I'm from America. You know which one.

I might as well have the United States flag tattooed on my forehead because 99% of the time people correctly guess right off the bat that I’m American.  I always ask how they know this and I’m told it’s because of the way I dress (bedazzled stretch pants?), my accent (strong pronunciation of the letter R) and/or choice of vocabulary (use of the word ‘totally,’ etc). Otherwise, if I’m just asked “where are you from?” in general, I always reply with, “I’m from the US; from California.”  There are specific reasons I have chosen this particular wording, based on a series of trial and error:

A) I do not just say “I’m from America” due to the fact that I will open myself up to getting shit from people who will say, “well, there are a lot of Americas – North, Central, South – do you think the United States encompasses all of the Americas?” To which I would like to respond by Stooge-poking them in the eyeballs.
B) I do not just say, “I’m from the US.”  This will then elicit a knowing eye-roll and a “no-shit” expression being that this is apparently obvious.  They will then follow this up with the comment, “right, but what state?”
C) I do not just say, “I’m from California.”  This invites more shit-lashing in that people from the US are apparently so proud that they don’t even need to specify their country of origin before jumping right to their state.

Hence, I avoid all of the above by detailing my birthplace as previously described.  However, I have gotten shit for this as well in that I’m being overly descriptive.  So if the international community could please come up with a non-offensive way to describe where we “United States of Americaners” are from, I would love to know so that I may comply with your standards. 

Actually, scratch that.  I'm going to revert back to "I'm from America."  You clearly know which America I'm talking about.  Deal with it.

Race to the Border

Ok, so after a bit of wild goose chasing I found out that Lesotho no longer has the authority to issue visas or visa extensions for South Africa.  I mean, I could have probably done a bit of bribing and spent a day or two hanging out at the border making phone calls to the US Embassy in Pretoria to get them to convince South African Home Affairs to let me stay in SA longer, but that would have been ridiculous.  I have no urgent or valid reason to stay in SA longer other than "I want to."  Which sucks because that means I only got to spend 4 hours on the edge of Lesotho vs. 4 days traveling throughout.  Argh, Lesotho looked so cool and different from the rest of Africa, too, I really wanted to check it out.

Anyway, I have 2 days to get out of SA, so am booking it to Swaziland and/or Mozambique.  So far everything is going super smoothly as I got a ride from some Germans to the nearest town of Underberg where I got the last spot on the minibus to Pietermaritzburg where I transferred to a Durban minibus where I made 2 other bus transfers and made it back to the Happy Hippo backpackers by 2pm.  The whole trip only took about 4 hours!  Seeing as though I was expecting to wait for 2-3 hours in Underberg for the PMB minibus to fill up before it left, I'd say the universe is on my side today!

Tomorrow is my only shot to get out of SA before my visa expires since the 1 long-distance bus that runs from Durban to Swazi/Mozi goes on Fri, Sun and Wed.  Tomorrow is Fri and Sun is too late.  Assuming all goes well, South Africa's doors will just barely be hitting me on my way out.

Bye, SA! Love you!

(Riding a minibus with 18 of my closest friends)

Pushing My Luck

Illegal alien
So I have 9 days left on my South African visa before I become an illegal alien.  If I overstay my welcome I’m going to be fined something like $300-400.  I’ve been taking my sweet ass time up the coast and loving every second of it, but didn’t really take into account the fact that 9 days isn’t enough to cover everything I wanted to do along the South Coast and in the Drakensberg Mountains.  

You used to be able to cross into Lesotho or Swaziland and get an extra 90 days, but this is no longer the case since everyone was abusing the system.  Word on the street is now you get anywhere from 0-30 days maximum.  Most likely 7, though, but no guarantees.  I guess it all hinges on your groveling and/or bribing abilities.  And surely if you look like Shakira that couldn’t hurt, either.

Shark bait
Perhaps a more risky endeavor to be pushing my luck with is the dive I’m to do tomorrow.  I will be entering the water sans cage with scores of Oceanic Blacktip sharks as well as Tiger and perhaps Bull sharks. Aliwal Shoal is one of the few places in the world that offers diving with Tiger sharks, and I am crossing my fingers that we see some tomorrow!  Even just 1 would be awesome!  Regardless, there are supposed to be somewhere between 20-30 Blacktips around, which will be rad in itself!

Nice knowing y’all…


**UPDATE**
Best dive EVER!!! Scores of Blacktips, 6 Tigers and 1 huge Bull shark!!
Click here to check out the vid on YouTube!
 

Do I Really Have to Leave?

What I find funny looking back through my blog is that I’ve posted fewer entries in South Africa than I did in Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, etc.  Which, given the fact that I have had way more access to reliable and sometimes free wifi here in SA, is totally unacceptable!  My only explanation for this is that I’ve been having the time of my life and can’t peel myself away long enough to sit in front of my computer for hours to write updates about it.

That said, I can’t even begin to explain the feeling I get when I look back on my blog entries, photos and videos.  When people ask me how long I’ve been traveling and the words “six months” comes out of my mouth, I can hardly believe my own ears.  Not to mention I have another six months ahead of me.  It’s a daunting thought. 

My time in South Africa is nearing an end and I am really going to miss this place.  Travel here is super easy and I have had most of the comforts from home afforded to me, which has been a welcome respite from the 3rd world ruggedness sandwiched on either end….of course, that is aside from the fact that I’ve been camping sans mattress, when I do book a room I share with 5-9 other people, and I am 100% reliant on the Baz Bus and Coast to Coast guides.

I couldn’t have planned it better, really, since roughing it in developing nations is nothing short of “an experience.”  You certainly learn a hell of a lot about local culture, customs and yourself.  You don’t travel to the 3rd world for a vacation.  You go to test your limits and to venture into the unknown.  You experience things most people never will and you will be mentally, emotionally and physically moved beyond anything you could have anticipated. This is not to slight my experiences in South Africa, but I can’t say the same about traveling amongst throngs of other 20-something backpackers, all of whom are on the same track as me.  It’s the same concept as taking an overland tour.  You have a great time, but ultimately you are just stuck in a bubble with a bunch of other Western tourists.  I won’t get into that now, though.

Anyway, I am so looking forward to hurling myself back into the hectic, disorderly, dirty, disheveled 3rd world, but not without appreciating the time I’ve spent in SA.  I have had so many memorable experiences here and have met the most amazing people.  Locals and other travelers alike.

That said, South Africa at the core is a 3rd world country with many 1st world enclaves throughout.  The majority of SA is as poor and rugged as many other African nations once you get off the beaten track.  Admittedly, I have stuck to all of the tourist destinations which has given the impression of being in a 1st world country, but there is no getting around the obvious signs of blatant inequality and socio-economic gaps.  One of the most bizarre examples were all the nice homes and apartments barricaded behind barbed wire, electric fencing and guard dogs…it’s as if all the white people live in compounds to keep the black people at bay.  Additionally most of the black and “colored” populous live in townships, which were set up during apartheid as places for non-whites to live on the outskirts of major towns and cities.  So although apartheid is no longer in effect, it is still informally taking place in that at the end of the workday, all of the non-white workers catch their minibus back home to the township…it’s just that now there is no formal punishment for black people to be “caught” in city centers outside of working hours.

I wasn’t alive during the Civil Rights movement in the US, but I can imagine the aftermath is much like current-day South Africa.  People are still adjusting to the new way of life and it is going to take decades for things to start righting themselves.  Not that the US has been righted, but we’ve got an extra 30ish years of mending on SA.

So initially I was going to write this entry about how awesome South Africa is, but clearly I veered off track somewhere along the line.  Let me get back to my SA lovefest for a minute and reflect on my favorite times so far:

• Cape Town – one of the most beautiful, active and entertaining cities in the world.  I could so live here.
• Stellenbosch – unbelievably beautiful wine country.  Behold the scenery.
• Hermanus – cute little town, liked it enough.  Can imagine it’s awesome during whale season.
• Mossel Bay – decent town, but not the prettiest. Has one of my favorite hiking trails ever along rocky, tumultuous coastline.   And of course the sharks.  Some of my best times were spent here!
• Oudtshoorn – cute town amongst throngs of ostrich farms in which you can sample eggs and ride these feathered beasts.  Awesome cave system to go adventuring in as well.
• Plettenberg Bay – very small, but very cute.  Great scenery, overlooks & beaches.  Robberg Peninsula is beautiful.
• Jeffrey’s Bay – more Billabong shops per square mile than Starbucks in Seattle.  Loved Ubuntu Backpackers and the people there.  Beautiful beaches and great surfing as well.
• Cintsa – not much of a town outside of the Barfoot Café, but some great times were had here.  Buccaneers Backpackers is my favorite in SA.  Amazing view of the ocean, decent surfing, cute dogs, swimming pool, bar pool, ping pong, daily volleyball sessions, free evening goon wine…the list could go on forever.  I couldn’t stop raving about this place after I left.  I wish I stayed longer!
• Hogsback – Gorgeous mountain scenery, great hiking and pretty waterfalls.  Overrun with hippies, though, so that might have an impact on how much time one can spend here.
• Coffee Bay – contrary to everything I heard about CB and the Coffee Shack Backpackers, I thought this place was a dump.  The setup wasn’t conducive to mingling and I’ve seen way better facilities.  What makes up for it, though, are all the daily activities they have on offer – hikes, cliff jumps, beach days, etc. 

I have another 2 weeks left before I must leave South Africa, so the list will go on from here.  I'm on the fringes of Durban now, and plan to do some diving on the Aliwal Shoal before I make my way to the Drakensberg mountains and on to Lesotho, Swaziland, Mozambique and Madagascar before I leave Africa.  Unless I go to Ethiopia, but I'm not sure about that yet....

BUNGY

It's been a few days now since I did the (arguably) world's highest bungy jump at Bloukran's Bridge, South Africa (216m/709ft).  Highest schmighest, ANY bungy is scary.  I've now done a handful of bungys in my life, all of which have been pants-soiling.  I will say, though, that this one was the scariest yet, obviously due to the lengthy free-fall.  You really are only falling for something like 5 seconds before you start to feel the cord tugging at your ankles, but those 5 seconds are sheer insanity...or perhaps joy.

Thing is, each time I've bungied I've gone twice on the same day.  I really think this is the way to go because you get a totally different experience out of each jump.  The first jump I'm always super nervous, tense and have a moment of "I might die right now."  My brain just feels totally twisted and violated.  On the other hand, my second jump experiences have been much more chilled and relaxed.   I’m over the initial shock and know what to expect so totally enjoy the free-fall.  It feels more like floating or flying than uncontrollably plummeting to the bottom of a gorge.   So fun!

If it were free, I’d seriously jump until my eyeballs popped out of my head.

Getting Fancy

I've decided to try to add a photo here and there to my posts.  So, yay.

How to Ride an Ostrich

In Theory
1. Find an ostrich to ride.
2. Mount the bird.
3. Hold on tight as it sprints around like a bucking bronco.

In Practice
1. Find an ostrich to ride.
2. Give camera to someone to take video/photos.
3. Mount the bird, legs under wings.
4. Adjust butt positioning while bird starts getting visibly annoyed.
5. Grab base of wings.  Do not grab neck.
6. Hook legs as tightly as possible around front of now angry bird.
7. Lean way back.
8. Try to stay on massive, flailing bird as it sprints around, hating you and hating life.
9. Fall back into handlers, attempting not to yank any more feathers out of this poor bird than you already have.
10. Review photos taken by aforementioned 'someone' and get annoyed that they suck at taking pictures and didn’t get anything Facebook-worthy.

All-in-all, it's not something I’d necessarily do again or recommend to anyone because of the minor animal-cruelty aspect of it…but I’m not gonna lie, it was good, ridiculous fun.

Shark Month! (and a bit of conservation preaching)

I’m never going to view Shark Week on the Discovery Channel the same way again.  I just spent every day of the past month admiring, learning about and working with Great White sharks.   I’ve seen each unique scar, I’ve seen them roll their eyes as they go for bait, I’ve seen them extrude their jaw bearing their 7-rows of teeth, I’ve seen ¼, ½ and full-bodied breaches, I’ve touched them as they glide past the cage, I’ve been face-to-mouth as they gnaw on the cage right in front of me and I’ve even suffered a minor back injury after a WWF-style smackdown from a flying Great White.  It’s pretty much been one of the best months of my life.  

I’ve always had a fascination with sharks being that I grew up on the Pacific.  Great Whites in particular.  I fear them yet simultaneously love them and now want to be around them all the time.  I guess that all boils down to massive respect for these awesome beasts of the deep.  I’m going to go through serious shark withdrawal when I leave the program.  They’ve oddly become like pets to me and I have definitely picked favorites:

• Stinger is a 1.9m female who will always have a special place in my heart.  She’s only a lil’ girl, but she has massive personality.  She’s quite feisty and is almost puppy-like in her demeanor.  I’ll never forget the first time we met her when she went up and mouthed a jellyfish not knowing that they sting.  I saw the pink blob disappear into her mouth and then watched as she flinched and spit it out right away.  So cute. I wanted to name her Jelly but I guess that was too wimpy, so Stinger it is.  She’s my girl!
• Flash is a 2.7m female who always puts on a great show.  She makes for awesome photos.  She’s all about the sneak attack from below and loves to make vertical ascents to the surface before explosively breaching out of the water for the bait.   There is no way to see her coming and she’s successfully snagged 22 total baits in January alone.  In comparison, the second-place bait-snagger has only gotten 5.  Note: we do not feed the sharks and only use the bait as a lure.  Think of it like a matador’s cape to a bull.  But there’s only so much reaction time you can have when a shark like Flash is around.
• Little Sharkira is a 2.6m female who is absolutely gorgeous.  She is littered with all kinds of black, white and pink scars that make her look super cool.  Michael, the videographer on the boat, totally has a crush on her.
• Tina is a 3.3m female who just showed up towards the end.  She’s a big mamma with a lot of girth but is very agile.  Her trademark is to make a pass at the bait like she’s not interested and then make a U-turn and go for it full-on.  Such a tease.  I suggested we name her Tina Turner and it stuck.  She’s a super nice, calm shark and is one of those ones that you could do nose-ups and free-dive with.  I mean, not me, but someone else, obv…

I’ve gotten a peek into the world of people who have devoted their lives to sharks, each with a different story as to how they got into this line of work.  Some even started out as poachers who have since done a 180 after realizing how amazing and crucially important these animals are to the health of our oceans. 

Unfortunately, poaching and finning still happens to a large degree today.  Shark populations are being decimated, which leads to a terrible chain-reaction in the oceans.  Sharks keep the populations of seals and other lower-level predators in check.  Without sharks, seal populations would explode which would in turn wipe out fish populations.  So I hope you don’t like seafood because there goes the fishing industry.  And then there’s finning.  The process of finning is sick: once a shark is captured, its fins are sliced off (all the while you can see them rolling their eyes back each time indicating that they do in fact feel the pain) before their limbless bodies are dumped back overboard to drown and sink to the bottom of the ocean.  And what’s most absurd about it is that the fins are mainly used in Asia as an aphrodisiac.   People really suck sometimes.

On a lighter note, at least there is some work being done to protect sharks around the world.  South Africa was the first country to enact conservation laws with the USA and Australia not far behind.  

So now that I’ve convinced everybody to love sharks and stop killing them :), I will leave you with a few interesting bits of information on Great Whites:

• They are warm-blooded.  Their core temp hovers around 25C.
• They have the ability to detect electrical fields, pressure changes and vibrations in the water.
• They roll their eyes back into the sockets to protect them while preying.
• They like their personal space.  Great Whites are the only shark that doesn’t like touching.  You’ll never see a Great White feeding frenzy.
• They constantly regenerate new teeth.  Their bottom jaw has 7 rows of teeth at any one time waiting to replenish those that fall out. 
• There is a social hierarchy based strictly on size.  The smaller shark always gives way to the bigger shark.
• Females grow larger than males.  Males can get up to around 6m, females 7-7.5m, but are believed to be able to grow larger (!!!)
• Their favorite food is whale due to its uber-high energy-content.

Based on my time with the program, I took it upon myself to collate some of the data they’ve been collecting to come up with some sweet insights.  Bar charts, pie charts, the whole shebang. Not gonna lie, it’s actually cool to analyze data on sharks…no offense to all the wrinkle and zit creams I used to analyze, but shark data is way more interesting...

Highlights:

• Total Sightings: 150
• Total Individuals (estimated): 45
• Total Number of Trips: 21
• Average Sightings per Trip: 7
• Average Size: 2.6m
• Share of Females vs. Males: 90% F; 10% M

I LOVE SHARRRRRRKSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!

PS - we did some work tagging smaller species of sharks in the bay.  Pajama sharks, leopard catsharks, etc.  We also took some bait down on a dive with us where we fed, pet, hugged, kissed and “put into tonic” about 15 of these little guys.  So hilarious and awesome.

PPS – I must also note that I met some of the coolest peeps ever while on the program.  Naturally they taught me some phrases in Afrikaans and Xhosa, clicks and all...which is way hard, btw.  I learned how to say, “good morning, how are you, fine thank you, I’m a hungry hippo, you smell like fish, you need a pedicure,” and for those times when tourists do not listen to the fact that you are only allowed to go #1 in the bathroom on the boat, “whose turds are those?”

Namibia Rewind

I haven’t had the chance to write about Namibia yet so I’m going to rewind a bit and talk about how much I loved it there.  Then I’ll get to the sharks.

Before I started researching for my trip I had probably heard of Namibia twice in my life.  Once in elementary school geography class and the second time sometime probably in middle school.  Let me just tell you now that Namibia is awesome and totally underrated.  It is definitely in my top 3 favorite countries.   

Namibia is a massive place and very spread out - it’s one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world - but it has a ton to offer in regards to game parks, culture & scenery.  My favorite aspect, though, was the scenery.  The dunes of the Namib desert were unlike any landscape I’d ever seen.  Specifically Dune 45 and those of Sossusvlei.  The colors were so simple – black petrified trees, orange dunes, blue sky, white salt pan - yet in such beautiful contrast with one another that it made you feel like you were standing in a Windows desktop.  Which, actually, we were…Dune 45 is the site of one of their stock photos.

Not only that, but there’s a smattering of adventure activities to choose from, which, for me, was an added bonus.  That stuff always sucks me in.  The sandboarding and quad-biking in particular were unreal as the size of the dunes made for double the fun.  Not to mention the sand-sledding where I got clocked going 73kph (45mph) while hurtling down the side of a dune on a piece of slick plywood.  Fastest chick speed of the day!  You KNOW it!

In conclusion, Namibia is rad.

Happy Belated New Year!

What'd you do for New Year's?  Drank your face off?  Cool.  Well I touched a Great White shark.  Chomp on THAT!