Testing, Testing, Are You Alive?

We set the clock so we could test my stamina. There are things left undone. Shopping is the first priority. We left this for when we returned, to buy from the women's collective in support of it, plus not to have had to lug it around with us for four weeks. Now it is buy or regret it. Whatever hit me passed over. I was able to shower, get to breakfast, and wait for a taxi without feeling like I would keel over.

Since I was so sick yesterday, not one cigarette passed my lips prompting me to decide this morning to postpone my starting smoking again. I know others would say they are quitting or that is what I am attempting to do, but I am not. In my youth, my mother always called me a quitter and said I never finished anything I started. Although this was true, I did not have role models who did complete things other than the meals set before them. As I reached my 20s, this quitter label started wearing thin, so I made sure I completed things; some of those things were completions my mother wished I had quit. Going to beauty school was one of them. She hated having son who was a beautician or hairdresser as they were called back in the 70s. As it turned out the more I completed, the more I liked myself. Starting more ventures and completing them aided my self-esteem. So, now I cannot quit smoking, because I am not a quitter. What I am doing is postponing the starting date of when I will resume smoking again.

After placing a call to Solomon, the taxi driver who drove us from the railway station, we thought our good do-bee deed for the day was in place. Forty-five minutes later, Solomon called to say he could not find us. Well, impossible, we are the only two white people standing in the hot sun waiting for a taxi at this hotel. He was at the wrong hotel, so he would be delayed another twenty minutes. 

We waited an hour and a half, but no Solomon. The hotel receptionist Grace, said she would call us a reliable driver. John showed up. We wanted to go the David Sheldrick Foundation, but Mr. Map after consulting the map, insisted that since it is in the Nairobi Wildlife Reserve, we would have to pay $3o each to get in. I keep insisting that if this were true, the guidebook would have pointed it out. John's itinerary for us was to go to the Wildlife main office gate to ask about entrance, then go to the gate where the foundation is located and double check the visiting hours, then to the place where we want to shop. This little excursion is costing us 3,000 shillings (30 euros).

I was right, there is not charge to get into the Wildlife Reserve for the Foundation if you go to the correct gate. We did get to that gate, but at 11:30, so visiting hours were almost over. On our way to our shopping place, we stopped at a shop John wanted to show us. It was just as large, but nothing was presented well creating sensory overload. At our shop, I had wanted these beaded angels, but they were gone. I knew they would be, but I had hopes. We did find plenty of other things to buy finishing up our gift list.

John dropped us off downtown so we could stop at an ATM and Trattoria restaurant where I had the avocado milkshake. Today, we had lunch with our drinks. My chicken salad was delightful. Ron had gnocchi with Gorgonzola sauce. Delish!

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Holy Cow! No, Holy Elephant!

As Vándorló commented, the source was missing. I had to copy and paste this six times to get it to look proper and not a jumble or elephant sized words. Problems with Blogger. When I finally got it correct, I forgot to put the link in again. It is linked by clicking on the post title. Remember how Budapest was shamed two years ago after the local "Cowparade" resulted in the world's highest rate of artificial cow public art vandalism? Well, don't worry - it won't happen again. Instead, it looks like this time the city's irrepressible hooligans will be forced to kick over, spray paint, steal, blowtorch or otherwise ruin big colorful statues of elephants. As part of a charity/PR campaign un-creatively called the "elephant parade," almost 100 artificial elephants will be placed at intersections around the city. The first such statue, a pink pachyderm designed by artist/former Yoko Ono boy toy Sámuel Havatődy, was recently completed (right). Havatődy had this to say about his elephant, which is decorated with a lace pattern named "Hope": "Thread is very weak on its own, but if it is spun into lace, it makes a strong material." No doubt we'll soon be finding out just how strong it is.

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My Adopted Baby

For my birthday, my friend Daphnee adopted a rescue elephant for me. I get updates on her progress. She was found in a sink hole at one month old. The organization is: http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org
I received a photo of her progress in January.

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Boxing Day

It was 2:30 am when the alarm went off. The taxi was going to be here for us at 3:30 am. We were up like a shot, least we fall back to sleep once again and miss our flight. When the phone rang at 3:00 am, we were duly impressed that it was a wake-up call since we never arranged for one, but they knew we were leaving at an unholy hour. We were downstairs by 3:15 and our driver pulled up at 3:20 as he said he would. The drive would take close to two hours, and I am not a chatty person before coffee, so I was hoping for silence. I feigned sleep so if there was a conversation to maintain, Ron would be responsible.

We were at the airport in due time and was able to check-in immediately. All of my nightmares about the luggage weight were unfounded. They took our bags without a second glance. It could have been the six books we left behind, the three pairs of pants we gave away, the umbrellas we trashed, the shoes donated to charity, or the fact that I finally came to terms with facial products not being the holy grail of youthful appearances. Hence our gross weight of the luggage was less than a new born infant born premature.

Air Asia used boarding tickets that look like receipts for the grocery store; cheap paper with print on them, no frills, no souvenir quality. When we were to board they had Express boarding for those who paid for the option and anyone over 65 years old, so I pushed Ron to the forefront and told him to save me a good seat. I may have a birthday coming up, but it is still not nearly close to 65 to try to worm my way in that line. Once they let you through, they don’t waste money or fuel bussing you six feet to the airplane, but make you hoof it. We found the plane on the Malaysia coastline, which really shortened the flight time. Good thing too, since there were mechanical problems with the plane, which delayed our departure. The pilots door was open and we saw him kicking the instrument panel, but minutes later announced there was nothing to worry about, so we all relaxed.

All of the seats are black leather with red seat belts, looking like and S&M parlor, but comfortable with lots of legroom. All of the leather gave it a new car smell until the flight attendants started selling their snacks. It is amazing to see how my white people will eat Top Ramen soup that they are paying a premium for just because they are on a plane. There was a perfectly good McDonalds in the airport, not to mention the Asian Kitchen restaurant. The smell took me back to my poverty days in Philadelphia where I lived on Top Ramen for weeks on end.

Landing in Siem Reap, (which means something like the Thais did not defeat us), was extraordinary. The airport is small, but quite lovely. We had to first line up and apply for our Visas after filling out the third form; the first two were given to us on the plane. If you had a photo, which we did, it was $20.00; otherwise, it was $22.00. They kept the passports and processed them down an assembly line, where at the end, one officer tried calling out the names and showed everyone waiting the picture. His pronunciation of names was not stellar. From here we went to Passport Control, a lengthy time consuming process where they took our picture yet again with computer cameras. Finally, it was through the line for Customs and we were free to be bombarded by taxi drivers trying to sell their services.

We went to the taxi desk to make the choice between a motor bike rickshaw for $1.00 or a taxi for $5.00. Notice the dollar sign? Everything is listed in US dollars. We converted 100 Euros into Cambodian Riels and were asked if we would like a porter to help us cart it off. Our taxi driver was a young man named Chon (pronounced Than). He was chirpy, but I was not. He tried selling us services and Ron caved in since he can be chirpy at times in strange countries with strangers. We did not have a hotel booked since Ron read in the Lonely Planet, you did not need to, but they did not mention Christmas or New Years. The hotel we picked out was fully booked and everywhere they usually refer to has been calling them to see if they had vacancies. Not a good sign. Chon had a recommendation, but Ron was hesitant since the guidebook said to steer clear of taxi drivers’ recommendations. We could have traveled from hotel to hotel, but decided to see what Chon came up with. His first attempt was a great hotel, three minutes from the market area, where there are restaurants and shops galore. The room is huge, very clean and $30.00 a night. We booked for four nights.

After we took a nap, Chon returned for us to take us to the temple on the mountain to see it by sunset. We first had to get our passes for Angkor Wat. We chose a three day pass for $40.00 each, but this gave us free admission this evening. Our first day does not start until tomorrow. Chon took us as far as the parking lot, and then directed us on where to climb the mountain, not one of my better honed skilled even if I was born under the sign of the mountain goat. The climb was not as some we have done, being a gradual incline upward. The temple was over 1,000 years old and still in great shape. People were all over it to watch the sun set from near the top, but I was grateful for making it to the temple. I hate heights and climbing up is easy; getting back down is vertigo valley. There were elephants up there where you could ride them down for $10.00, but I figured we had already done the difficult part of climbing up. I am not giving an elephant my money to do the easy part. They did allow me to play with them though. One put his trunk near my ear and the suction inward would have made the Hoover Company jealous. He could have pulled my hair out of my head just by sucking in.

As it was getting dark, there was a shrill sound in the air. At first, we thought it was a siren of some type notifying people of pending darkness and the dangers of climbing down the mountain, but then we heard a guide say it was cicadas. They could use this for an air raid siren, they are so loud. We meandered down the mountain to find Chon, who drove us back to the hotel. We arranged for him to pick us up at 9:00 am for a day’s tour of the temples for $25.00. He wanted us to do sunrise at another temple, but 5:00 am did turn us on to the idea.

Just a few doors down from us is a European style restaurant that has free WiFi. We mixed dinner with computer business, so I had German pork roast with brown gravy and potatoes. It was great, but Ron had a seafood curry and was disappointed. One of the menu items was Hungarian goulash!! Just cannot get away from it.

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Chobe National Park

We went through both Namibian and Botswana’s Border Control yet again. Near the Botswana side, Bruce pointed out a Baobab tree that was hollowed out. He said that at one time the border control had an office in the tree and it was once used as a church. I took a picture before he warned me that you can be arrested for taking photographs at border crossings.

A short drive later, we had a supermarket-ATM-Internet-café stop for an hour. The Internet place only had three computers, so it was a bit of disaster trying to get one. We managed to, but only spent four minutes and then relinquished it to Thomas for our remaining time.

Botswana has a land usage fee of $350. per person to cut down on tourism negatively effecting the environment. We paid this to Bruce as soon as we arrived in Botswana. All of the cash that I had been clutching to my chest was now starting to be distributed, lessening my anxiety of carrying it around. This steep fee is the reason we are only in the park one night, though I could easily spend much more time here.

The rush was on now; we had to get to our campsite, have lunch and then those of us who chose to were going on an optional safari drive in Chobe National Park. The ride was for two hours and cost $20.00 per person, but it was in an open truck, so well worth the money.

Again, we were in two trucks. In our truck was Markus, Bettina, Hans, Suzy, Thomas, Jean, Ron and I. The truck’s seats were on three levels so no one’s view was obstructed. Omo had decided not to go, but Jean had said she really wanted to see elephants. If you cannot find them here, then you will never find them. Chobe has the largest concentration of elephants of any place in the world.

We saw a small alligator in a pond that was created by the rain. It was fantastic seeing impalas, baboons, giraffes, and elephants so close and open. Jean was getting nervous about the elephants being SO close, but the guide said he could read their behavior. Later, he confided he had his truck overturned by a bull elephant and had to run for cover until the bull was out of the area. We saw dozens of hippos grazing on the shore. They are incredible creatures and we learned that they kill more people than any other animal. If you get between a hippo and the water, they will charge you.

I told Jean she had gotten her wish to see elephants, now what was her second wish. She replied she wanted to see a lion. The guide overheard this and took us off the road into brush and shrub. There was a lioness under a tree. The guide prompted us to take our pictures fast so we could leave the area. It was not until we left that we realized the lioness was within leaping distance. We were that close to her. The guide asked us not to share the experience with anyone who could identify him; he would get into a lot of trouble for doing what he did.

We were dropped off at a fancy hotel within the park where we were going to take a boat for a three hour river cruise. Our truck made it there first and boarded the boat, but there was not enough room for our entire group. Bruce argued with the people that he booked a boat for twenty. They finally agreed to give us a second boat, reluctantly, and the second group boarded that one. Our boat had a canopy over it, with a table in the center and moveable chairs. The other boat only had chairs bolted in place. Within minutes of getting settled on the boats, it started to rain. Our captain gave us ponchos to put on, but the other group did not have anything.

Fifteen minutes into the cruise, there was a torrential rainstorm with lightning and thunder that whipped out of nowhere. It only took minutes for us to be soaked regardless of the ponchos. The rain came down so hard, it poured through the canvas tarp roof. A few of us wanted to go back since we could barely see a thing, but the rest of us stayed quiet and hoped the proverbial storm would blow over. The captain was waiting for the final consensus and just kept going.

In the pouring rain, we saw hippos in the water, but they kept submerging before we could get a picture, though the rain was so fierce they would not show in a picture. After an hour into the ride, the storm ended. Then we saw elephants playing in the water and on the shore. We were soaked, but filled with excitement over our sightings.

When we returned to the dock, we were not sure if the others had returned or if they were still out on the river. We had someone from the hotel call our lodge to tell them we needed a ride. We waited in the bar area where some locals did a spontaneous performance in native costumes. An hour later, John came to fetch us back to camp.

The area outside our cabin was flooded and we had to wade in to get inside. Dinner would be served in an hour’s time by the pool. Bruce arranged for the second group to have a repeat cruise in the morning as their trip was aborted due to the weather; the rest of us can sleep in later. Tomorrow when we take off, we cross over into Zimbabwe for our last night.

We drove 250 km today. Our new total is 4990 km.

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