Things that suck: getting an email from your server host telling you your site has been compromised and they are suspending your site WHILE YOU ARE IN AFRICA AND IN NO POSITION TO DEAL WITH IT. Things are back running but everything might look a little weird till I get back to America.
Tag Archive for 'sothisisafrica'
(note: just got access to an internet connection so I’ll write up a couple stories from what we’ve been up to since my last entry)
Our last night in Maputo, Mozambique me, the Old Man (still without luggage), Turtle and Bdiddy went to the Casino Polana to try out our gambling luck. I have now gambled in London, Lake Tahoe, Atlantic City, the Bahamas, Las Vegas and Mozambique. Unlike all those other places though I left the Casino Polana a winner. The Old Man spotted each of us a hundred bone (Turtle refused to play and pocketed hers) and I managed to turn that into 355 at the black jack tables. Go me.
The blackjack experience was some what marred by the presence of two very drunk, very racist Australians (again pardon all spelling mistakes) but, since I was winning, I still enjoyed myself. Bdiddy and the Old Man both won about 50 bucks so everyone left happy (this money would later become important, as I detail in my next entry)
After the casino we went over to a nightclub right next door called “Coconuts”. Merrit and her husband met there 10 years ago. At the time it was called “Mini Golf” and Merritt and her husband still refer to it as such. It was only after we expressed confusion as to why she would want to play putt putt golf at 12 at night did she explain what it really was.
Anyway when we got there at 11:30 on a Saturday night the place was empty. Except for two older English gentlemen who were accompanied by two, uh, “ladies of the night”. After a drink we went back to the hotel so we could sleep up for the flight to Joburg where we would catch a flight to Zambia where we would then drive in to Zimbabwe. More to come.
Hello again from the Polana Hotel in Maputo, Mozambique. As I write I’m sitting by the quite nice pool area which also happens to overlook the Indian Ocean (I think, I’m iffy on the geography of Africa). We returned yesterday from our stay at the beach house and are staying in the hotel till 7 am tomorrow morning when we take a flight to some where else, I think Victoria Falls but that may or may not be correct.
Here’s what’s been going on since the last update (I should note that I’m not using Firefox right now and so there is no automatic spell check so you get to see how bad a speller I am in all its glory):
Getting to the beach was a bit of a process. The beach house is a 5 hour drive from Maputo and we left in two cars, one an SUV holding the “adults” and the other a Nissan minibus holding the “kids”. By some outrageous misfortune I was trapped on the latter vehicle. In the minibus were myself, my three sisters, Z (10 year old daughter of Lesley’s best friend), and Tor and Julieana (8 and 11 year old children of Merret). Oh and also the driver, a woman who didnt speak English (everyone here speaks Porteguese) and her teenage son, who got the front seat. This was not a particularly enjoyable situation for anyone.
Things were not helped along by the fact that the entire ride the driver’s son (or maybe the driver, hell if I know) blared rap music. I enjoy 50 Cent, Akon and Young Jeezy as much as the next guy but listening to them at a high volume for 5 hours bumping around in a van through the African country side (oh, did I mention our ride lacked air conditioning? Because it did. Windows people, windows) is not an ideal way to travel. I do not recommend it, even if you are traveling to your African beach house.
I guess now would be a good time to clarify what I mean when I say “the beach house”. My stepmom owns a beach house in Mozambique, this is the house we were traveling to. Now I have since learned that Mozambique is a pretty socialist country, all the land is owned by the government but you can sign 100 year leases for it. Also, if you build a house you own that (but still not that land). I first became aware of this when we were driving around Maputo on roads called “Vladmir Lenin Ave” and “Ho Chi Min Ave” (both real roads). They love their communists here. Anyway, my stepmom owns a beach house and thats where we were going.
Eventually we got to the beach house and settled in. Its a rather nice place and there are other little houses right around it, all built, I believe, by a nice man named Chris. Chris and his family were staying at a house right behindish ours. Chris has two kids. One is Maj (pronounced “my”), age 6, might be the cutest little girl I’ve ever seen. Even better is her accent. It was fantastic listening to her talk. The other is Rio, age 8, who seemed fine and mostly hung out with Tor the whole time we were there. Also along for the ride was Lucy, Maj’s dog, that was a Jack Russell and some other dog mix and quite cute.
As is my wont I spent the first day at the beach getting as badly sunburned as possible. I used my prefered technique which is to apply sun tan lotion to all the areas I can reach and then leave it at that. Hence, the vast majority of my back was burnt to a nice crisp. Mission Accomplished. I didnt spend much time at the beach after that (since I dont generally like the whole beach experience anyway) but at least when the peeling is all over I’ll have a nice tan.
The second night things got interesting. The winds outside picked up and by picked up I mean got to like 100 miles an hour. I’ve never experienced such a thing. I was fairly certain the roof was going to blow off or at the very least the large window right next to the couch I was sleeping was going to explode, showering glass upon my sleeping, helpless body. The whole house was shaking, not a pleasent experience. Lesley even got motion sickeness from the whole thing and ended up in bed all the next day feeling like shit. It was not a good time.
There’s really nothing else of note I can remember about the beach. I watched the Departed on DVD (it was good but not great), we played a ton of Gin (including a convaluted family tournament that we never finished) and read a lot. I did see a wild monkey once but only briefly. The weather wasn’t great (too windy) but everyone who wanted a tan (or a sunburn) got one. Tried to go running on the beach a couple times but it wasn’t very good.
We got back to Maputo yesterday night (we got back the same way we got there, same minibus and everything) and went out to dinner at a nice place that apparently one of Merrit’s friends owns. This was all fine but the real exciting part was after dinner, on the drive home. We got stopped at our very first African police roadblock! This wasn’t quite so random as a couple we ate dinner with had warned us about it (including telling us a story of how the car in front of them hadn’t stopped and the police shot at them. Exciting!) but it was still fun. The officer was very nice and apparently wanted us to bribe him with coffee to let us pass. I’m not making that up either. During the actual conversation I couldn’t quite understand what was happening (my Portugese to Spanish to English skills are sadly lacking) but Merritt, who was driving, explained what he had been saying when it was over. He really did just want us to buy him a coffee in leiu of money. It was very odd. Eventually let us go without any coffee (which we didnt have and I’m not sure how we were supposed to obtain anyway) changing hands.
In other news, the Old Man still doesn’t have his bag (apparently its still in the US and will not be joining us on the vacation) so he’s been wearing the same shirt (or no shirt) and alternating between the same pair of jeans and a pair of shorts/bathing suit. Lord knows what he’s been doing for underwear as I’m the only other male here and he hasn’t asked to borrow any of mine (not that I’d give him any any way). Perhaps this is what they mean by “roughing it”.
As I believe I mentioned, tomorrow we have a 7 AM flight to some where else in Africa. I believe at some point we’ll be going bungey jumping but I dont know when that might be. Also going to a game reserve and something else. No idea what internet availabilty is going to look like but I’ll try to check in when I can.
Travel Scorecard:
Games of Gin Played: 1,000+
Monkeys Seen: 1
Mozambique police seeking bribes: 1
Hippo Attacks: 0
Books Read: 4
Why hello there. Where are you right now? Me? Oh, I’m chillin in Maputo, Mozambique at the Polana Serena Hotel. Thats right, after 20 hours of travel we have arrived at our first destination. Everything has gone according to plan….except that the Old Man’s bags never showed up from the D.C. to South Africa flight, so he’s got no clothing. Sucks to be that guy. Especially since his malaria pills were in there.
The 15 hour flight wasn’t so bad. After getting excited about the quality of movies offered it turned out the whole system was broken. I eventually got to watch Spiderman 3 but that was it. Did get about 8 hours of sleep though, which was nice. Turtle claims she only slept for 3 hours, but she made fun of me for wearing the sleepmask the airlines offered so forget her (she wouldn’t turn off her reading light, it was bright, sue me). It is a little weird watching a 3 hour movie and realizing that you still have 12 hours of flying left. Oddly I didn’t even finish a book (though several articles) but I’ve got plenty of time to read coming up.
I did manage to use the same Harry Potter joke approx. 45 times though, Turtle started Potter on the flight and I kept pretending to ruin the ending. She’s finished it now though and is giving the book to J Bear to read. We were going to rip the last 100 pages out and not tell her, see if she figured it out, but I can’t stand to see a book harmed in such a manner, so that was out.
We brought a ton, I mean a ton, of candy with us. As insight for how our family opperates, it seems each of us went shopping (though mine was kindly done for me) for stuff to bring on the flight and so we brought 10 bags of gummie bears (for realz), 5 giant bags of skittles and a bag of mini- Milky Ways, plus other crap. Eat health, thats our motto.
We stayed the night at a quite nice hotel in Maputo but in 30 minutes we leave for the beach house for I think a week. No internet connection there, sadly. So far there’s been nothing out of the ordinary but I hear there are tons of monkeys running around at the beach. Should be interesting. Weather’s a lot colder then I would have thought but I think we packed alright for that. Alright I’ve gots to run, perhaps I’ll be back in about a week or so, who knows?
Trip Scorecard:
Books Read: 1
Movies seen: 1
International Incidents: 0
Hippo attacks: 0
Bags Lost: 1 (dad’s, so doesn’t matter)
Thanks to pre-scheduled posting, when this little message arrives on the internets I’ll have taken off from Dulles, on my way to South Africa. I can’t wait for this 15 hour flight. I’ll try to give updates here when possible, particularly if one of us is eaten by a lion or causes an international incident. Oh, and if you should feel a moment of deep sadness while I’m gone, its because I got eaten by a hippo (yeah I’ve used that line on several people, sue me).
Programming note: I’ve scheduled some other posts to go up next week even if I dont have the internets so don’t stay away because you think nothing new will be up.
Despite my previous entry, I just went out and bought $150 worth of books for the trip. Oh well. Still have a lot of articles printed out that I’ll be bringing along anyway. Other news of note, finally got my malaria pills, just took the first one now. So far no side effects.
Previously:
Vol. 1
As some may know I am leaving for Africa on Saturday. Its a two week trip, though chances are high I could die at any moment. Anyway I’ve decided to do something of a chronicle of the whole thing as really, how many chances do you get to go to Africa? This series will be known as “So this is Africa” for two reasons: 1) I think it sounds funny and appropriately awkward and 2) I did an IMDB search for “Africa” for inspiration and this was the best I could come up with.
Currently I am in the almost ready to think about packing stage of packing. I’ve gotten my shots (though haven’t gotten my malaria pills. oops) and thats about it. In considering my packing my biggest thought/desire is that I do not want to bring a lot of stuff over. I always, always over pack but not this trip, no sir. I’m bringing one backpack and one medium-sized bag and thats it.
The biggest problem with this dedication to packing light is not clothes selection but reading material. I like to read books. On a trip like this I imagine, in between avoiding death by hippo, there is going to be plenty of reading time. On the soul-numbing 15 hour flight over there in particular I’m going to want things to read. But books take up a lot of space and are heavy and once you are done with them they are just dead weight to be carried around. Thats no good, I cant bring 20 books with me over there and then drag them all over the place.
Inspired by my friend The Mexcian I think I’ve come up with a decent solution: printing out articles. I’ve long bookmarked various articles and things that I’ve been meaning to read but for one reason or another just haven’t, this trip could be the perfect way to clear out some of that backlog. Here are some pro’s and con’s of this strategy:
Pro:
- When I finish reading I can discard the printouts, saving me from having to carry them all over the place.
- I can catch up on my way too large articles backlog
- Articles can be nice to read because they are like little short stories, you dont need to put in a huge time commitment.
- If I am in dire need of kindling in the wilderness I will have lots of things that are easy to burn.
Con:
- At the beginning of the trip I’ll be carrying quite a lot of paper
- This is obviously very bad for Earth. I’m going to be printing out a lot of paper and then just throwing it away. I’ll recycle when I can but even still. Bad karma, at the least.
- I’m not sure what the printing limits are here at work but I imagine I’m fairly close to them.
I have two and 1/2 office days before departure and I’m printing off an average of 4 articles a day. Throw in a couple choice books and I could be good to go. Stay tuned for the next “So this is Africa”.