTHING LEFT! Even local South Africans have been freaked out. Damn it...ugh!

While on the beach, many African men came up to us to try and sell us "traditional" African objects. This one guy was trying very hard to sell Rodrigo this fold up table with coasters. He first tried to sell the whole thing for 600 Ran (200 for the table, and 100 for each coaster). Rodrigo was not really giving the guy the time of day, but the vender was relentless. Rodrigo asked the guy if he had hand-crafted the table, and of course the guy said yes. Finally, Rodrigo gave into him and bought this ridiculous coffee table for only 200 Ran. The guy quickly took his money and took off. Rodrigo was pretty satisfied with his purchase until he saw another vender with the same exact table. We also saw Rodrigo’s vender on the street with his friend, and they started laughing at Rodrigo and making fun of him by saying “Hey bru, you want another one of my hand-crafted tables…haha. I’ll hook you up with a good deal…haha.” Rodrigo officially got played. I laughed a lot, and I’m still laughing just a lil bit.

2-4 Roughmoor Rd.-My Home Away From Home

We had a big day today. We moved into the houses that we will be living in for the rest of the semester. Considering that the dorms we were living in were nothing special at all, I was not expecting much. However, 2-4 Roughmoor Rd is a blessing of a house. It is located in a suburb called Mowbray, which I have to say is definitely a little shady. Anyway, our house has an electric gate at the entrance into the front yard (it actually doesn't quite work at the moment, so we have been pulling the gate open and closed for the past 3 days....SAFE :) ). Our front yard smells like a Hawaiin flowers. The property consists of two bungalows that are connected by a courtyard. Each bungalow has 5 massive singles with king sized beds, equipped with two bathrooms (I have been taking cold showers for the past 5 days- I'm used to it now though), a mini stereo system, a small television that gets satellite (but no remote), a nice kitchen with a stove, oven, and 2 refrigerators, a washer and dryer (the washer actually broke and flooded our kitchen with soapy water this morning…so that’s a little bit of a problem).

My room is BIG. I have a large king sized bed that is bigger than my legs and arms wingspan, it has two massive glass windows that lets in a lot of light, a clothing drawer, and an armoire. Unfortunately I have no lights in my bedroom, so at night I have had to use my stone-aged cell phone as a flashlight. Also, ive already killed and spotted about 4-5 cockroaches under my bed... Lucky me.

Speaking of my cell phone by the way, I purchased it on the first day I got to Cape Town. A cell phone company was at our orientation to sell phones and plans to students. I didn’t really understand the cell contract, but I was jetlagged and just wanted a phone so I trusted it would be okay. What they didn’t mention to us was that these cell phones were probably the first cell phones to ever be produced. The phone is from the pre-vibration days. And the sound on my phone is so low that I never know if someone is calling or texting me. I don’t even have snake on my phone to play with during lets say a boring lecture at UCT (kidding mom).

The people living in our house are a cast of characters: Dexter, Brian, Geoff, Leor, Nathan, Brandt, Thomas, Cameron, and Kyle. All from different schools and walks of life, and I'm really excited to get to know them. Especially Brandt, because he has already expressed how much he loves America. God bless him! More to come on this cast of character in later posts.

Btw...I bought myself an old old skate board that has really cool stickers on it. The board must have been made from old drift wood, but i can definitely get around on it. I've only fallen 7 or 8 times so far, and from those times, only 6 were in front of some pretty South African girls. So that's definitely a major success. I bought the board from a store called Replay Sports. Rodrigo and I had originally gone in there looking to buy a long surf board, so I could learn how to surf. However, when we saw that there were no long boards there we asked the owner where we could find boards for beginners...the owner immediately crushed my dreams of becoming a surfer bru when he just began to shake his head and say that there are none in Cape Town to find a board, and that we would never learn how to surf here. Ouch! The guy was a huge wanker.

Clifton Beach and Long Street

Today we went to a beautiful beach about 10 minutes outside of downtown Cape Town. In order to get to the beach we had to take two separate mini buses. Mini buses are the big ‘vans’ that honk and yell at you along the Main rd. It is definitely not an official company that organizes these mini buses. Furthermore, minibuses are not the safest mode of transportation, but definitely the cheapest. It cost 5 Rand (basically 70 cents) to travel 4 miles. While on the first bus, that was basically full, I was already squished next to my friend Charlotte. The bus then stopped to pick up this pretty shady dude and of course he decided to squeeze in right between Charlotte and I. First of all, he smelled just like a fish and was sweating a lot, and had knives and blades hanging from his backpack and was putting deodorant on his hands and was singing/yelling at himself and at the people on the bus. Not the best 10 minutes bus ride of my life. I Purelled my whole body after that.

The beach we went to was called Clifton beach and there are for separate beaches in the area. The first and second beaches (Clifton 1 and 2) are known for the super models that sunbathe there, but unfortunately for me and my eyes there were not many there….darn. Clifton 4 is more of a family beach, where there were surprisingly a lot of pregnant women. We however were on Clifton 3, which was known as the gay beach…needless to say a lot of guys wearing white speedos. After lathering up with a lot of SPF 30 sunscreen, I took a nice dip in the water. It was really hot out, so I thought it would be refreshing to be in the water for a while. As I sprinted from the beach into the water my hopes and dreams of being able to fl0at in the water for a while were crushed. Literally the coldest water I have ever been in. I then proceeded to take a nap in the sun, but after 30 minutes I knew that if I didn’t cover up that I was going be burnt (one again). So I dug a whole for myself and had my friends Steve and Charlotte bury my whole body in sand and then put a hat over my head. Much much better. One of the beach venders found this very entertaining, and he decided to fill a cup up with sea water and then put a couple cubes of dry ice in it to make it steam, and then placed the cup of my stomach. Thanks vender man.

After cleaning the sand off my body, we decided to go on a walk along the beach to this point where you could see along the whole coastline. It was beautiful. The water was bright blue and clear, and we had the best view of the fog racing over the top of table mountain. Along the way we saw some spear fishermen who had just caught some fish, so of course I asked if I could take a photo with the spear and the dead fish. Sexy. At the point overlooking the coastline, I couldn’t help but yelp and scream at the top of my lungs. Its just nice to make loud noises when you can. It was definitely one of the best places I’ve ever been.

I

Trying to get on the Garden Route

February 1, 2010

Before school starts on Friday, February 5, we had about 4 days to do whatever we wanted. So for this 4 day vacation, most of my roommates and Rodrigo, Brooks, and our girl friend Lauren decided to drive up the Garden Route, which is a road trip that you can make that goes from Cape Town to Jeffery’s Bay (which is about 7 hours away) and there are a bunch of activities and beaches that you can check out along the way. We pretty much decided to do this last second, and we didn’t have any type of itinerary to follow. We had a couple of guide books and pamphlets and that’s about it.
Before we could leave however, we needed to find a place to rent cars. So the day that we wanted to leave for the Garden Route, we woke up at 9am planning on picking up the cars from downtown Cape Town at 9:30, sign up for school clubs/activities at 10:30, and then be on the road by 12:00. This obviously did not happen. Rodrigo, Nathan, Slaughterhouse, and I first went to Hertz because we had made reservations to rent a couple of cars. But as we were filling out our paperwork, we realized that the Hertz policy was that you needed to be 23 years old to rent a car. Mistake number 1. We then continued to seek out Budget and Avis to see if they had the same policy, and of course they did. We then found this place called Daddy Long Legs, which was a bar/hotel/spa, but you could also rent cars from them. So we hung out in their lobby for half an hour, drinking free coffee and biscote, until they let us know that they had no cars available. It did not look like we had any chance of making it on the Garden Route, considering we had no car, we ran out of airtime minutes so we really couldn’t contact others to let them know what was happening, and it was getting a little late considering we needed to drive 5 hours to get to our first spot on the trip.

As we were walking to the bus stop to get back to campus, I decided to call this guy who had one day been waiting outside our house with a “party bus” which was decorated with a bunch of licensed plates, a disco ball in the middle of van, and surf boards on top to see if he could take 12 of us on the Garden Route for the week. As I was talking to him however, I realized that this was a little shady because first of all, the guy had been waiting outside of our house looking for someone to talk to….he also gave us a pamphlet that he had drawn and written describing how the party bus was “simply amazing” and how it is “a musical transportation and its a FUN disco on board.”

And the guy looked like an African version of Dog the Bounty Hunter. He described his haircut as the “half bread loaf.” So that obviously didn’t pan out.
Fortunately, when we arrived at the club fair at school, we ran into some of our roommates who had found the number of a local car rental company that would rent their cars out to 21 year olds.

This was at 3:00pm. So after signing up for Yoga, Soccer, Mountain & Hiking Club, and Shawco (a student-run community service organization), we all made it back to the house, packed our bags, took two taxis to the car rental place in Sea Point, and got the cars. I was the one who decided to put the car on my credit card, and it definitely felt like I was signing my life away. Bye life. Anyway, since I can’t drive stick, Rodrigo had to drive the whole way there and the whole way back.
Our first destination was Mossel Bay.

After we drove over the mountains that surround Cape Town, it was open and expansive landscapes for the rest of the trip. It was gorgeous. We saw farmland, vineyards, forests and beach towns. When we arrived in Mossel Bay, we drove to our hostel that was located in Santos Beach. The hostel was literally a train parked on train tracks, but it was located right on the beach. It was definitely a very cool set up.

We fit 3 in each little compartment (I lost Rock, Paper, Shoot…so I had to sleep on the top bunk with the ceiling 8 inches from my head. After we checked in, some of us went for a night walk on the beach and walked through the way warmer water of the Indian Ocean.

Had I known that Mossel Bay was a haven for sharks, I wouldn’t have even got near the water. Anyway, it was very relaxing to watch the waves come in on this little cove…the only word to describe the moment is EPOCH (I use the word EPOCH instead of the word EPIC because the word Epoch is way more epic...).

More to come from this trip on my next post…

Garden Route (Part Dos)

February 2, 2010

This morning we woke up extra early because we wanted to drive to 3 more hours to spend the day at Jeffery’s Bay (a.k.a JBay). Since South African radio is basically non-existent, it was vital that we stopped at an electronic store in order to buy a couple of CDs. The selection was limited, so I ended up buy “This Is It” by Michael Jackson, Jimmy Cliff (reggae), and Now That's What I Call music 53 (NOW 53!!!!- I remember Now 6…way too many Nows…also, I think a better name for those ablums is WOW that what I call music…whatever though). In order to get to JBay, we went through Plattenburgh Bay, Knysa, and Tsitsikama National Park.

Once again, the landscapes were ridiculously gorgeous, and it was very green (lots and lots of pine trees).

JBay is known for the surfing that goes on there. The waves continuously role one after another, which seemed perfect for surfers (I’m guessing because what do I know about surfing?- very little). Anyway, we spent most of our time hanging out on Dolphin beach and playing in the Indian Ocean. We also rented some surf boards just to say that we had been surfing in JBay…no big deal. I got up the first two times I tried, which I was really impressed with, but then I didn’t get up for the next hour and a half. I also wasn’t catching the good waves either because I was too scared to go farther out from shore because I thought that the farther out I was, the higher chance that I’d be attacked by a shark (that's just a fact!). My own version of survival of the fittest…as long as there is someone farther out than me, I’ll be fine—that person is gonna get eaten and not me.

While chilling on the beach, we watched these little kids play fighting for about an hour, so I had to take some photos of them. They were super funny and very entertaining. Being on the beach and playing in the waves is soooooo much fun. Way better than playing in the Vermont snow!

We then went to this surf spot called Super Tubes, where there are much bigger waves, and way better surfers. So we watched the surfers for a while on top of a deck on the beach that was a prime viewing area.

We also saw this pretty funny sign just outside the viewing deck area at Super Tubes...made me giggle. Silly peguins.

At JBay we stayed at a hostel called JBay Backpackers. The hostel was basically empty, all 12 of us were able to stay in the one room with 13 beds in it.

That night, we ended up going to another hostel where some of our other friends were staying. This hostel was located right on the beach, and had its own big bar area with pool, foosball, and couches.

I actually ended up running into my friend Louis, who is really good friends with my roommate Carson back at Middlebury. I played pool with him against some South Africans, and once again I made no balls and we were slaughtered and embarrassed.

The next post will describe an unbelievable day, so definitely check soon to find out what I did the following day. EPOCHNESS! (this word is gonna catch on... you'll see).

Bungee Jumping and Hiking on Garden Route (part III)

February 3, 2010

I woke up this morning with butterflies in my stomach. Today we were planned to go bungee jump off the largest bungee jump bridge in the whole entire world.

Holy fuck! The sight of the jump is called FACE ADRENALIN….that is an understatement. It’s more like FACE YOUR DEATH and TRY NOT TO SOIL YOUR PANTS! On the side of the bridge, there was an area where you could watch other people jump off the bridge and a bar with a TV in it so you could have drinks and watch other people’s live emotions and fears before they jump, and then you can watch the jump as well.

It’s such a trip watching people in the most vulnerable state…jumping off a large bridge and free falling for 216 meters is NOT NORMAL. People are not supposed to jump off bridges that high and live to talk about it.

After we registered and put on our safety harnesses, we walked down a path to one base of the bridge. Along side the bridge, there was a metal grate rickety bridge that you have to walk on in order to get to the center of the bridge, which is the jumping spot. The thing about a grate bridge is that the floor of the bridge has holes in it, so you are able to look through the ground and see how far below the earth is from your feet.

And every time you stepped on the grate, it would give in to the weight of your body and the floor would sink a bit. Damn it damn it damn it. As I walked about a good 130 yards across the bridge, I didn’t look down once….not never…no way no how. I literally kept my head up and my eyes focused on the nets to the side of me. I knew that if I looked down, I would flip a shit and run away. The walk across felt like an eternity. It was very hard for me to control the volume of my voice too because my heart was racing so fast and adrenaline was already pumping.

When we got to the middle of the bridge, there was a whole team of workers hanging out, laughing, and welcoming us. I bet the workers have the most tiring job because they have to make sure that the energy level is high all the time. So in order to do this, they bump the loudest techno music that I have heard, which not only took my mind of what I was about to do, but it also allowed me to have a dance party on top of a bridge…word, because I love dance parties. I think it is also important to make the music as loud as possible because it prevents people from hearing the deathly screams coming from bungee jumpers. It would be a miserable experience if the environment was quiet, which would freak the shit out of everyone.

I had to watch about 8 people go before me, and every single time I saw a person jump my heart stopped,

and it made me think how stupid I was to do what I was about to do. Anyway, when they called my name to go I was in the middle of a practicing some dance moves because I decided that I would dance all the way to the bottom of the jump. They strapped my ankle together, told me how SAFE it was, and then slowly but surely made me hop to edge of the plank. Before I jumped I did a little bit of a thizz face dance move just to prepare myself for the worst. As I got to the edge I looked down…my smile immediately turned into a blank stare of death.

One of the scariest moments apart from the jump was when the workers through the bungee cord off the side of the bridge and the weight of the cord tightened against my ankles. Before I knew it, I heard the workers, who were holding my back, say “5-4-3-2-1- BUNGEE!!!!!” I think just for a little help they push you off the edge, but I took a leap of faith and did a nice swan dive down towards the earth.

The feeling is nothing like I’ve ever felt before. For a long 5 seconds, I thought I was going to die. I screamed so much that I was physically unable to scream anymore….my body rushed to the ground cruising through the wind at 150 km/hr. NOT NORMAL.

Right as I thought my life was done, the bungee cord caught, and it was literally the best feeling of my life. But then I bounced half way to the top of the bridge again, and went for another free fall of about 2.5 seconds. As the bouncing stopped I just hung there spinning around and yelling “YAHHHHH BUDDDDDY!!!!!”….nobody could here me except for me.

It was so peaceful to be hanging up side down, and looking at an amazing view of the valley and the ocean. Since I was spinning, the all of these images were mixed together, and the earth turned into an EPOCH surrealist painting. When I got back up to the top, I gave all of my buddies a big HUG, and jumped up and down for a while. I walked back across the rickety bridge with no fear of looking down anymore, got back to land, went to the company bar, and drank the tastiest, most satisfying beer of my life. YAH BUDDY!

The rest of the day can’t really compare to the emotions of the morning,

but we went on a really beautiful hike along the sea coast in Tsitsikama National Park to a natural waterfall and a fresh water swimming hole. We had a picnic consisting of cheese and crackers, nuts, and ostrich jerky.

What a day, South Africa is amazing. Should I come back to the States? By the way, Rodrigo bought a safari hat, and he has been wearing it everywhere....he's the first mexican crocodile dundee.

Mid-term Road Trip Namibia 2010- Orange River- Part I

So for my mid-term break, my friends and I decided that we wanted to do a fatty road trip from Cape Town through Namibia. Usually when I am going on a trip with my friends, I let them figure out all of the details of the trip (i.e. where we want to go, what accommodations to book, activities to do) because I like being lazy and I like it when other people do the dirty work. But, since nobody was really stepping up to the plate to plan the trip, I decided that I would wing it and make a full itinerary for the road trip. I designated myself EL CAPPYTAN of the trip. This process was the biggest pain in my butt cheeks because to be honest, there is very little info on the tourist attractions and roads in Namibia. You have no idea how many companies I phoned (South African for “called”) and e-mailed to figured out camping and hostel accommodations. I knew it would take me forever to plan the trip, so I started about 3-4 weeks before we planned to leave.

So it was up to me to plan a trip for 12 Americans and 5 Norwegians (who came for half of the trip). I will leave out all of the ridiculous and stressful drama that occurred, but the best part of the planning process was collecting 1850 Rand cash from everyone for a rafting trip, and then driving to the company (FELIX UNITE) in Cape Town with about 26,000 Rand in two zip locked bags. To tell you the truth, I wanted to make it rain on the employees of Felix Unite before they counted the money, but I decided not to because I didn’t think it would be appropriate.

Anyway, after finally making a glorious itinerary, and after booking 3 cars, we packed up and hit the road on March 19 to make a 7 hour trek up to Vioolsdrift, which is 10 minutes past the border of Namibia. Btw, most of the guys on the trip bought orange or red turbans/scarves to wrap around our face and head to protect us from the disgustingly hot dessert sun. (btw, thats a cigar

As El Cappytan, I decided that it would be helpful if I printed out the itinerary and directions to our first location for each car… the directions that I stapled to the front of the page were pretty self explanatory… “get on the N1 highway, then the N7 highway, and take that all the way to the Namibian border.” Easy right?? False. After driving for about 3 hours, I get a call from one of the other cars caravanning with us, this is how our conversation went… “Lost Car/ Brooks: Um, haha, Harrison…I think we went the wrong way. Are we supposed to be on the N1? Me: Uhhh…Nope. Lost car: We fucked up…what should we do? Me: HAH. I wish you all the luck in the world. See you in 12 hours. Lost car: Werd.” They had to drive all the way back to Cape Town, and then make the 7 hour trek. The other car, who was about a half hour ahead of us arrived at the border first. When my car arrived, they had just finished all of the paperwork necessary to cross into Namibia, but we met them as we were entering the Namibian border, and they were driving back across to South Africa. Rodrigo,

who was the driver of the other car, suggested with his brilliant direction interpretation skills, that the Felix Unite rafting company based out of Namibia on the Orange River was located back in South Africa….don’t really get that logic. (btw, Rodrigo may have the worst sense of direction I have ever met. He barely knows out to get out of a parking lot). Anyway, after filling out the necessary paperwork to cross the border (which seemed unnecessary because nobody was there to stop us from driving through. I could have easily been smuggling humans and drugs and weapons across that border.

As I am about to get back in the car, I get a distressed call from Rodrigo: Rodrigo: Harrison, Harrison….we’re lost man. It’s dark, and I think we are going to run out of gas. You have to help me. Me: Haha. You sound like a sissy. Rodrigo: This isn’t funny man! Give me the number for Felix Unite. Me: You’ll be fine. The number is on the itinerary. Stop freaking out pendejo. Rodrigo: Oh. We may be in trouble man….wah wah wah wah wah!” I added the ‘wah wah’ part from dramatic effect.

So after a long drive consisting of making Top 10 lists of Sluttiest Celebrities, Cape Town Night Clubs, Sex Positions, and Top 10 moments of the car ride, and singing acapella (which I of course led), we all arrived the beautiful base lodge along the Orange River. When we arrived, our guides were waiting for us with a nice fatty dinner. YUM YUM IN MY TUM! LEGIT. The first night, we all spread out our tarps, got in our sleeping bags, and fell asleep under the largest and brightest sky with the most stars that I have ever seen. Not bad…not bad. Harrison was winning.

The next morning, we all woke up at sunrise, and immediately began to pack our coolers with drinks, and put all of our clothes we needed and sleeping material in one and half buckets. Our guides, Sean, Johnny, and Heinus (nobody could ever remember his name though), all hailed from different spots around Namibia. They were the nicest people and took safety a little too serious. They would make us get in single file line with our canoes if there was a slight ripple in the water…kinda funny, but more ridiculous.

The Orange River splits the border between South Africa and Namibia. So some nights we would sleep in South Africa and other nights in Namibia. The river is very wide and relatively slow, and it lies between a valley of huge mountains that have an orange hue to them. In the mornings, the reflection of the mountains on the river made the water look bright orange. Not a bad way to wake up. I’d fall asleep under the cluster-blob of stars, and then wake up with the sun to see the brilliant orange reflection in the river.

Instead of writing a massive description the things I did on the river, I will type out my notes that I wrote down in my journal to give the basic gist of the trip:

Day 1 on River:

- guides think we are useless

- Smoked a cigar and drank a beer for my first rapid in the Orange River

- Guides have made the best food I have had in Cape Town. (* I am still craving a Felix Unite tuna fish sandwich meal….grublicious to my face)

- Got to the first campsite. Hiked up mountain peek to get a view of the valley. Unreal!

- Hot as Balls!

- Norwegians are funny and great paddlers. Strong arms and shoulders. Can’t really understand them too well.

- Saw wild goats on the river bank. Tried to touch/feed them, they didn’t like me.

- I had a very uncomfortable sleep because I slept uphill and in the sand because the Norwegians took my tarp.

- my hair is beginning to dread…Legit!

- I tried defending the US foreign policy at the campfire tonight, and I lost to a Norwegian political science major who said the USA was messing up. I tried making up some thoughtful insight, but I had no idea what I was saying…sorry America.

Day 2 on River:

- woke up early under the stars. Found a scorpion under Nathan’s sleeping mat. That made me laugh uncomfortably.

- French toast breakfast. Are you kidding me? I’ll live on the side of the river for ever.

- went on a hike to the top of a mountain where there was an old diamond mine. We collected fluoride rocks to throw into the campfire later, to watch them glow and explode.

- Still hot as balls. I need to skinny dip soon :)

- We floated down the river in the water, and we were able to drink beer while floating in our life vest. So relaxing. I put my life vest on as a diaper in order to make me more buoyant.

We played balance wars on the ends of the canoes….i lost to a couple of Norwegians.

- Got to the campsite, and heard baboons barking at us. I’m not scared…maybe a lil bit.

- Had an unbelievably fun campfire. We played boom-chicka-boom, which is a call and response game that I led. We sang African, Norwegian, and American campfire songs.

We played the natural beat game where everyone has to build off other peoples sounds. We danced to song melodies that we were mixing together.

Day 3 on the river:

- Woke up throughout the night to look at stars. Most of the constellations that I saw, I had never seen before.

- Early morning swim.

- Dug a hole with a shovel (shovels name is Lulu) in a location that looked over the river. Best place to take care of business.

- left our campsite, did one rapid, in which one of the Norwegian girls’ boats flipped, and then we floated in the river for about 2 hours…just swimming from boat to boat.

- arrived at our final campsite at around 2 pm. We were able to do a swim-it-yourself rapid. I tried setting it up so we could all go down in a line holding one another, but I ended up leading us into a bunch of rocks….my bad.

- Today is literally the hottest day of my life. We have been roasting in the sun for way too long. I feel like God just turned on the oven and his pre-heating us. Everyone is taking a nap in the little bits of shade on this island. The sand will literally scorch your feet.

- went to cool off in the river, with baboons chilling and barking on the other side of the bank. Tried to sling shot some food to them, but was unsuccessful.

- Mountains now look green and are never ending

- Delicious burgers for dinner

- The American men on the trip challenged the Norwegian women to a wrestling match. We told them it would be equivalent to the Olympics so that they would get competitive. Norwegians love the Olympics. Norwegians gathered together and started to pump each other up, but they were whispering in Norwegian. Um….Americans don’t speak Norwegian, so there was no need to whisper. 1

In the final wrestling match, which was Dexter matched up against all five Norwegian girls- the Norwegians ended up winning, but not before Dexter acidently pushed one of the girls’ head into the ground and injured her. Johnny, our guide, came to help and explained in the simplest terms possible that it was not safe for boys to fight girls. This is his direct quote: “Women is women, boy is boy.” LEGIT! Words of wisdom from the men of all men.

- The next morning, we had one more float down the river, and drove back to our cars. The rest of the trip will be described in my next posts. That was only 4 days of my trip, I was gone for 10 days. What other adventures will I have???