Everywhere and Back

Sunday, April 22, 2007

New pictures are up

Posted a lot of new pictures on my picasa site for Vietnam, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Beijing. Hope you enjoy

http://picasaweb.google.com/slavaatsea/

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Mauritius

Due to rough seas it took us longer than expected to get to Mauritius so instead of having 3 fulls days it was more like 2 and a half. Mauritius is pretty much semester at sea spring break. Me and Greg really did not have any plans for the island except to get to the beach. Right as we got of the ship we headed into Port Louis (the capital) to do some shopping and maybe get some food. This was cut short because Greg got pick pocketed. Nothing important was taken just money and his id but we headed back to the ship to report it. We headed back to the ship took care of everything and then headed back out until around 6:30. When we got back we saw Isaiah and lots of other semester at sea kids outside the ship. They had rented villas at Flic en Flacq beach (one of the nicest beaches on the island) for the next 2 nights. Everyone was getting together there to party and hang out at the beach. Isaiah told us that we should just come with the group and that we could find a place to sleep once we go there but that so many people were going no one would care if we crashed on the floor.

As soon as we go there we bumped into someone people greg knew who said they had lost their group and that we could stay at their house and even get a bed. This was the best situation possible. That night all of us went to a party at the main villa site and it was basically a huge house party with a gigantic pool in the middle where everyone was diving. The place got absolutely trashed and I felt bad for the people who would have to pay for it. My villa was like a 10 minute walk from those and in a different complex so it was nice to come back to a clean safe place. The next day all the people who were staying at my villa went to the beach and basically recovered from the night before we also made plans to get a catamaran the following day.

Basically, we were told that all the catamarans on the west side of the island were booked out (made sense cause that's where the SAS kids were). However, the guy booking it for us found one on the other side of the island that 9 of us could rent out for the day with food, transportation, and all the drinks we could want for 60 dollars a person. It seemed to good to be true cause everyone else we talked to was spending 100 per person and that was for a catamaran with like 30 people. It turned out to be better then imagined. We got to have the thing to ourselves and it was a clean new boat. We visited a water fall and they gave us equipment to go snorkeling in the coral reef. We then visited an island which is famous for its amazing beach and we saw it on all the post cards. We hung out on the island for about 2 hours then headed slowly back to shore while again drinking as much as we wanted. We spent about 7 hours on the boat altogether and got driven directly back to the ship at which point we all crashed from getting about 6 hours of sleep over 3 days.

That pretty much sums up Mauritius.

Cape Town

Cape town was an amazing port. The city itself is just physically beautiful with all the buildings being overlooked by table mountain. It is also culturally beautiful with many different people coexisting together in relative harmony. However, as nice as the city was you could see poverty everywhere and if you drove just a couple miles outside of the city center you found yourself in the midst of townships. The line between rich and poor was stark. You could see an amazing golf course probably world class but right outside its electrified walls you say tin shacks. You could close your eyes to inequality of people living there but then you would be ignorant to what this country is facing.

There is so much to do in this port so it was difficult to choose, but one thing I wanted for sure was a visit into the townships. The first thing I had to do was climb table mountain to get one of the most breathtaking views I have ever seen. On one side of the mountain you have the whole city looking back at you with its skyscrapers and multicolored homes. The other side is empty of any human life and is just ocean crashing on rocks. This port shows you the connection of nature and human activity because everywhere you look there is life. At the pier there were seals and in the hills you saw zebras and antelopes and this is all inside the city. That night me, greg, kyle and some other friends went out for some traditional African food. I at Springbok, Kudu, and Ostrich and then after that we went to a jazz club where we met up with some students and professors and hung out for a while.

One of the great things I got to do in this port was go on a safari. I went to the Kwazulu-natal region of South Africa. This is the region that the Zulus live in. It is one of the most hard hit by aids as well with 1 in 3 adults affected by the disease. Of course we were not shown this side of the area because we were in a protected wild park (Mfolozi game reserve). This game reserve is known for its rhinos because operation rhino was started here and we saw plenty of these animals. We got to go on three game drives and saw most every animal except for a lion and leopard. We had a couple highlights though. We got to see wild dogs which are endangered and extremely difficult to find and we saw several herds of cape buffalo that were 200+ members. We literally were 5 feet away from some of these animals. The camp that we stayed at was open to the animals so they told us to stay in our tents at night because it wasn't uncommon for a lion to wander in at night. The first night we were there the sky gave us a little treat. We were witness to a lunar eclipse with no cloud in the sky. With the moonlight blocked we could clearly see the milky way and every star in the sky including the shooting kind.

When I got back from the game reserve me and greg had planned a day out to robben island and the south African winelands. The plan was to go to robben island in the morning and then to stellanbosch by train and rent bicycles and visit several vineyards.

Robben island is off the coast of cape town and is where Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in prison. All of the prisoners on the island during apartheid were political activists and many of the people who took over the government after apartheid were imprisoned on the island. All of the tour guides were former prisoners. It was chilling to see how they were treated and standing in front of Nelson Mandela's cell. The whole thing hit harder because the stories of what happened there were told by those who lived them.

We had about six hours in the vineyards. The area was stunning because you had these large vineyards and mansions that ran right up to these mountains. Me and greg consider ourselves to be in fairly good shape but the biking killed us. The whole thing was gradual up hills with short downhills. We ended up biking for about 8 miles to a vineyard that we thought had cellar tours but we missed the time for them. Instead we did a wine tasting which was about 2 dollars for 6 wines and this is at a fancy place (things were that cheap). We wanted to ship some wine bottles home but the cost of the wine was about 8 dollars to ship it just to an airport in the states to get picked up cost about 80 dollars per bottle. Once we finished drinking we realized we had about an hour to get back to our train and it took us an hour and a half to get out there. We basically hauled it while a tad tipsy in 95 degree weather all the way back into town. We made it in time and got back into the cape town in time for dinner which was the best ostrich burger ive ever had. We were so exhausted that night that we decided to head in early because we had to wake up early the next day.

This was the best day in South Africa. Me and Greg had wanted to do a township visit but most of the SAS trips had been bought up except for the Amy Biehl foundation. We decided to sign up for it not knowing what it really was. This turned out to be the best township trip offered and many kids just looked over it. Amy Biehl was a American student killed in the township towards the end of apartheid. Her parents got to face 4 of her killers during the truth and reconciliation trials in south Africa. They forgave her killers and started this foundation to help kids in the townships stay out of violence by providing them after school programs and other various school initiatives. 2 of her killers now work within the organization. It really demonstrates how this country had to forgive the atrocities that happened during apartheid in order for it to survive and not get torn apart. We got to visit 4 different schools. At the first school we watched as 7^th graders read to 1^st graders in order to be mentors to the younger kids. After that the kids performed songs for us . The next school we got during recess so we got to take pictures with the kids and play soccer. Whenever you took a picture of a kid 50 kids would mob you and ask you to take their picture and then you had to show them your camera so they could see themselves, that little act made them so happy. I got lucky enough to play a whole game of soccer with these kids. First off, it was hot and we were playing on cement. These kids were playing in uniforms and dress shoes and they were so good. I could barely keep up. I did however score the only goal pretty much by accident. After these two schools we got to walk around a township and see how they are set up before we got lunch in a family run restaurant out of the nicer area of the township. The food and restaurant were very well kept up and it is amazing to see how this family created this business for themselves. The last two schools we visited during their afterschool programs. Each of the schools prepared songs and performances for us. The foundation focuses on teaching the kids how to play instruments and dance so we heard kids play the recorder, xylophone, and trumpet. They also did traditional dances for us. They were so excited to play for us and they kept asking for us to stay and listen to just one more song. It was amazing to play with the kids and see how talented they all were

I wanted to finish my trip to cape town with a bang so what better way to do it then go shark diving. I woke up really early to get on a boat to go swimming with great white sharks. Basically you get into a cage that sits at the surface of the water and they bring the sharks towards your cage. Since it is summer time the sharks were more tame than in the winter. The water was absolutely freezing but we got wetsuits to be in. Everyone got to be in the cages for about 30 minutes. When you are in the cage you can't see anything more than 5 feet in front of you. You would hear the people in the ship saying a shark is right next to you and you wouldn't know it until it pretty much hit the cage. These things were huge and they got a couple to stick their heads out of the water so we could see their teeth. It was like being on the discovery channel or something. You always see people do this on tv and I finally got the chance to do it and I got home safe which is all that matters at the end.

Friday, March 02, 2007

New pictures

Just wanted to update my pictures there are some pictures of both Brazil and Puerto Rico, they are both in the brazil folder I was a little rushed for time in the internet cafe in Cape Town the link is:

http://picasaweb.google.com/slavaatsea

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Comedy Night and Neptune Day

I have always talked about doing a stand up show, I figured that couldn't be so hard. Well finally my chance arrived. We had an open mic comedy night where me and another kid signed up. I was completely nervous about doing the show cause it was my first time telling real jokes in front of people that I made up. I was driving Greg crazy cause I kept asking him if my jokes were good and I would practice on him. I was the first person to perform at the show and I ended up killing it. Everyone said I did an amazing job and that they were genuinely laughing. I heard from Greg and others of my friends that people were like rolling around in the audience. It was just a complete rush to get up there and have people react. I was pacing and sweating before my set but once I got up there it was like auto pilot and I did a better job telling my jokes and not stumbling on my words then when I was practicing it. Greg ended up videotaping the whole thing so I can show people at home. The event was so successful that they are considering doing it again and maybe even having a last comic standing competition, I cant wait… Its just too bad I wasted all my good jokes in one shot

Neptune day is a Semester at Sea tradition where all of those who have never crossed the Equator by ship must be initiated and become a Shellback. Basically, what happens is we get woken up really early by the crew dressed up as Trojan warriors banging on our doors and on pans at 7:30 in the morning. After that we go up to the pool deck where some of the crew and faculty are dressed up and our captain is painted green and is the God Neptune. You line up and have this fish guts smelling stuff poured on you then you jump into the nasty pool which is full of this terrible stuff. You wait your turn before you get out of the pool kiss two fish and finally kiss Neptune's ring giving your allegiance to him. Another optional thing you can do and a lot of people do is shave their heads. I however am worried about balding and fear that shaving my head may send the wrong message to my hair so I didn't do it. I heard rumors that we broke the record of most girls who shaved their heads, basically we have a whole boat of Sinead O'Connor's running around. The highlight of the day will be the BBQ tonight cause it will be a break from the usual food we have.

All in all this has helped break up the long trip to Capetown.

Friday, February 23, 2007

Salvador and Lencois

Day 1:

Salvador has been known to be our most dangerous port due mostly to petty theft and the fact that Brazil has one of the largest divides between rich and poor in the world. The Semester at Sea Staff made sure to make us completely aware of the fact that crime is an issue here and that we should be careful especially since we were going during Carnivale. Taking their advice I hid money on me and was very careful as to where I took my camera out. I did not have a single problem of being pick pocketed even though many other students did.

I spent the first day in port by going to the market and buying a few souvenirs from the port. Getting off the ship was interesting cause Candomble ladies met us and placed ribbons on our rest and there were drummers there to greet us. I joked that the ribbons were placed on us to make it easier for the criminals to identify the tourists. Everywhere around us were people doing Capieora and playing music. The city is divided into upper and lower parts and one of the only ways to go between them is through this huge elevator so me and a group did that to get up to the Pelourihno district. The whole area was covered in decorations for carnival and was heavily monitored by police. You couldn't look anywhere without someone trying to sell you something but aside from that the city itself was beautiful and was painted using a lot of pastels. Some of the group left but I stayed with another kid in order to eat dinner in port. We had a traditional dish of soft shell crab moqueca it tasted interesting but I am not running to try it again. After that I returned to the boat to prepare for Carnivale

A large group of students met up so we could all go to Carnivale together. I was placed in a smaller group of 4 to get there and the rest of us would meet up in order to be safer in numbers. Carnivale in Salvador is listed in the Guiness World Record Books as the largest party in the world. There were 2 million people dancing in the street starting from 7 and ending at 5 in the morning. The highlight of the Carnivale are the Trios Electricos these huge floats that are loaded up with enough sound equipment to make the ground shake and famous musicians on top like Shakira and others. Being in the crowd was incredible every couple minutes we would turn to each other nad just be like I cant believe we get to do this for credit. Unbeknownst to us where we stopped to watch Carnivale just so happened to be right in front of the police station so we didn't have any problems of being harassed or robbed. It was interesting cause we were the only white people in the crowd so whenever one of those floats would come by they would stop and give us a private concert and throw us beads. We headed back around 12 because a lot of us had to wake up early to go on trips including me which leads too…

Day 2:

Lencois is heaven. It is just the most beautiful little town that works perfectly with its environment. 27 of us were on the SAS trip to Lencois and our guide was an American named Roy who came to Lencois for a week or two for the peace corp and never left in the 70's he ended up writing to the government and having the whole area (Chapiada Diamintina) turned into a national park and served as its first director, he knew the area well lets just say (he also looked like Don Quixote). Our hotel was a 5 star eco-friendly gem named Canto das Aguas. We didn't think we were allowed to stay somewhere nice like that. The first day there we spent hiking up the Lencois River and walking through all the weird rock formations. It ended in us swimming in a waterfall that you could actually get behind. The weather wasn't so great since it was raining but the rain just made things more interesting.

Day 3:

We had a 10 mile hike ahead of us today through the valley near the town. Throughout the hike we faced periods of torrential rain then baking sun. It was actually nice because it got really hot. Because of all the rain all over the valley and in the hills waterfalls started up and the river below us was raging. We had to cross the river which normally is just at our knees but know it was roaring and we had to use a rope to cross it. One of the highlights was eating lunch on top of these rocks overlooking the whole valley we were about 1000 feet up eating sandwiches it was surreal. We continued our hike until we got to a large cave that you could go inside which we did. A big group of us went as far deep as we could and turned off all the lights and sat inside the pitch black cave (the cave would play an important role later in my Lencois experience). Finally, we headed back into after 7 hours of hiking, all of our feet were covered in blisters and we were dead tired.

We headed to the pool and steam room to relax our aching bodies. While in the steam room we met a 21 year old Brazilian who spoke really good English who lived in Salvador but was from Lencois. We wondered how anyone from this town could have the money to live in Salvador if his family was from Lencois and why he would be staying at this relatively expensive hotel if he was from the area. We found out at dinner that we were staying at his parents hotel and then we talked about Brazil to try and learn more about the country.

That night a bunch of us including John headed into town to the local bars. John introduced me to a couple of his friends and even got me some local drinks to try out.

Day 4:

This was the best day in Lencois for me…

Towards the end of the day Roy took 8 of us to a rock slide in town. The rock slide basically is a solid sheet of rock where a waterfall rushes down it and you can go down it pretty safely. Because it had been raining for the past week there was a lot more water going down it then normal which means it was that much faster. It was about 40 feet long and you couldn't only do it two or three times before your butt got sore from bouncing over the rocks. After we did that we saw that locals were diving into the water so we decided why not. All of us jumped off a cliff into the water which was about 25 feet high. It was really safe cause the water at the bottom of the rock slide was really deep but it was still a rush to jump from that high up. The locals were all great cause they directed us where to jump and would demonstrate for us. I think it's a real treat for them to see American teens. This was our last night in town so instead of going out into the town we brought the party to the hotel. We bonded as one big group over drinking games the whole night.

Day 5:

This was our last day in Lencois and Brazil. We started the day off with a hike up to a plateau that overlooked the whole area called Pai Inacio. We basically went up there and spent the next hour just taking fun pictures and goofing off on top of the mountain. After that we headed back to Lencois to grab our lunches and drop off our guides. To some up this beautiful place all I could tell the Guide Roy was Thank you for letting me fall in love with your home. I hope someday that I can come back and get to see this town again.

The 6 hour bus ride back seemed to fly by but we would be getting back too late to head into Salvador one last time. So I ended up having dinner on the ship and then watched the boat pull away

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Puerto Rico

Day 1:

As a ship we got very lucky that in the morning before getting off the boat the governor of Puerto Rico came on board to speak to us. He was very eloquent and funny and highlighted the pride of the Puerto Rican people and his belief that Puerto Rico was best served by staying a Commonwealth. There was a lot of local media on board for this event we had reporters also from Telemundo and Univision so maybe we made it on TV. I guess last year they could not get the governor to show up but this year we have some leverage. How are you going to turn down seeing Tutu.

The first day Greg and I had decided to visit old San Juan. On the way off the boat we met a kid named Kyle who was waiting for some people to go into town. We were planning on going in one big group but I guess the other group got confused and Kyle got left behind. We took him under our wings. We walked along the wall of San Juan trying to make it ot El Morro. We spent some time in El Morro which was pretty much a bigger version of most forts I have seen. The best thing about it was the view you got of both the ocean and Old San Juan. By this time we were starving and wanted to try and get some traditional Puerto Rican food. We walked around old San Juan and met up with another group of SASer's. This old lady who spoke English on the street helped us out finding a restaurant to eat at called Barrachina. This is when I had a moment of Déjà vu. I had been to Puerto Rico once before for a day and I kept telling everyone about the fact that the Pina Colada was invented in the city. As we entered the restaurant I was like this seems very familiar and Greg pointed out that this was that place. I grabbed some free samples and sat down for lunch. This is where we had the best meal of the trip Pollo Mofongo and a Medalla beer. This was not only a filling meal but tasted unbelievable. And then suddenly things got strange. The same lady who told us to go to this restaurant showed up there and started talking to us and making sure the meal was great. Obviously she was getting a cut or something to bring us there, we all felt so used.

After the meal we spent some more time walking around Old San Juan before returning to the boat. The only other thing that really happened was a group of us wanted to find a local place to hang out at night and kept asking the taxi driver to take us to a local salsa place or something. Instead we got brought to Senor Frogs which was full of SASer's (not quite what we wanted) we were looking for some local flavor. Greg and I only stayed for a little before returning to the boat and passing out.

Day 2:

The previous day Kyle, Greg, Laura (friend of Greg and Kyle's) and I met to go to the beach and try and surf. Kyle knew how to surf a little bit and we were all excited to give it a try. We had heard that good beach for surfing was Ocean Park just east of Old San Juan. We got there and found out that the place to rent surf boards was a 15 minute walk away from the beach so we walked out there to pick up the boards and then head back to the beach. We walked along the beach looking for waves that would be suitable for surfing and we kept walking saying things like oh they are too small here or too close to the shore. We finally picked a place and decided yea lets run out there and give this a shot. WAVES ARE BIGGER THEN THEY APPEAR FROM SHORE. We got our butts handed to us by the ocean. We tried for like 15 minutes just to make it out to the break and we were getting hit by 8-10 foot waves and to make it worse the waves came one after another so as soon as you recovered you were pummeled again. At one point I thought I was doing well and almost out there and then I turned around after a big wave and noticed I was only 3 feet from shore. I was only able to make it out to the break once and wasn't able to make it up on the board but I was happy just to make it past those knockout waves. I couldn't imagine how they do it in Hawaii.

We made it back to the boat in time to stop by McDonalds which had free internet and then grab dinner on the boat. That night I had my trip to biobay which is one of the 6 bioluminescent bays in the world (2 are in the process of being destroyed because they are very fragile ecologically). One of the highlights was when the tour guide came on the bus and was asking questions and someone responded in spanish to him. His only answer was "your killing my language". The guide was hilarious and made the prep work a lot less annoying. We took a two person ocean kayak out into the bay. We went through a narrow Mangrove channel to make it into the bay. We went in a single file line to the bay where the guide explained a little bit more about the fragile ecosystem. Now imagine a .25 mile wide bay devoid of lights and other people with a sky full of stars, now imagine jumping into this dark area and swimming in it, finally add to this an amazing blue light that follows your every movement and you have biobay. After swimming in the waters for a little bit we made our way back to the harbor and I headed back to the boat to pass out.

Day 3:

Greg and I had been planning to go to the rainforest indy but after talking to locals we found that transportation was inconsistent and we didn't want to risk not making it back to the ship on time. We placed our hopes on joining up with a semester at sea group that was going to the rainforest. We made it on the trip and headed into the rainforest. The walk through the rain forest was really relaxing and was like a spa. The oxygen level and moisture in the air cleaned out your skin and made you feel refreshed. The rain forest doesn't have much in terms of animals but had lots of great vegetation. The highlight of the trek was being able to swim in La Mina falls. The water was so clean that you could smell the freshness. All of us jumped in, it was cold but amazing. We just sat on the rocks and let the water fall on top of us. Kyle showed me that there was this crevice underneath everyone that you could swim through and come out the other end. So I followed him 8 feet deep and underneath everyone through this beautiful water it was amazing.

Our tour next took us to a great restaurant called "El Dajao" that had a buffet line of food set up for us. The food was incredible and I couldn't tell if it was because we were starving from walking or cause it was really that good. The meal consisted of rice, beans, chicken that was falling off the bone, and sweet plantains. After that we found our way to Luqiullo beach. The island of Puerto Rico has 365 beaches but only 7 of them are blue flag beaches which are top of the line this was one of them. The water was like a bath tub, the sand felt like silk, and in the background we had the rainforest. We all swam around and even used the sand to create a sort of mud bath. This was probably the best day I had at sea. Greg and I finally made it back to the ship and headed into old San Juan to finish some last minute chores and we took the chance to get some Coldstone which will probably be our last taste of that until we make it back home. I ended the night on a great note by talking to all of my family and my Natalie as the ship left Puerto Rico. This was a great start to an already amazing voyage.