LOCATION: MAURITIUS
THURSDAY: My first day on the beautiful island of Mauritius was dedicated to a trip for my history of women class. We visited a few different centers around that ranged from a place that worked with women who just got out jail, a nursing home, a place for young single mothers to give birth, and a drug rehab facility. The visits were interesting, but the majority of the group had expected to have some sort of interaction with the women. The only place we had this experience was at the drug rehab place. There were about 12 women living there at the time, and the thing that most surprised me was that if they have children, they can live with their moms at the facility until the age of 12. After I got back from the practicum I had a nice little dinner on the ship before making my way to Flic and Flacq to meet up the everyone who had been there all day. I was welcomed into the villa with some fresh homemade guacamole and a Phoenix beer, the local special. We started with a little improvised beirut in the kitchen, but of course since I was with USD people, we played west coast rules. We all decided to go out for a little bit, it was a Thursday night though, and their weekend really didn’t start until Friday. We went to a bar and met a few locals who gave us some suggestions about where to go next. We ended up at a random place where a bunch of other SASers were and we just hung out pretty low key. The only high light of the night was some local man who played the guitar and harmonica, horribly serenaded us with Bob Marley songs. Before hopping in bed that night, I tossed on my suite and walked right out our door to the swimming pool, and had a ‘just lovely’ swim.
FRIDAY: We decided to peal ourselves out of bed to hit the beach. Of course mimosas were in order, so we loaded up our champagne and orangina settled on the beach. Thankfully it was a little overcast, had it been that temperature and sunny we all would have melted. We met up with some friends who invited us back to their villa that was right on the beach. It was a huge house with a big porch looking over the water. We stayed out side all day and for lunch did a little BBQ with the resources we had. Stephanie had bought a snorkel at the grocery store so we waded into the water and tried to look for some fishies. They must been scared of us cause we didn’t see many. In the end, the snorkel was put to better use as a funnel for mixed drinks. We all went back to our villa to regroup/nap and shower for the night. We got a little dinner at a place called Pe Pe’s Café, which had super good pasta. We ended up going back to the other villa to hang out and meet up with people before going to a ‘disco’ or something. The one we were referred to had a super expensice cover, so we ended up at the place next door and hung out with probably every SASer in the area. Just another typical port taken over by semester at sea.
SATURDAY: On our last morning here we went to the beach again for a little, but it really wasn’t a nice sunny beach day. We grabbed some lunch at a place everyone ate at on the first day which had amazing drinks called Mauritian pearls. It was an orange-juicy drink that had ice cream floating on it, and a pineapple on the rim. I got in a taxi back to port with Missy and Andrew and we had a really nice driver. Missy mentioned how much she liked mangos and asked if they had any here, and driver said he’d look for some. We ended pulling up in a random drive way of a business or something with a HUGE mango tree in it. He went up to the security guard to ask if we could take some, and then started picking up ones off the ground and flinging them up to knock more down. The three of us jumped out of the car to help, the security guard got a ladder and our driver was on the roof picking them, and the guy brought out one of those long sticks like an apple picker. We ended up with a shopping bag worth of mangos! Back at port where we still had time to hang out before on-ship time, we were giving them away and people we loving it!
Saturday, November 28, 2009
LOCATION: CAPE TOWN!
SATURDAY: This morning the whole ship woke up to watch the sun rise at 6:40, only to find that the sun was up and shining, which was a nice change from the gray skies we were experiencing in the last week all the way from Ghana. The week was REALLY long due to everyone being sick. I don’t think the Ghanaian food settled well in many peoples stomachs. A few people got sick from the NASTY sandwiches we were subjected to on the monkey trip. And there was a big outbreak of E Coli! Waking up to land and a new week of adventures was exactly what people need to recover from a dull week. We found a beautiful view of South Africa, including Table Mountain, which makes for an amazing backdrop behind the docked ship. Everything looks so amazing, we’re all itching to get off the ship and explore! The plan of the day is to stay around the port area until 11:30 when all my friends are going on a faculty directed program to a wine production facility. When they all the leave plan is to meet up with another group who will be going to a ruby game! At the moment we’re all just waiting for the ship to be cleared by customs so we can invade Cape Town!
SATURDAY EVENING: I made it back to the ship JUST in time to run and change out of the clothes I wore to the rugby game, (SO COOL) and put on some decent clothes for my jazz safari. This trip was nothing like I has expected. As a group of 20, we were welcomed into the house of a well-known saxophone played from Cape Town for a private performance. We were given all sorts of snacks and awesome South African wines. We listened to Robbie Jansen play to us and relaxed. At the second house we went to we were served a cape type dinner which was really good. We had the same type of Samosas that we had in Morocco (pastry type puffs filled with chicken curry.) This man, Hilton Schilder, played for us a number of Africa instruments as well as the piano, which he performed self-composed material. After the safari was over, one of the girls and I asked to be dropped off on Long Street, the bar district in the area. We easily met up with our friends as well as every other SASer. Once again we took over many bars and took advantage of all the local beers and relatively cheap prices. A quick taxi ride home got us right to the port, where home was lit up only a short walk in the distance.
SUNDAY: This morning I woke up kind of early again to go on my Cape Malay cooking safari. Unfortunately since this trip was on a Sunday we were limited in the small town tour, where groups would usually go into all the stores to collect ingredients. The community we visited, Cape Malay, is a widely ethnic group, including the Muslims who first found a home here. We were invited into the house of a younger woman with two daughters we were unable to meet. Laid out on the counters were ingredients we would be mixing our selves to create lunch. We had a number of new dishes and old ones like somasa’s that we ate in Morocco. We got to make them on our own though, mixing up the chicken curry and then rolling them with thin rice paper into triangles. Everything was really really good, unfortunately my clothes smelled so badly of curry when I got back to the ship. Coming back to the room after leaving for a few minutes was disgusting, the only choice I had was to leave them out, other wise they would have made the rest of mine, and Missy’s clothes reek.
MONDAY (SAFARI!!): I came back early from the bars and stuff cause I knew if i tried to go out, i would not be waking up for my 5:45 AM departure for Aquilla game reserve. Casey went to long street with a couple guys that I put in charge of her. They'll be on the safari too, and they're planning on not sleeping. That was NOT an option for me! I also found out another girl taylor who will be on the trip with me too. Dinner was REALLY GOOD. In the port area there are SO many great restaurants! Tonight we went out to thai food with aly (from across the hall) Lauren and her roomie annie, and or course casey. We all started off with a really pretty pink sparkling wine. I split a bunch of sushi with casey, half veggie, half crab sticks. And we also split some pad Thai that was super good. After we went to get ice cream and we split up with the other girls to have a drink at a bar where casey met up with those guys she went to long street with. They walked me back to the ship when they left to go to long. I'm very happy to be in bed and not out on the town. I would have stayed out a little longer if it was closer, but I knew I'd be stranded a taxi ride away from the ship wanting to go back. Its all good though. Turns out that those guys who casey went out with never made it to the safari in the morning so I definitely made the right choice!
The drive was about 2 hours, which flew by cause I had my own row and could stretch out and sleep. When we got to this amazing resort we had a huge buffet breakfast with tons of fresh fruit, eggs, sausage, yog and granola. From there we walked to the wildlife refugee where they had 3 rescued lions, crocodiles, and a leopard. We were able to get some really good photos of the female lion who walked up to the fence to check us out, we also got really close to the leopard who was relaxing in the shade. After looking at all of those we loaded into trucks to start on our real safari. The landscape of rolling hills was amazing, and we had a beautiful blue sky. The first animal we saw were impalas that were drinking from the watering hole. In the water in the distance we saw a huge rock in the middle that ended up being two hippopotamus. Next we saw two ostriches that came up right next to the truck. The drive was trying to get right behind it and nudge it with the truck to see how fast it could run, but it didn't seem too bothered. As we traveled around we saw two rhinos, and couple packs of zebras, wildebeests, and two elephants! At the end was the lions enclosure, however a little while ago a lion escaped so they were doing work to the fences that it usually stays in. Instead they were in a smaller area and we got to see them all hanging around in the shade. There was one male and I think 3 females, it was SO cool. On the way back in we saw African buffalo. It was great, there were men who were trying to do work on the land and they had to get into their truck and try to drive away, but our driver said that it was a young one so its interested in stuff like that. That brought us to the end and we had another huge meal. The highlight was crackers and brie which I haven't seen in so long! For dessert we had the most amazing brownies topped with tons of vanilla icecream, yummmmmm. That brought us right up to the end of the day and we hopped back on the bus back to cape town. I was satisfied with a one-day safari, but it would be really cool to do the 3 day one that missy and everyone else is doing.
SHARK CAGE DIVING
Today was such a trip! I'm happy that I got to go because it seems like this is the great white capital of the world! At the beginning of the trip, the captain told us he'd do his best to lets us all see some sharks, but because the place they usually hang out in during the winter was really exposed and the swells were huge. We got to a little area behind a island that was more protected from the wind and tossed in some chum. With in 2 minutes we had two sharks biting. They put in a tuna bait fish as well as a decoy foam person they call Gladys. They did some cool shit by pulling on the rope at the last second so the shark had to jump and some people got some sick shots. One of the kids is a photographer so I'm going to grab all of his really good ones. I got out in the 3rd group of 7 dressed in a full wetsuit that included a head thing and weights around my waist. The first time getting in was a little chilly, but you forgot all about that the first time captain told us to duck down and look to the left. They came from every direction making passes at the tuna, which the captain would drag towards the cage so the shark would come right at you and at the last second, switch directions and look you straight in the eye from a foot away. Each group got 10 'looks' each time they went in, and each group went twice. There were a couple different sharks that swam by, each with different markings and scars. The biggest one was about 6 meters and it was a HUGE fatty. We asked the captain the biggest one he’s seen and he said 12 meters, more that the length of the cage. I can't imagine being close to that big of a fish! We saw so many cool ones and one time we saw two at the same time, fighting for the fish! At one point, when I was thankfully out of the water, the shark actually bit the cage and got caught on it! Before heading back to the marina we were taken by seal island. It looked like a huge rock hat was wiggling from far away, and when we got close there were thousands and thousands of seals, some big, some small, some really fat, a whole ton of them sunning, more playing in the water, and a bunch wiggling from one place to another. The things are so cute and made me think of that movie, andre the seal. Before going back we also saw a whale in the distance that we tried to get closer to, but it was hiding. The ride back was almost the best part, the seas were SO rough and getting a big boat like that through them was a roller coaster. I'm surprised I didn't vom, this morning I was preparing for that cause I heard that a lot of other people had.
When we got back we watched the DVD that a guy on the ship put together of us getting on and off and diving and some of the really cool jumps that we saw. I think someone got it, so I'm going to see if I can get a copy to show you! Other than that, the ride home was boring, but beautiful. We went through gorgeous wine lands that stretched for miles. As soon as we got back I went to the super market with some girls to pick up some snacks like granola bars, instant oatmeal, hot chocolate, chunky peanut butter anndddd cereal. It will be nice to have a little something to hold me over between meals or if I don't make it to breakfast. Most people have been stocking up because this is our last civilized country for some time.
