Dea's Travels

Bullfighting and burning sun

2011-04-01T11:55:00.000+03:00

Right next to the sports center there is a round building - the bull fighting arena. Already a week before the big event the whole city was pinned with posters of a bull fight to take place on Sunday evening. So we decided to check it out as well. I've been warned by so many people that it is quite gross and not pleasant at all.

My interest with seeing a bullfight was just to get the experience. Afterall it is part of the culture in Spain. And I refused to believe that it is something so discusting that I'd leave after the first 10 minutes :)

Before the event I tried to read up on the history, meaning and customs associated with killing those poor animals at the arena in front of all those people. Apparently this is a huge sport around here in Southern Spain, top matadors earn as much as top football players. There is a long ritual that gets carried out throughout the process, each trumpet sound that comes has a meaning, each movement the matador or other toreros perform have a story. During each performance a certain set of actions are carried out, slightly differing of what matador de toros decides - he is the one who runs the show.

So on Sunday evening we set off to the bull fighting show. The place was suprisingly crowded, I'd guess about 30% were tourists checking out the big event. There were going to be six bull fights today performed by 3 matadores, each fighting 2 bulls throughout the evening.

Shortly, killing the bull is traced to ancient sacrifice ritual. Nowadays, death of the bull is dedicated usually to the president or to the crowd. Matador and his assistants wave colorful capes in front of the bull making it charge. At some point men with horses enter the arena, this is done to spike the bull to relieve the blood pressure so that the animal doesn't get a heart attack while racing around the place. It sounds really bad, but it really wasn't too horrible. Then the show continues with small spikes put to the bulls back and is ended with a final leathal sword hit killing the bull at about 15 minutes into the show. Now the crowd can petition the president to award the matador an ear of the bull by waving white hankerchiefs. If his performance was exceptional he will award two ears.

The show was good. Even us, first timers, could distinguish between a skillful matador and not so skillful one. Perforamnces were quite artistic and I'd even say graceful. It was a bit bloody and the killing was fierce but it was quick and clean. There were some American tourists behind us crying their eyes out even before the bull was let into the arena - they left after the first fight.

Now I know what the bull fight looks like :) I'm not sure I'd attend it a second time, but it was definitely worth it to see it once.

The sun and burning - for the second day in a row I have not seen any clouds. My nose is going to fall off soon (using one of the girls words) from all this sun exposure. During those 2 weeks we've been here there has been only one day with no sun at all and we have not seen any rain yet. It's been quite perfect weather so far.

Tonight we are all going out to dinner together as half of the people are leaving the training camp on Sunday - paella night is coming up!

Cultural day in Malaga

2011-03-25T20:50:00.001+02:00

Day off for everyone. Well, ok, got 30 minutes of swimming in the morning and 30 minutes of running in the evening - but almost nothing compared to the other 6h training days :)

Took the opportunity to go and discover Malaga. Train took us there in 20 minutes, directly to the city center. First stop was the Cathedral - magnificent like they all are. By the time we got done with the religious part of the day full of culture we were starving. Tried to find a restaurant a bit further off the city center and failed :) Anyways, the food was good. I went for "Malaga style fried fish" - this was a plate full of 5 different kinds of seafood. It was delicious!

Next stop was Picasso museum - art section of the culture day. Picasso was born in Malaga, was here last time when he was 19 and never returned. He lived a long life, was born in 1881 and dies 1973. Produced hundreds of pieces of work. In this museum one can find 155 of his works. Exchibition was great, art of the master is wonderful. Strangest ways of portraying a face, a nude woman, a cat and fruits platter :)

Time for afternoon cake and hot chocolate, plus freshly squeezed orange juice (those are sooo very good here!). When walking in the park earlier on we could see a castle up further away - that was our next target: Alcazaba de Malaga. Group of magnificent buildings dating from the eleventh century, formed the palace-fortress of the Moslem rulers of the city. One finds many beautiful courtyards with fountains, alleways with running water finding its way down in the middle of the path, green corners in the middle of a endless stone walls and breathtaking views to the port and down to the city. Currently the orange trees are blooming, whole city smells so wonderful. Up in the Alcazaba bundled up with all sorts of other colorful plants it all felt like a quiet piece of paradise.

Back to Torremolinos in one of those convenient trains. Eating sweet mangos in my balcony, looking at the sea and listening to peaceful music. Life is soo good. Been here for a week already! Time flies!

Ice cream for breakfast

2011-03-24T20:49:00.000+02:00

Days go by quickly here. Alarm goes off around 8am, quick breakfast and time for first practice. Few hours in town/behind the computer/in the sun, time for lunch and evening practice. At least once a day I try to find the time to go for a run or jump in the pool myself as well. Cooking takes its own time, plus preparing the workouts for the following day. Hour or two in the evening for e-mails or organizational tasks/meetings, evening information session at 9pm, few more hours behind the computer and falling to bed dead tired. Those are the days here :)

.. ice cream for breakfast is totally normal in those conditions right :) ?

Mi casa...

2011-03-18T22:49:00.003+02:00

View from my house for the next 3 weeks:

Greetings from Torremolinos, Spain. Will stay around here for a while and keep company to 21CC Triatloniklubi triathletes :) Long practices are waiting for them, mostly biking but also general conditioning and running and swimming of course.
It was 22C here today, sun was out and all seems so beautiful. The hotel pool is so inviting and palm trees make me smile :D
Life is good!

Last day in Maputo and leaving Africa behind - 30.sept to 2.oct

2010-10-03T17:18:00.003+03:00

The last day of my vacation has arrived :( Did not have much planned for the day. Breakfast at a nearby cafe, reading about Mozambique's history, packing, lunch at Club Naval, relaxing at the poolside by the house, packing, grocery shopping for the evening.

My friend's maid prepared a local dish for us :) There will be people over to enjoy the local food and to have good time. And good time it was. Food was delicious and the company good.

My flights went all quite well. The one from Johannesburg to Lisbon was the longest - 10h 10m :) Luckily I got two seats all to myself so once I folded my legs tightly I was even able to lay down :D It would have been so convenient to stick my legs out of the window though as folding them started to hurt my knees after few hours.

Stayed with Helen and Duarte in Lisbon. They came to pick me up from the airport and prepared dinner and everything. It was like going home :) Thank you both for such warm welcome!

Next day I still had 2 flights, first to Helsinki and second to Tallinn from there. There was a bit of a hassle to go through the check-in and security in Lisbon airport as the lines were super long, but I made it to my flight quite nicely nevertheless. On the plane to Tallinn there were 2 familiar faces on board :) One came from a conference from Tokyo and the other from a training in Budapest. Oh it is so incredibly nice to be at home!

When I started my trip and got advice about sanitary conditions then everybody was telling me how I should clean the food I eat and what sort of pills I need to take with in case I have stomach problems. And I did not have even a little bit of digestion problems :) So far so good at least. I got some mosquito bites, but so far no fever or any malfunction as far as I can feel. I'll probably run a blood test just to make sure once I'm off the malaria pills. I'm quite happy that my health was ok during the whole trip as medical assistance would not have been too accessible there.

This trip has been a real eye opener. And I didn't think I needed any more of that, thought that I've seen what there is to see, but not even close. That is precisely why I wanted to travel to Africa so bad, I had a feeling that there is no other way to understand all the troubles going on in here than to come and witness it on the spot - to talk to the locals and to ask all the questions and to see the bits and pieces with my own eyes. Just reading the words in articles isn't enough to grasp the reality, to see the bigger picture.

Photos are slowly getting uploaded as well - check the links on the right.

Overview of Mozambique

2010-10-03T17:13:00.003+03:00

Below you find a chronological overview of Mozambique's past based on information found in Lonely Planet guidebook:

Bantu-speaking people arrived 3000 years ago from Niger Delta in West Africa during one of the greatest population migrations on the African continent. Kingdoms were formed, most organized of them was Karangu or Shona who by the 11th century AD were grouped into a loose confederation with it's centre at Great Zimbabwe (present day Zimbabwe). Other Karanga kingdoms - most notably Manica, along the current Mozambique-Zimbabwe border - continued to thrive as late as the 19th century. In northern Mozambique, Maravi peoples controlled the ivory trade, in far north near Lago Niassa were various Yao chiefdom's.

From around the 8th century AD, sailors from Arabia began to arrive along the East African coast. Most important trading post along Mozambican coast was at Sofala, which by the 15th century was the main link connecting Kilwa with the old Shona kingdoms and the inland gold fields.

Europeans were attracted to Mozambique due to the tales of legendary gold fields ruled over by Monomotapa kingdom. In 1498 Vasco da Gama landed at Ilha de Mocambique en route to India, within a decade the Portuguese had established themselves on the island and gained control of numerous other Swahili-Arab trading posts. Over the next 200 years the Portuguese busily set up trading enclaves and forts along the coast, making Ilha de Mocambique the capital of what they called Portuguese East Africa. By the mid-16th century, ivory had replaced gold as the main trading commodity and by the late 18th century, slaves had been added to the list, with close to one million Africans sold into slavery through Mozambique's ports.

The first major journey inland was made around 1511, by the 1530s the Portuguese had occupied settlements which had been established earlier by Arab traders in the Zambezi River Valley at Tete and Sena. Portuguese attempted to strengthen their control in the area twice: first in the 17th century by setting up 'praros' or enormous agricultural estates and then in the late 19th century with the establishment of charter companies. Both attempts were failures in a bigger scale and did little to consolidate Portuguese control.

In 1891 a British-Portuguese treaty was signed, which set the boundaries of Portuguese East Africa and formalized Portuguese control in the area. 1899 new labour law as paned which divided the Mozambican population into non indigenous with full Portuguese citizenship rights, and indigenous who were subject to the provisions of colonial law and forced to work and pay a poll tax. For an African to acquire non indigenous status, it was necessary to demonstrate Portuguese 'culture' and a level of education.

In the late 19th century Portuguese transferred the capital to Lourenco Marques (as Maputo was then known) due to the strengthening ties with South Africa and this location was also becoming a major port in the region. In the late 1920's Antonio Salazar came to power in Portugal. To maximize the benefits that Portugal could realize from its colonies, he sealed them off from non-Portuguese investment, terminated the bases of the various concession companies in the north, abolished the remaining 'praros' or agricultural estates and consolidated Portuguese control over Mozambique. Overall conditions for Mozambicans worsened considerably.

Discontent with the situation grew and a nationalist consciousness gradually developed. In June 1960, at Mueda in northern Mozambique, an official meeting was held by villagers protesting peacefully about taxes. Portuguese troops opened fire on the crowd, killing large numbers of demonstrators. From this point onwards, the Mozambican liberation movement began to grow.

In 1962 Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo) was formed in Dar Es Salaam (Tanzania), first president of the organization was Eduardo Chivambu Mondlane. On 25th of September 1964, Mondlane proclaimed the beginning of the armed struggle for national independence which Frelimo initiated by attacking Portuguese base at Chai, in Cabo Delgado province. Mondlane was assassinated in 1969, he was succeeded by Samora Moises Machel. He sought to extend its area of operations to the south. Struggles within Portugal's colonial empire and increasing international criticism sapped the government's resources for resistance. The final blow for Portugal came in 1974 with the overthrow of the Salazar regime. In 1974 at a ceremony in Lusaka (Zambia), the Portuguese government agreed to had over power to Frelimo and a transitional government was established.

On 25 June 1975, the independent People's Republic of Mozambique was proclaimed with the wartime commander Samora Machel as president and Joaquim Chissano, a founding member of Frelimo's intellectual elite, as prime minister. The Portuguese pulled out virtually overnight, leaving the country in a state of chaos with few skilled professionals and virtually no infrastructure. Frelimo established ties with the USSR and East Germany, private land ownership was replaced with state farms and peasant cooperatives. Schools, banks and insurance companies were nationalized. Education assumed a high priority. Frelimo's socialist programme proved unrealistic and by 1983 the country was almost bankrupt.

Mozambique National Resistance or Renamo arrived - this ragtag group had been established in the mid-1970's by Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) as part of its destabilization policy. It was kept alive in later years with backing from the South African military and certain sectors in the West. Renamo, which had been created by external forces rather than by internal political motives, had no ideology of its own beyond the wholesale destruction of social and communications infrastructure within Mozambique and destabilization of the government.

It has been pointed out that the war which went on to ravage the country for the next 17 years was thus not a 'civil' was, but one between Mozambique's Frelimo government and Renamo's external bakers. Recruitment to Renamo was sometimes voluntary but frequently by force. Roads, bridges, railways, schools and clinics were destroyed. Villages were rounded up and anyone with skills - teachers, medical workers etc. - was shot. Atrocities were committed on a massive and horrific scale.

The drought and famine of 1983 crippled the country. Faced with this dire situation and the reality of a failed socialist experiment, Frelimo opened Mozambique to the West in return for Western aid. In 1984 South Africa and Mozambique signed the Nkomati Accord, under which South Africa undertook to withdraw its support of Renamo, and Mozambique agreed to open the country to South African investment. While Mozambique abides by the agreement, South Africa exploited the situation to the full and Renamo activity did not diminish.

Samora Machel died in a plane crash in 1986 under questionable circumstances, and his place was taken by a more moderate Joaquim Chissano. The war between the Frelimo government and the Renamo rebels continued, but by the late 1980s political change was sweeping through the region. The collapse of the USSR altered the political balance, and the new president of South Africa, FW de Klerk, made it more difficult for right-wing factions to supply Renamo.

By the early 1990s, Frelimo had disavowed its Marxist ideology, announcing that Mozambique would switch to a market economy, with privatization of state enterprises and multiparty elections. After protracted negotiations in Rome, a ceasefire was arranged, followed by a formal peace agreement in October 1992 and a successful UN-monitored disarmament and demobilisation campaign. With a long-running banking and corruption scandal dominating the headlines, Frelimo is now working to polish its public image, while Renamo is still striving to prove itself as a viable political party.

AIDS infection rates are highest in the south and centre of the country where they exceed 20% in some areas. About 80% of Mozambicans are involved at least part time in subsistence agriculture - growing cassava, maize or cashew trees, mangoes or having tea plantations. Along the coast, fishing is a major source of livelihood. Mozambique's main social security system and welfare net is the community and extended family. If one family member is lucky enough to have a good job, it is expected that their good fortune will filter down to even distant relatives.

There are 16 main ethnic groups or tribes, the largest is the Makna, comprising about 25% of the total population. Life expectancy is about 40 years. About 35% of Mozambicans are Christians, about 25% to 30% are Muslims, and the reminder are adherents of traditional religions.

Exploring Maputo - 29.sept

2010-10-02T23:11:00.000+03:00

Day to look around in the city. Strolled to down town from the apartment on foot. First goal was to go to the central market, to collect some cashews and spices and local fabric. Passed by the train station, visited National Art Museum and walked through botanical gardens.

While walking around there were lots of people on the streets, but saw maybe only 10 to 15 white people during the whole day! There are barely any tourists here. Another thing is the attention one gets here :( From the 3 different countries I've visited in Africa, Mozambique is by far the one where I feel most insecure. People are constantly calling you, addressing you, staring at you. You are getting lots of attention and it makes one feel spotted - not a nice feeling. The fact that police is scary and intimidating doesn't help either as one does not feel comfortable addressing them.

In the evening went to a local cinema here. Well actually it was more like a culture house showing a movie through a projector. Movie of the day was called 'Mugabe and the White African'. Was telling about the land reform in Zimbabwe, of how white farmers are made to leave their farms. One white farmer sued Mugabe for it and that is what the documentary talks about.

The movie was quite shocking. Just can't believe all the repression and violence and injustice! People are fighting for their lives and there is no one to help. Police is corrupt and feared for their injustice, government is the one ordering the beatings and deportations, foreign aid is helpless, other countries shrug their shoulders and people keep dying. It is just so horrible. And for what? What is the purpose? Those people have done nothing wrong. There is no humanity left at all, none.

This trip has been a real eye opener. And I didn't think I needed any more of that, thought that I've seen what there is to see, but not even close. That is precisely why I wanted to travel to Africa so bad, I had a feeling that there is no other way to understand all the troubles going on in here than to come and witness it on the spot - to talk to the locals and to ask all the questions and to see the bits and pieces with my own eyes. Just reading the words in articles isn't enough to grasp the reality, to see the bigger picture.

Leaving Inhaca - 28.sept

2010-10-02T23:10:00.000+03:00

The wind has come down, hut seems to be standing nicely still and no fear of taking off this time around. August and September are the windiest months in Mozambique, wind comes along just before the rainy season. Slow morning at the camp, it was raining a bit while I had breakfast but the sun came out later on. Laid in the sun and red my book the whole morning. Picked the book up from my friend's bookshelf - Sofi Oksanen's 'Purge' (Puhastus).

Pickup was arranged for me at 2, boat leaving at 3. Again had to take the smaller boats to the ferry due to the tide, this time the small boat was fully packed, was sure that it will sink before reaching the ferry as waterline was so close to the edge of the boat.

Ferry left exactly at 3 :) what a rare case in Mozambique - something actually happens in time :). Ferry was half empty and I was the only white person on it :) Grab a taxi, went by my friends work place to pick her up and to home we headed. Evening plans were already made - going to eat at a nice restaurant by the sea with a friend of a friend (all the people I meet here in Maputo are my friends friends naturally).

On our way to the restaurant police stopped our car :(, apparently the driver had crossed a continuous line in the middle of the road and now had to pay a heavy fine for it. Police is truly intimidating here. If I would need help here on the streets, then police would the last one I'd turn to. They are truly unjust and scary with their demands and guns.

Dinner was wonderful. Haven't eaten that much sea food ever in my life as I do here. And it is all so delicious!

Last night in Africa

2010-09-30T19:32:00.001+03:00

This is almost the end of my trip. I yet have to fill you in on the last days, will do that a bit later. Tonight there will be some people over to taste local food that the maid prepared during the day.

My bags are packed and taxi will be here tomorrow morning at 5am to take me to the airport. Will arrive in Lisbon in the evening, staying overnight there and then to Tallinn via Helsinki, arriving on Saturday evening.

Toodles for now :)

Inhaca Island - 27.sept

2010-09-29T09:48:00.002+03:00

It was the most wonderful thing to not have to wake up to an alarm clock :) And not wake up to anything at all. All I could hear was wind, strong wind, blowing through the hut. Looking outside it was not promising - cloudy and very windy. Wind meaning no going to the sea :( No Portuguese Island and no snorkeling and no nothing :( Had my enormous breakfast. I have never eaten that much for breakfast ever in my life. I could even say it is a three course breakfast every morning. And all those eggs! Uuuh, lots of eggs every day.

At the breakfast started talking with the other people at the camp. I knew they are here to fish so wondered what are their plans. The same information that no going to the sea with this sort of weather. The others are from South Africa, there is 11 of them, most are co-workers at a law firm.

Biggest problem for me was that there was no sun either :(, which makes the air cold. Staying inside is not an option so I piled some clothes on, grabbed my book and set myself to read in a comfy chair outside. Soon enough the others were walking to town so I set off with them taking the way through the beach, shortcut as they said. Tide over here is really really large, I mean that the water recedes far far out and then makes its way back in the afternoon. So we were walking on the seafloor where there was no water at the time. Got to walk around ships waiting on the sand for some water :) There were also lots of crabs running around under the trees and millions of little holes where they hide. At some point during the night they would all be outside so the ground seems to be moving. Inhaca Island has an ecosystem one of the kind. In the mainland there are lower areas which get water in them, at some point the water is salty and other times of the year the water is fresh. They put lots of effort into research here to see how the plants and little creatures survive in such rare conditions.

Anyways, in town we headed over to a most wonderful seafood restaurant. Ate about 25cm long crayfish or a huge lobster, all grilled up nice and tasty. Food on this island is the best so far. Drinks followed, then dancing :) and heading back via a detour to the restaurant owner's land to check out the next camp site to be built. Fishing is the keyword and most of the visitors coming here would be here for fishing. Quite many arrive with their own boats, just like the group in our camp.

Headed back via the main road and the walk is not that bad at all. Passed by a local airport strip located right next to our camp. Yesterday there was a plane coming in and it scared the hell out of me as it almost touched the tree next to me :) Little plane, but still very frightening. Walking here is quite ok actually, probably just not suggested for foreigners ;)

Evening at the camp went on the name of wine, TV, eating and talking. It has been a wonderful and relaxing day in a very good company. Quite perfect actually :)

Arriving at Inhaca Island - 26.sept

2010-09-29T09:47:00.001+03:00

Next destination - Inhaca Island, located 40km from Maputo, across the bay. Ferry to take us there covers the distance in 2 hours, leaves harbor anytime between 7:30 and 8:15 :). Ferry itself is quite small, with perhaps 70-80 seating spots or so. Luckily it was not very windy this morning so the ride was nice and smooth. Once arrived at the island we found few dolphins greeting us - how nice of them :)

There is no proper port so the ferry itself has to stay a bit behind while smaller boats come to take the goods and passengers on board to transport them to the shore. Quite a deal as you gotta purchase yet another ticket for the small boats helping you to the land. At the beach we were greeted by the local coast guard who gathered 200 meticals from us to preserve the nature on the island and off to Manico Camp we went. Dropped our bags off, checked the facilities - there are outside showers, toilets, little basic camp houses, kitchen, bar and inner court yard. All looks very nice and thought through although basic. All is fine as long as there is electricity at the hut, which there is :), so the movie night is on!

Initially it was planned that I stay here for two nights and my friend for one night, but due to the ferry logistics my friend has to return the same day and I still stay for 2 nights. At the camp we tried to see what is there to do - well, nothing really :) Can go diving, snorkeling, to the lighthouse and to a small island. For today we chose the latter. I don't dive, snorkeling has been done already, for the lighthouse they charge an unbelievably large amount of money, so the island it was. Zoomed by the small village by harbour to grab a sandwich for lunch, hitched a boat from the shore to take us over to Portuguese Island - boat ride took about 10 minutes. Really nice and handy way of getting to the beautiful beach of the tiny island. There isn't much else to do than to enjoy the sand and the sea. At least the weather was beautiful. 2 hours laying in the sun was quite enough to be honest, so gotta find something different to do for tomorrow.

Boat back to Maputo leaves at 3 so we had to arrive back at the main island a bit after 2 for my friend to make it. Lots of waiting around, a very very regular activity over here ;) and back to the camp I went. It is not possible to get around by foot unless one is staying by the overpriced hotel by the port, so camp is organizing transport for me to get back and fourth.

Rest of the afternoon I spent reading, had the tastiest fish for dinner at the camp and headed over to watch a movie. Could not even finish since I struggled to keep my eyes open. Went to sleep before 9 and got my 11 hours of sleep in - that is what I call vacation! I just hope they don't have any roosters or little kids here to start making noise at 6 am :)

Day off in Maputo - 25.sept

2010-09-29T09:43:00.003+03:00

Got up at 8, could sleep more, but breakfast is planned to 9am. Getting up at 8 is a lot better than at 5 so I'm content, and besides, last time I got to wake up after 8 was in Italy. I'll sleep in sometime later, like over Christmas time or something :) Can't spend my vacation sleeping ;) No worries, tomorrow gotta get the taxi at 7am, so all good ;)

Good half an hour was spent on doing laundry and then walk over to a nearby Cafe de Sol - it is a beautiful place, had a local handicraft fair today with more beautiful necklaces and bags :) As soon as we sat down we were informed that there has been an electricity cut and no heated food can be ordered, were quite bummed to eat cold sandwich for breakfast.

Next project was going grocery shopping. For this we walked through a nearby neighbourhood to reach one local store and then Woolworths at the next block. Managed to gather everything needed for breakfast including cereal and yogurt - can't wait for this breakfast as I'm so sick of toast and eggs, have been eating English breakfast for the past 3 weeks, time for some yogurt! Picked up some fresh fruits and other items. Shopping like in any country I guess, only the selection is quite limited.

After dropping the food off at the apartment walked over to Maputo's fish market and to the beach nearby. Fish market was neat, so many different kinds of seafood types laying in neat piles or in buckets filled with water. One can pick the food up and then get it cooked right next door to enjoy at the spot. We decided to go for restaurant food this time, but it was really tempting and tasty.

Headed over to the beach. Here in Mozambique we get lots of attention, there is constantly somebody whistling or calling us, quite annoying I must say. In Zimbabwe and in Tanzania there was nothing like this. Already yesterday I was advised to keep my passport with as police can request it at any time, but better to keep the passport in a body belt under the clothes. I was also filled in on the streets to avoid and the roads not to take, where not to walk (by the presidents residence) and what not to take a photo of. Police here is quite nasty as I've heard. They look very intimidating with their automatic guns and they are always moving around in big groups. I hope I never have to talk to them ever :) Apparently whenever they stop you (mostly when you are driving) they simply ask for money, and you have to give them something otherwise things get ugly. Yeah, this is how bad it is. And I'd like to see who starts to argue with 6 policemen wearing Kalashnikovs, pointing the guns towards you while addressing you. Really scary.

Had lunch at a wonderful seaside restaurant with terrace and all. Met my friends friends from Finland, heard many interesting facts about EU, chatted for the longest time, had very tasty seafood curry and watched the tide move in. Absolutely perfect Saturday afternoon. As one lady is going away for few days then my friend is looking after her cat for those days, went over to pick up the kitty cat, smuggled it into the apartment (as there is a very strict no pets allowed policy) and got ready to head out to see more dance performances.

This time there were 2 local groups: 'Grupo Workshop de Luz' and 'Lulu Sala'. Second piece was called 'Caos na Identidade'. I liked both of the performances very very much. Concepts were good, choreography was interesting and the movements had depth. First performance was a bit shorter, perhaps 30 minutes, the other one went on for at least an hour and incorporated video and live music - it was really really good.

Zoomed by a jazz concert by 'Nasar Abadey & Supernova' - group from northern US. One of the reasons we went there was the fact that it took place in a train station, it is a beautiful building worth seeing. Concert ended up being without any admission cost so no harm done at all. Music itself was a bit too nervous or aggressive for me, no vocals, stayed for about 45 minutes then headed home and straight to bed. On our way got to see how the police stops people with no reason at all, so glad that we have gotten away with it so far.

Getting to Maputo, Mozambique - 24.sept

2010-09-29T09:39:00.003+03:00

Taxi was waiting for us 5 minutes to 5am, drive to the airport was super quick thanks to empty roads and the fact that he ignored all the red lights at the intersections probably helped as well. Flight to Johannesburg went quick as I took advantage of the time and wrote up the texts of the past 4 days.

There is this strange thing they do here at the planes before they take off - they spray the cabin. Apparently this is bug spray or something, I suppose it is to prevent a free ride for a mosquito :)

Went on a shopping spree once in Johannesburg airport - they have the coolest necklaces here! And scarfs and cosmetics and all kinds of local thingies. I'm glad we have only limited time here and my credit card has a limit :) Second flight was short with the cutest flight attendant ever - seriously this guy was gorgeous :) Finished reading my book and was bored for the rest of the 20 minutes. Captain announced that the temperature is +37C in Maputo!! WOW :)

Getting of the plane and walking across to the terminal the heat set in. I'm not sure it was really 37, but it was nice and toasty and humid - like real tropics. I had this big smile on my face thinking I'm now in Mozambique :D

Staying with my friend here so we took a cab over to her apartment. Her home is really nice and cozy and I got my own room and a separate bathroom! Apartment is really nice with a big balcony and open kitchen. Had few hours to relax, unpack and shower (first hot shower in 8 days!!! oh did that feel good!). Quick visit to the internet. Yeah, I got access to the wonderful web now :) But the connection is too slow for uploading photos still :(

In the evening there was yet another try to get money out of my VISA - it is such a headache here. Finally one of the ATM's worked, phew. Then zoomed over to the contemporary dance festival. There were 2 shows today. First one was by a local group called 'Colaboracao artistica' performing 'In Kino' - concept was pretty neat, at first they were inside a cubicle and made the audience walk around it as they performed at one of the walls at a time. Later on they opened the cubicle up and moved to outside as well. It was something different, their movements were a bit raw though. Second show was by Swiss group called 'Foofwa' and the piece was called 'The Making of Spectacles' - oh it was sloow, they tried too hard to communicate with the audience and by the end of the show almost half of the people in the audience had left.

Me and my friend were both dead tired so headed directly home after the last show. There was a party afterwards with the coolest music mixing African drums, saxophone and techno music, but we simply did not have the strength to stay awake. Tomorrow we have a day off (almost) and can sleep in :)

Overview of Tanzania

2010-09-25T09:14:00.001+03:00

Here comes another summary of an African country called Tanzania, again, it is a summary based on the information in our travel guide 'The Rough Guide to Tanzania':

Tanzania's history covers two tales: that of the coast (including Zanzibar and Mafia) and that of the hinterland (Tanganyika).

Mainland Tanzania has been inhabited since the dawn of mankind, some 3.75 million years ago. Most of ancient cultures have disappeared long ago, two exceptions being the Hadzabe and Sandawe tribes in central Tanzania. Sandawe abandoned their ancient way of life in 1950's, but Hadsabe persist. Both tribes speak languages characterized by click sounds (again!).

First Bantu people arrived to this land as early as 1000BC in search of fresh land due to overpopulation of their people in homeland. Over time the immigrants split into distinct tribes. Common element to most Bantu societies is the knowledge of iron work. Nowadays Bantu-speakers comprise all but a handful of Tanzania's 129 officially recognized tribes. Second largest and most traditional are Nilotes, includes the country's most famous tribe Maasai. Their origins lie in the Upper Nile valley of central Sudan, from where their ancestors started faming out as early as 2000 years ago. Cattle defines all Nilotic tribes providing everything from food to clothing and shelter as well as social standing.

The first non-Africans to visit Tanzania, about 2000BC, were Sumerian traders from Mesopotami, followed a millenium later by the Phoenicians. In later centuries the East African coast became part of a vast trading network that included China, Malaysia and Indonesia. First outsiders to establish a permanent presence in East Africa were the Persians. Intermarriage with Africans and later with Arabs created Swahili civilization, reaching it's peak in the 14th and 15th centuries when its city states controlled the flow of gold from mines located in Zimbabwe to the port of Sofala in Mozambique. The main legacy of Swahili civilization is its language - Kiswahili, now the official language of Tanzania and Kenya.

The growth and prosperity of the Swahili came to an abrupt end following the arrival of the Portuguese - first to visit was Vasco da Gama in 1498. Within a decade the Portuguese presence disrupted the ancient trading network so badly that entire region fell into decline, opening a door to a new power in 1606 - Oman, taking over power in the region. Portuguese held on to Unguja until 1652, the last Portuguese stronghold in East Africa. north of Mozambique, Mombasas's Fort Jesus fell to the new rulers in 1698.

Rival dynasty Marruis seized Pemba island in 1744 but were unsuccessful in their attempt to take Unguja island. In spite of the rivalry Zanzibar's trade flourished, the key to its wealth being slavery, demand for which rocketed after the establishment of sugar and clove plantations in European-owned Indian Ocean territories. In 1811 Stone Town's notorious slave market opened, trading over a million slaves in the following 60 years.

The first Europeans known to have traveled through Tanzania were the German missionaries Johann Ludwig Krapf and Johannes Rebmann in the 1840's. A train of other explorers and missionaries followed, many of them set out to locate the source of the Nile - whoever controlled the Nile's head waters would control Egypt and from 1869 also the Suez Canal. The "riddle of the Nile" was finally solved by John Hanning Speke who reached lake Victoria in 1858 and went to sail down the great river.

The partition of Africa was rendered official in a series of conferences and treaties in the 1880's, and in 1890 Germany took nominal control of Tanganyika, while Britain grabbed Kenya, Uganda and Zanzibar. German conquest wasn't easy, during first years they saw many uprisings that took up to 2 years to crush. Proper colonization began from about 1907.

1890 Zanzibar was declared a British Protectorate, the sultanate was allowed to continue in ceremonial capacity, but the decisions were made by British. At the end of World War I, the British were given control of Tanganyika. They continued to extend railway systems and installed a sewage system for Stone Town.

World War II was a major turning point in the history of Tanzania and in Africa as a whole. Opposition to colonial rule sprang up right across the continent, and with the new world order now dominated by US and the Soviet Union, change was inevitable.

In Tanganyika, the independence movement was headed by TANU (the Tanganyika African National Union). From 1954 it was led by Julius Kambarage Nyerere, who won the respect of the British, and became chief minister in 1960 free elections leading to Tanganyikan independence proclaimed on 6th of December 1961.

In Zanzibar the situation was more complicated, as there were effectively two colonial overloads: the British wielding political, judicial and military power and Omanis who owned most of the island's resources. 10th of December 1963, the Sultanate of Zanzibar came into being and a year later Sheikh Abeid Amani Karume declared himself Prime Minister of the Revolutionary Council of the People's Republic of Zanzibar and Pemba.

1964 Tanganyika and Zanzibar were unified to form United Republic of Tanzania, Zanzibar retained political and economical autonomy. Nyerere became Union president and faced huge challenges as Tanzania was on of the poorest countries on Earth. His vision to the solution was self-reliant, non-Marxist "African socialism". In practice, those noble ideas translated into "villagization": the resettlement of rural households, who accounted for over 90% of the population, into collective villages (Ujamaa). It turned out to be economic disaster where vast areas of formerly productive land were left unattended. This process did however create access to clean water, health care and better education system, as well as a strong and peaceful sense of national identity.

By 1985 the economy had collapsed, agriculture barely sufficed and the country was saddled with a crippling dept - Nyerere resigned, it was time for change. 1985 Ali Hassan Mwinyi won elections and ruled for ten years, he dropped Nyerere's socialist policies and one-party political system.

Things could have not been different in Zanzibar with bitterly disputed elections, withdrawal of foreign aid, outbursts of violence and political repression. Tanzania remains heavily dependent on foreign aid and corruption has been a constant theme.

Lake Manyara - 22.sept

2010-09-25T09:13:00.003+03:00

Last day of our safari tour - exploring more of Lake Manyara in the morning and heading back to Arusha in the afternoon, arriving in town by 6-7pm. That was the plan at least ;)

Headed happily towards the hot springs at the furthest point in the park, some 37km from the gate, nice and early, yet again getting up at 6am. On our way we saw tons of giraffes walking around and munching away at the bushes, saw also lots and lots of elephants - they are everywhere here! Saw lots of all kinds of birds whose names I can't remember, amongst them many flamingos and pelicans.

So we made it to he springs, hot springs being truly hot with the water at about 80 degrees coming out of the hill. When turning back the car made a funny noise, guide gets out and looks under the car. Two guys get out as well and stare at the bottom of the car discussing. We all get out and have a look. We see a big pole or a pipe or a rod laying on the ground by the back wheels, still connected on the other end to the car by the front wheels. After a while it is figured out that this is the rod that provides four wheel drive and connects back set of wheels to the front ones :) Luckily there were other cars there to provide us tools and means of tying the rod to the car so we could keep going. It took about an hour or so to get it all done as they tried to first remove it and then tie it and then tie it one more time as the ropes where not holding. So finally start the journey back, slowly, so incredibly slowly.

All I could think of was us not getting stuck in a herd of elephants and not being able to drive away if things get dangerous. In the parks it is strictly prohibited to get out of the car as the wildlife is quick and they do attack. There have been numerous cases where people get out of the car nevertheless and are killed by lions or other animals - so no getting out of the car in the park! There are special picnic areas with facilities where we have lunch and can use the toilets. Ok, so on we go. We get to drive about 5km when the rod fell off with a huge clunk that made everybody jump on their seats :)

Our ride continued after a while with the front connection piece of the rod jumping up and down making loud noises. We continued on with less than 5km/h, stopping every time we encountered another car passing. Our guide telling each car our sad story which made our journey even slower. After a while, perhaps another 45 minutes, he found a car with right tools so he could remove the noisy connection piece. All of us being alert trying to spot any lions or other animals approaching the car while our guide is half way underneath the car pretending to be the mechanic.

Another problem was tsetse flies occasional appearance. They are quite a bit bigger than regular flies, they bite and carry a dangerous disease. Finally we were on a move again! This time with no noise so we got to go at a normal speed. In about 30 meters another part fell of the car with a loud clunk :D We had been driving in the park now already for more than 2.5 hours. Everybody was so indifferent by now that we did not even make a comment about the car falling apart. All we wanted was to get out of the park and back to Arusha as soon as possible. We were hungry and tired of the midday heat and fighting off the flies.

At least the car was miraculously still moving. We all hoped that there are no hills coming up as we had lost the four wheel drive and we weren't sure if there are any other parts about to fall off anytime soon. We made it out of the park eventually, guide drove to the closest village to fix the car. Meanwhile we looked around and had few cold drinks at a local pub :) Miraculously, 50 minutes later the car was all fixed and well, headed back to the camp, made the guides pack up in 20 minutes and started the 2.5h drive back to Arusha at half past 4. This time all went smoothly - arrived in town by night fall. We were all dropped off at our accommodation.

Farewells followed. Our group included 2 guys from Netherlands, one of them knowing all about the local animals and gladly sharing his knowledge throughout the trip - it was wonderful. One world traveler from Brazil, he had been traveling for the past 2 years and was planning to continue for another 2 years. And then a girl from Israel. That made total 6 of us. Have everybody's contacts to be able to keep in touch in the future.

We refused to stay at the same private hotel so we just picked the first hotel where we stopped the car and booked a room. Quick shower, dinner at a nearby restaurant and off to bed we went exhausted from this complicated day.

Arusha - 23.sept

2010-09-25T09:13:00.002+03:00

Our flight to Dar Es Salaam isn't till 3:20pm giving us a whole morning to look around in Arusha. Slept in till 8, packed, showered, had breakfast, stored our luggage at the hotel, arranged a taxi to take us to the airport in the afternoon and headed for a walk in town.

My friend really wanted to check out the International Criminal tribunal for Rwanda. It was set up by UN in 1994 following the horrific hundred-day genocide that same year which claimed the lives of over 800 000 people. The tribunal delivered the world's first condemnation for genocide in September 1998, when former Rwandan Prime Minister Jean Kambanda was found guilty, but has been dogged by controversy for much of its life - not the least of which being the UN's characteristically lavish and ineffectual bureaucracy: over a billion dollars to the end of 2007, the last trials are set to conclude around 2012. Indeed, fifteen years after the genocide, the court has so far convicted just 34 people and acquitted six. Twenty-three remain on trial and eight trials have yet to begin. However, the successful conviction in 2008 of the so-called 'mastermind' of the genocide, Theoneste Bagosora,a colonel inthe Rwandan army, together with two of his cohorts, was seen as a sign thant the tribunal is producing results. All three were given life sentences.

There are court hearings there daily and are open to the public so we went to see one. Sat there for about 30 minutes, listening to the hearing from behind the glass via radio transmitters providing direct translation to English. Hear the person answering questions like "where were you on the 5th of September in 1994", "who else was at the house", "what time did so-and-so arrive", "what did you do on the following day" and so on and so on. It all seems so unbelievable to me that they are putting the pieces in place through such long and painful and slow methods. I guess that is the best there is. Also I could not understand if the guy being prosecuted had any legal assistance or not, did not see anybody with him there. Seemed strange to me that a simple person needs to answer all those vague questions all by him/herself.

Later on walked around in the town, just to see the life on the streets. Got in trouble again taking a photo of a builing :) This time simply erasing the photo did the trick. Had quick lunch in a nice cafe by the post office and headed back to the hotel to catch our ride to the airport.

Stared at Mount Meru that was rising out of the ground right across from the airfield. It is Tanzania's second-highest mountain (4566m) after Kilimanjaro. Kilimanjaro rises over 5km from the surrounding plains to a peak of 5892m being Africa's highest mountain, the world's tallest free-standing massif and one of the world's largest volcanoes covering some 3885 square kilometers. Got to see the peak from an airplane window later on.

To our suprise the flight took a detour through Zanzibar, making a quick stop there to let most people off and let others on board. Yea, we were wondering why the flying time is so long :) We were tempted to get off at the stop as well - Zanzibar was just so nice and inviting :) Arrived safely at Dar Es Salaam. Luckily we got to stay over at P&M's house again. Went out to dinner with P and her friends at a great Italian restaurant. Met a Swedish girl who lives here, girl from Boston who has been in Africa close to 4 years by now and 2 Italian ladies. It was a wonderful evenining meeting new people and exchaning our trip details. My tuna and spicy salami pizza tasted so delicious as well. I'm missing those loads of pizza that I got to enjoy in Italy on the first week of my vacation :)

Ngorongoro crater - 21.sept

2010-09-25T09:12:00.001+03:00

Today is the day to explore Ngorongoro crater and the conservation area, headed towards it at 7am. Conservation area covers 8288 square kilometers of volcanic highlands between the Great Rift Valley and the Serengeti Plains. As our guidebook knows to tell this place is a product of the volcanic upheavals that accompanied the formation of the Rift Valley and its varied habitats virtually guarantee sights of the "big five" animals of Africa -- lion, elephant, rhino, leopard and buffalo. I'm missing just rhino, all the rest I've seen.

For animals this place is a heaven, for tourists it's something close to heaven. At the center of this 600m deep and 19km in diameter crater there is Lake Magadi - it is shallow alkaline lake, home to so many flamingos that all you see is pink :) Besides the lake one can find swamp areas as well as grasslands, glades and forests.

They do promise to see rhino here, but we did not get that lucky. Instead we saw lots of lions once again, this time they were finding shade in the cars observing them, laying out on the road and not locking many cars to their positions without the ability to move because a tail of a baby lion would be directly under a tire :D Saw buffalo, tons of flamingos and other birds.

Just some 20 minutes before leaving we spotted a cheetah! It was doing its best to stay invisible in the tall grass between a flock of zebras, gnu's and impala. It was fascinating to see how the animals could sense or smell the dangerous predator and they all froze to their places with heads up. There were at least 100 animals standing alert and staring at a single spot in the grass, the air was dead still and felt like they were all holding their breath :) For a while we lost our cheetah but a while later found it again and kept observing it's quest. Cheetah is a very elegant animal, has a smaller head than leopard but looks just as good with it's spotted body. Apparently the hunt can take hours and we were running out of time so we did not get to see the chase unfortunately.

Once at the camp we got to witness how effective the tour guides can be when they are in a hurry - the tents were pulled down, packed, gear collected and car loaded in just about 10-15 minutes. So when they need they are able to move and organize themselves! Africa :)

For the afternoon we bargained another game drive instead of sitting at the camp for hours. We headed out of Ngorongoro and towards Lake Manyara. First dropped our things off at the same camp where we stayed the first night - Panorama Safari Camp located on top of a hill looking down at the lake, a beautiful place. Quickly unloaded the car at the camp and headed over to Lake Manyara National Park for a quick 2h game drive.

This park is famous for it's tree-climbing lions, seen resting up in the boughs of acacia trees. We did not see lions up in the trees, but we did see 3 cups playing by the stream. It was the cutest thing ever! Must have observed them for at least 20 minutes, everybody taking at least few hundred pictures of them :)

Watched the sunset in the park by hippo pools and headed back to the camp after 30 minute drive, arriving in the dark. Once out of the car I headed directly to the showers. I was covered in a thick layer of dust from head to toe, even my hair has changed color to this reddish brown hue of the dust, it is ridiculous. The showers are a joke here though - water was cold and it was barely dripping from the pipe so I basically washed myself under a tap. Oh well, it did the trick and I got most of the dust off.

Today was the most effective day yet, our time was well used and there wasn't whole lot of sitting around waiting around. It was good use of our costly time, I wish that every day would have been that productive on this safari trip.

Getting back at the camp we discovered that they had set us up in the luxury tents this time! There were actual elevated beds in them, tents were bigger and had a view directly to the lake down below - it was gorgeous!

Leaving Serengeti - 20.sept

2010-09-25T09:11:00.001+03:00

Today got to do another early morning game drive leaving the camp at 6 after quick morning tea. Mornings are suppose to be the active time for animals so I was quite looking forward to it. Saw the beautiful sunrise and some hot air balloons starting their journey of looking at wildlife from up above. All this was quite scenic on its own. As for the animals, we saw some buffalo, giraffes, hippos, lots of birds and many antelope types. Happened to find few lions having breakfast, munching away on some antelope. But not that much was going on this morning. Back to the camp at 11, packing and off towards Ngorongoro we headed. There was some misunderstanding about another game drive to take place in the afternoon, but due to 24h licenses they issue for the parks the game drive was replaced by yet another fast drive on the bad roads with lots of dust.

The drive was long again. Got to see endless fields for hours again, local Maasai villages, local roadside villages, but otherwise not much was out there. Getting up yet another little hill our car suddenly stopped :) Engine would not start again :) For the first 5 minutes there was confusion as nobody understood what had happened, then all was made clear - no panic, we have simply ran out of gas :D How nice :) In the middle of nowhere :) All the cars carry canisters with them and naive us we thought it is filled with gas for occasions like this, but no, those are empty so that when the car does run out of gas they can go and get some from a gas station. Luckily we were not too far from town so our driver hitched a ride to the nearest gas station and was back in a bit less than an hour. Meanwhile we got to have a long photo session on the hill :)

Arrived to the next camp site above the crater right before dark so we barely managed to set the tents up in the dim light. View at the campsite is very beautiful! Tents are standing on a hillside, looking down at the crater. This campsite has some electricity not like the last one, there are cold showers and toilets like in all the previous ones. As the facilities have only a number of tables and as we were late with our arrival we had to wait quite a bit before we got to have dinner.

By now we are all quite annoyed with the tour operator and their poor planning skills. There is quite a bit of complaining going on and the phrase 'but this is Africa' does not cut it for us anymore. Had a chat about it with our guide as well that it is not acceptable to skip a whole afternoon of safari because of some permit that he did not purchase for longer period. Running out of gas in the middle of nowhere was a bit of a shocker as well. The only relief was that at least the car did not break down. I hope things get a bit better from now on :)

As it does get dark quick and there is not much to do at the campsites and we have to get up quite early every morning we also go to bed quite early, around 10 or even 9. This suits me well :) Tonight we got to share the darkness with a group a zebras who were doing their best at keeping the grass as short as possible. They did not seem to mind the tents too much, or all the people taking photos of them in the dark with the flash. I guess they are locals :)

Arrival in Serengeti - 19.sept

2010-09-25T09:09:00.003+03:00

Early wake up call at 5, breakfast was supposed to be served at 5:30 and departure to happen at 6am. We were quite unhappy to find the guides only starting to load the car at 6:30 :( Could have had another hour of sleep instead of waiting around by the kitchen. Finally hit the road, picked up another person to be fit into our already cramped car. Plan was to get to Serengeti National Park by the afternoon. For this we needed to drive all the way through Ngorongoro National Park. Fist the guide informed us that it will be about 3h ride, well, it ended up being 6+ hours. With a long stop at the border of two parks getting out of one and into another. We all tried to laugh it off and use the phrase 'african time' :) Little did we know of how right we were :D

Drive was long and bumpy AND so incredibly dusty! No more of good roads (at leas in the park areas which was most of the time for us today) - I'm not sure how my liver is going to handle all this beating. It felt like driving on a railroad tracks with a car and going 90 km/h :D I have no clue how those cars keep going after months of driving on those roads. And the dust!! Oh incredible. I kept my sunglasses on to protect my eyes from all the dust and I basically had to wipe them once in a while to be able to see out. There will be some photos of my beautiful face covered with dust as well ;)

Due to our delay in the morning we headed for the game drive immediately at entering Serengeti National Park without stopping at the camp located at the center of the park in between as originally planned.

Here comes a quick overview of the park from our guide book again:
Serengeti National Park is Tanzania's oldest and largest national park covering 14 762 square km. It is one of the world's best known wildlife sanctuaries. Serengeti lies in the center of the world's largest and most impressive wildlife migration areas. Serengeti also contains the highest concentration of mammals on earth.

Now about the migration. It is annual 800km migration of over 2.5 million animals, the largest mammalian migration on earth. This movement of animals is prompted by a seasonal search for fresh water and pasture dictated by the rain. It literally means millions of animals of different sorts walking across the planes in herds. Migration takes them to Kenia's part of the park via easternmost route and back to Tanzania from the other side, western side. Animals would reach Kenia in August, stay there till middle of October or beginning of November and then start moving back from the other side. Currently most of the animals would be gone with the migration, but since there are so many of them it should not make a huge difference.

When I talk about national parks then here it means that an area has been defined to preserve the animals (probably that is the whole point everywhere). But basically this is where the animals are protected from locals setting traps or strangers killing wild animals. It does happen that animals wonder off the park area though since there are no fences or anything. As I have understood though the parks are big enough (for an example the size of Estonia) for most of them to be safe and not have the need to wonder off at all.

We got truly truly lucky on our game drive today :) As one of the first things while driving towards our camp we saw bunch of hyenas. Usually they can't be spotted during the day as they move around mostly in the dark. Well, for us they were right next to the road and once we stopped they came across by our car and checked us out :) We got a nice close look at them. After a bit we drove on. Here at the parks tour guides chat to each other when cars pass, of course they speak in Kishwahili so we can't understand a thing. At some point after another chat our guide just hit the gas and was quite determined to get on. For our question of what is out there he just said with a smile on his face: "something special" :) He took us to a leopard! Seeing leopard is nearly impossible as I've heard so we got super lucky. And what a show she put on:

At first it was just laying on the rocks, was a bit difficult to see it. Usually we were quite patient in observing the animals, same this time, we simply waited and once more it paid off very well as the kitty went for a walk after about 10 minutes. By this time there were hoards of cars all piled up to have a look at this beautiful spotted elegant creature. For the walk trajectory the kitty chose first the field with high grass so all we could see was her back, at some point it turned towards the road and headed straight to our car :) out of about 15 cars the kitty passed right by ours and then followed on by the road all the cars moving along at the same speed and trying to get the best spot to view the animal. To all our surprise the leopard didn't even seem to notice all the cars. After a bit it headed up to another set of rocks, had some salad in form of green grass and was walking up and down for a bit before taking a seat on top of a large rock. She placed herself to the center of it and sat down elegantly. Next thing we know is that she is making weird movements like wants to let something out of her mouth - surely after few gags the kitty vomited :) I got proof in form of photos. It has been a strange strange experience here seeing animals doing all sorts of unusual things right in front of our eyes like vomiting and mating.

Seeing a leopard was definitely the highlight of the day. It is not allowed here to drive in the dark as this is when all the animals are on a move and driving gets dangerous. Sun sets around 6:30 so usually this is when our day at a safari ends and we arrive at the camp. Next is the usual routine of setting up the tents, getting settled in the tent, eating and going to sleep. This time the camp is situated in the middle of the national park and there are no fences around it :) I guess this night will be spent next to lions, hyenas and elephants, how about that? Fancy going to the toilet in the middle of the night, in the dark, all by yourself :) ?

Right in the middle of the dinner it started raining, raining heavily :( Luckily our tent leaked only a little, two guys from Netherlands were not that lucky and they had soaked mattresses and bags. Took them few hours to resettle and secure the tent so that water was not pouring in. It rained half way through the night but everything was very damp and cold in the morning nonetheless. I truly hope this is the last time I see rain here, it is not even a rainy season yet!

Yet another status update

2010-09-23T18:46:00.002+03:00

I'm back in Dar Es Salaam already. Spending the night here and tomorrow flying on to Maputo, Mozambique via Johannesburg. I haven't had time to write the last 4 days stories yet :) Tomorrow on the plane I'm planning on spending few hours on it so stay tuned!

Tarangire National Park - 18.sept

2010-09-23T18:45:00.003+03:00

First and most importantly - today is my dad's birthday :) :) Happy happy birthday dear dad!

Morning started with packing as every day :) Breakfast and then off to town to meet our fellow travelers for the next 5 days, how exciting! Car got packed up by the tour operators office, met the other 3 gentlemen, drove through town to gather food and do the groceries. It was quite a sight to see the market and early morning busy streets. Finally started towards the park all packed up and ready. We have 5 of us tourists plus our driver-guide in one person plus cook. So 8 people traveling. Car was quite badly packed so at first we could not even imagine how we could even do the game viewing in it. Solution was that the cook got off at some point to go directly to the camp and we just rearranged the car ourselves to clear out the floor.

It must have been about 1h drive to the park I'm guessing. Now here the park is more like the one in Zimbabwe, not so green that is. There is plenty of space so one can get some very good views. As my friend was saying, the ones she has been in have been quite bushy, so it is difficult to see the animals. Here there is quite a bit of planes as well so all good. On the planes there are 'baobab' trees scattered here and there, those are most strange looking trees ever :) Apparently they can live for several thousand years, trunk grows to 10 meters after only a century and keeps expanding even afterwards. All in all the landscape here reminds me of one Estonian artist works - so I would call it Navitrolla landscapes :) The skies, the horizon, the trees, the giraffes, the colors even :)

It seems that all our hard work in previous attempts to see wildlife were rewarded today :D Because we saw all kinds of fun stuff. We saw ostriches, warthogs, wildebeest, dikdik, vulture and so on - this is all quite regular and ordinary, but now to the more interesting animals:

First we saw elephants - 6 of them, with 2 young ones. Animals have certain tracks they follow daily, as we saw the elephants quite far away the car was parked a bit ahead so we just watched the animals coming closer. Turned out the car was parked right by the track and we managed to see the elephants passing the road like a meter from the car! It was amazing! Guide did warn us thought that if they have young ones with they get quite protective so it could be dangerous (he had the engine running if the need would come to escape :) ). So this was the first awesomeness of the day. Later we literally ran across another male elephant, he was huuuuge, really really huge and was heading somewhere while passing behind our car again. Was quite scary of how small the car and us in it felt when he passed. He did not even look at us though, just went its own way.

As our guide was telling yesterday the most dangerous animals to humans are hippos (of all one could never guess that), since they have very strict moving capabilities because of their short legs and big belly. So if you happen to be on their path when they get from the water to their food or vice versa you are definitely dead as they move quite fast and they just stomp over you.

The animals concentration is awesome in this park. There are so many different animals and they are everywhere. There was barely a time when we did not see a thing. Mostly when taking a photo of some animal there was another type of animal on the background. Quite amazing! Saw lots of giraffes, zebras by herds of 20-30, lots of wildebeest, many eagles and other big birds, antelope types (can't remember the names of all) and then and then.. guess who we got to see??? Guess!??!!?

We got to see many lions! Apparently it is nearly impossible to see lions elsewhere (as I've heard), but today we got to see many of them. First one we saw up on a hill, perhaps some 200m away, he was graciously lying down on a rock with his paws hanging over and looked down at the zebras, was probably picking out his dinner :) Then next we saw 4 (or was it 5?) lions sleeping by the tree across the river. Must have been about 100m away this time, but they were really boring ones as they were just like carpets flat on the ground. Still, lions, many of them, just lying there in the shade turning sides every now and then. Quite impressive. AND THEN!! Then we drove through a loop and there were 2 lions laying by the road under a tree! It was a male and a female, female seemed to be sleeping but the male was laying down with his head up. They were so close to the road that once we parked the car next to them it was just about 2 meters between us. Strangest thing is that they were not disturbed by the car a whole lot. Briefly looked at us and then turned away. So there we were staring at them and taking photos for at least 20 minutes. At some point the male did get a bit upset though and growled at us :) My heart rate jumped to the ceiling as a result, but then he came down again and all was good. Soon we found out as well why they were separated from the others - they were there to mate. Juuust like discovery channel only in live ;)

Had lunch at the park in a beautiful viewing platform with many elephants and giraffes running around down below. Monkeys did their best on snatching our food as well as those beautiful small blue birds. Left the park in the evening around 5:30 and headed over to the camp site 1.5 hour drive away by lake Manyara. Dinner was served, acrobat show presented, tents set up, cold shower taken and off to sleep up on the hill we went. Tomorrow the wakeup call will take place at 5am so getting to sleep at 10 is a must :)

Arriving in Arusha - 17.sept

2010-09-23T18:44:00.001+03:00

Up bright and early, breakfast at 7, spent about an hour writing my blog (read: used our amazing free internet) and packing. Taxi picked us up before 9 and took us to the airport. We had 2 flights - first to Dar Es Salaam and second to Arusha. Saw all sorts of planes on the stretch and I was getting a bit worried of what sort of cubicle we would have to get in, but everything turned out to be quite good. Planes were new, had at least 20 rows with 2+2 seats in each row. First flight was about 20 minutes and second 1h 15 minutes. As luck would have it we had a bit over half an hour between the flights and first flight was late 20 minutes :) Good news was that the second flight was late almost 45 minutes so all worked out nicely, as it usually does.

Tour guides were at the airport to meet us. Next 1.5 hours we spent driving around Arusha, getting to the office to clear out our stay in the national parks, our full agenda, figure out the payments and to get lunch. For today we still had Arusha National Park planned so rushed over there around 3 pm. So the park - it is a lot greener here than in Zimbabwe. Can't imagine elephants walking around in such lush grass and breaking their way through all those green bushes. I must admit it is quite a bit cooler as well. I'm guessing it is about 15 degrees here during the day. Don't know if it is because we are a bit higher up or because of the cloud coverage - either way, I'm surprised of how cool it is here. Zanzibar was warmer, but now we are quite a bit closer to equator.

Ok, but about the park - I saw buffalo!! And monkeys and giraffes, giraffes are smaller here than in Zimbabwe. I don't know a whole lot about giraffes, but there must be many different types in Africa - so that was the smaller type :-P Saw also zebras and some antelope kind and warthog. Got to visit some beautiful viewing platforms, saw tons of flamingos from far away, the whole water was pink :) Parks close here 6, so had to rush out quickly, which was unfortunate, but that is what you get when planes are late :( Our guide promised that this is the last time we need to rush while here in Tanzania :D

Evening went in the name of sorting out the rest of the payments, me calling to my bank few times since there seemed to be some problems with the internet bank. All got sorted out and we finally got to go over to our accommodation. The tour operator that my friend found here have such a deal that they arranged a tailored trip for us and will put also the group together. We pay once and then everything is included like accommodation, food, park entrance fees and guides and cars and everything.

First nights accommodation was a bit freaky though :) First of all we got lost on the way, it was dark and apparently we took a wrong road somewhere. There is no lighting apart from the main streets. Finally we arrived behind tall tall stone fence, once let in it seemed like somebody's mansion. Rooms were quite bare, just white walls and few pieces of furniture. Seemed like it was a residence built with extra rooms to accommodate people as well. View was quite nice though as it was on a hilltop. Dinner was served, tea at the balcony and off to sleep we went.

Our guide and a driver stayed at the same location so we had dinner all together. During the conversation at some point he goes: "so how many tribes do you have in Estonia?" :D Anybody knows the answer?

Discovering island Unguja - 16.sept

2010-09-23T18:42:00.001+03:00

Zanzibar is known for all the beautiful beaches hence the plan for the was to check out those miraculous beaches and go snorkeling at the reef.

Our hostel arranged shared transport for us to take us up north to a village called Nungwi. Shared transport means just a minibus picking up tourists around the town to provide a means of cheap transportation as an alternative to the local bus called 'daladala'. Local bus means heavily crowded small vehicle that is in awful condition and where one can not even dream of breathing. I must admit that most of the vehicles here are in a horrible condition. I keep wondering how they still move :)

Anyways, to get to Nungwi we drove for about 1.5 hours, the road took us through local villages and fields. Roads have been rather good here so far, mostly nicely paved and this one happened to be even nice and wide. Traffic is hectic as usual, everybody drives way too fast and makes dangerous passes whenever possible. Our bus was no exception.

Our plan was to arrive at the village and then see what can be done during the day. Wanted to go snorkeling and walk around on the beach, have lunch and just take it easy for a day. On our arrival we were quite quickly arranged on a tour for the day to Mnemba island and atoll for a snorkeling trip. The way our pickup by the boat was arranged was more than bizarre - the boat was about 50m from the shoreline and we had to literally swim to it and climb on the board. We tried to walk to it, but ended up getting in up to our shoulders once the waves hit. Still don't understand how the guides got our bags on the board all dry :D Seemed to me that all the other 20 people on the boat had started a bit earlier from the other side of the northern tip and our pickup on this lonely beach was arranged on the fly. But we made it on the boat alive and well only a tiny bit more wet than originally anticipated :)

Snorkeling trip was planned for the most part of the day, including lunch and arriving back at the village around 4 when our pickup would take us back to Stone Town. Boat ride was absolutely wonderful. On one side there was bright blue-green sea and on the other side tall palm trees and white sand. We went along the coast for about 1.5 hours arriving close to Mnemba island where whe had 2 hours for snorkeling. Whoosh to the water we went with our masks, snorkels and fins on. Unfortunately it was cloudy at that time which made our swim rather chilly. I'm guessing the water was about 19 degrees, which all in all would not be a problem when swimming, but while snorkeling you are mostly floating on top of the water doing nothing besides staring to the sea floor. It was max 30 minutes in the water for me, climbed out all blue from head to toe. Reefs - weeeellll, I've seen so much better :) After Great Barrier Reef there will never be anything like it ever again. But I guessed that and did not let that disturb me.

Had wonderful lunch on a white sanded beach, fish offered was absolutely delicious. I even went back for second round :) Had about an hour to relax, look around and go for a swim. By this time the sun came out as well which made the air quite hot immediately. Back to the boat for another 1.5 hours on this beautiful sea. The boat ride was truly lovely.

Once back at the village managed to take a quick shower before getting into the car to head back to Stone Town. Car ride back went smoothly. We had private transport this time for some reason so we quickly tried to find out if there is anything worthwhile visiting on the way - there surely was, the overly touristic spice tour area :) Of course they charged us extra for this small detour and everybody introduced to us expected generous tips (hence the overly touristic). But we did get to see all sorts of plants like pepper tree, cinnamon tree, muscat tree, lemon grass plant, clove tree, ginger and many other. The whole area was set up just to show samples of the plants - historically Zanzibar is known for the trade of spices, even now had quite remarkable spice market, but in reality plantations are located on Pemba island a bit up north or even in Arusha area inland.

Another nice dinner in town, drinks on the beach and yet another day has planned. Getting back from the town we used the local bike-taxi :) It was a much better alternative than walking the dark and empty streets.

Arrival to Zanzibar - 15.sept

2010-09-23T18:41:00.000+03:00

In the morning the girl we stayed with dropped us off at the ferry terminal that would take us across to Zanzibar, to Unguja island. She helped us get the tickets as well which was quite helpful as we only had 10 minutes till the ferry would leave. We thought ferry departs at 7:30, but came out the departure took place at 7:10. Ferry itself is quite similar to the smaller ones going from Tallinn to Finland for an example. We as foreigners were sent to the VIP area where we found 2 awesomely comfortable bean-bags to lay in :) It took about 2 hours for the ferry to go across. As Zanzibar is autonomous, we needed to go through customs on our arrival which meant filling in another set of forms. Did not take a whole lot of time luckily to get the stamp into the passport, once through the gates we managed to fight through the overly helpful and aggressive 67 taxi drivers and walked across to our hostel just 3 blocks away.

The plan for today was to look around in Stone Town. Here comes a short overview of Stone Town from our guide: the historical part of Zimbabwe's capital. It's Arabian style labyrinth of narrow streets, bustling bazaars and Arabian and Italian style mansions, most of them constructed on the back of the 19th century, during slave trade era.
Here are some highlights we got to see and discover (lot of facts from the travel guide again):

First of all we got lost multiple times in the narrow streets and emerged in a totally wrong side of the city. Maps ar quite useless here :) Found the Old Dispensary which is one of East Africa's finest and most beautiful landmarks, it is very nicely restored and well cared for. Looked around there for a bit, currently it is used as an office building but still got to walk around on the balcony and in the hallways.

House of Wonders was one of the first buildings we discovered - Zanzibar's most distinctive landmark, now housing the Zanzibar National Museum. It was completed as a palace in 1883. For the longest time it was East Africa's tallest structure and was also the first to have running water, electric light and an electric lift. Forodhani Gardens are right in front of the museum, by the waterfront. This was the place where slaves would be landed before taken to the market further south. The gardens are at the best after sunset when street-food market opens and all the people gather towards the busy tables offering local specialties.

Tippu Tip's House we found by accident, it is currently a resident for many families. Tippu Tip was heading slave caravans of more than 4000 men and over the years became king-maker of slave trade. House represents all the wealth and luxury of the time.
In the afternoon found also Anglican Cathedral and the site of Africa's last slave market. Slave market closed in 1873 due to the pressure from the British. Got to go into the tiny slave chambers as well, apparently they would stuff 75 people in each chamber. Just check the photos to see how tiny they were. Inside the cathedral there was a red circle marking the position of a post to which slaves were tied and whipped to show their strength & resilience before being sold. How ironic though - they did that in a church right next to an altar.

It took us couple of tries before we found the Hamamni Persian Baths from the maze of the streets - it is said to be slave-financed luxury commissioned in the early 1870's by Sultan Barghash.

We criss-crossed the Stone Town multiple times, walked by Hurumzi street, stopped at many craft shops, had most wonderful tea at Coffe House, went by the local market where they had lots of spices and then one of the highlights of the day - 1h massage and body scrub at Mrembo spa. Oh that was a treat we both needed badly!! Service was wonderful with welcoming tea and meditative music.

For dinner we picked Monsoon Restaurant and to our pleasant surprise they had a live-music show with local instruments at 7 when they started to serve dinner. It was strongly meditative and highly enjoyable. In Zanzibar one can find a lot of Muslim culture around so quite many restaurants don't offer alcohol. Picked a nice beach restaurant for an evening drink. It was a wonderful and a long day :) So far Zanzibar looks most wonderful. Tomorrow we will try to head to the northern most point of the Unguja Island.

Long day taking us from Zimbabwe to Tanzania - 14.sept

2010-09-23T18:40:00.000+03:00

Long day and not much to tell about. Had two flights - first from Harare to Johannesburg and second from Johannesburg to Dar Es Salaam. Layover in Johannesburg was about 6 hours too long :) Tried to exchange some Tanzanian shillings, but Estonian VISA was not accepted by the machine in the exchange bureau :( Dunno how I'm going to get the money out from the card, I've heard that credit cards can not be used in Tanzania in general. Oh well, there have to be banks there at least :) Will see. Currently I feel quite moneyless :D

So during the layover got to look around in the shops, have a huuuge lunch and type up some notes taken earlier. Flights went all quite well. Was a bit nervous about getting across the border in Tanzania, but all went quite smoothly. Had to get a visa from the border and the whole process was quite hectic - them collecting all passports and documents in huge piles, 2 ladies looking them through and 1 guy stamping and then announcing names through tiny window. I managed to get my documents filled in quickly and was about the 5th person to receive my passport back. There were total 3 big planes coming in so I got quite lucky I guess. Once at the airport the first priority was a visit to ATM. Got to withdraw 200 000 in local currency - the numbers are quite scarily big here :) Rate to USD is 1 to 1500 :)

We were spending the night at my friends-friends place somewhere on a peninsula. Taxi ride there was quite interesting. Locals don't seem to speak whole lot of English here. Official language is Kiswahili and English is quite secondary as I have understood. In Zimbabwe everybody spoke quite good English, it was so easy to get around thanks to that. Anyways, how it ended up being was so that taxi driver took us to a known spot and from there he was instructed via a phone on how to get to a gate of the house we needed. We were warned that traffic can be quite bad and the ride could take up to 2 hours (it was some 15km or something), but we were at the house in less than an hour.

Chatted with P&M for some time. It is so fascinating to meet new people and see how they live and what they do and so on. They are both learning Kiswahili and speak it quite well by now. Here is a sentence I can put together by now 'jambo mambo' :) 'jambo' means "hello" and 'mambo' means "what's up" :) My first sentence in Kiswahili :D

Way back to Harare - 13.sept

2010-09-16T23:12:00.000+03:00

Not a very interesting day all in all - sat on 2 buses totaling 12 hours :) First bus left at 6am so got to get up already at 5 in the morning (I'm building up a comprehensive sleep deprivation here :D ), this bus took us from Victoria Falls to Bulawayo. It would stop about every 30 minutes to see if any of the 30 people standing by the roadside would like to get a ride - some did and some got off so the little bus was basically always full, us being the only white people in there. Some were even taken on board when there was nowhere to sit. As far as I understood this was an expensive bus, saw many smaller minivans driving by where there would be at least 2 people per each seat and more on the floor as well, more affordable for the locals I'm sure.

In addition to the roadside stops this bus was making there was every now and then police on the road checking papers and collecting money - very typical here as we have learned by now. To top it all off the bus broke down when we had about 20km to Bulawayo :) We had 1.5hrs to our next bus that would take us from Bulawayo to Harare so that was not very good news for us. Luckily Dave from Miombo lodge (where we stopped while visiting Hwange National Park) was on the bus as well and he managed to arrange a pickup for himself and we got a ride with him to town. Everything eventually works out somehow :) Now we have a plane, a car and a bus break down on us. I don't want to know what is the next item playing tricks on us.

Anyways, we got to Bulawayo nicely without any hassle. Stopped by the ticket office, got a ticket to Harare and even managed to have a quick lunch before getting stuck in the bus for the next 6 hours. This was quite a bit different bus service, bus seated 48 people, there was a nice TV system and full service with water and a stop for afternoon tea and sandwiches, all inclusive. Quite a different story from the other bus services we have seen here.

Once in Harare, caught a cab to the hostel, quick shower and across the street to the only restaurant open on Monday evening in the whole town. Yeah, dunno what the story is but apparently all the restaurants are closed on Monday evenings here. Met up with Claire and her husband for a drink, chatted for some time and then back to the hostel to get some sleep. Tomorrow is yet another early morning, taxi will pick us up at 5:15 to take us to airport - goodbye Zimbabwe and welcome Tanzania :D

Whitewater rafting at Vic Falls - 12.sept

2010-09-16T23:11:00.000+03:00

We took a whole day rafting tour. They just opened the first half of the river 4 days ago so we are getting the full experience. During high water the first half of the ride is closed as it is too fast and dangerous. There are total of 21 rapids, 10 of them we'd do before lunch and rest afterwards.

Got picked up from the hostel before 8 in the morning, drove by few other places and gathered more people. Briefing took place on a scenic little house on a cliff overseeing the river and historic bridge right next to Victoria Falls. Went through all the basics here, made us sign a paper that we do it voluntarily and then off to the rafts we went. Everybody got the mandatory life vest, helmet and a paddle. Now the tricky part was to get down to where the rafts are :) Tricky because the river runs between cliffs and the way down had to be at least 500m if not more. I'm guessing it took us about 30 minutes to get down there :) It was steep - very very steep. There were metal stairs built for most part but later on when we were going on the same level with the water it was a different story, then it was kinda like rock climbing :) Imagine doing that with a paddle in one hand and sunscreen in the other, wearing a life west and a helmet :) It was quite a challenge to many I must say. Eventually we all made it down there, about 20 minutes of waiting for the rafts to get ready and off we went.

Mandatory practice round to see if everybody knows the commands and we headed towards the first rapid. I was positioned to the front left side and there was 6 of us in the raft plus the guide. Before every rapid the guide goes (just an example): this is rapid number 2, level 4+, we try to take it from the right side, if you fall into the water it will be about 5 seconds before you make it to the surface, keep calm while underwater, once on the surface try to keep to the center or swim back to the boat if you can.

I can't remember if it was rapid number 3 or 4, but either way the guide goes: if you fall in it will be about 10 or 15 seconds before you get back to the surface. It must have been at least grade 4 rapid or perhaps even 4+. And so we get to the edge of the rapid and basically immediately I get thrown off the raft. It happened so fast that I could not even comprehend what happened. I managed to get hold of the rope by the raft, but the current was dragging me underneath the raft so I just let go. And what happened - the longest 15 seconds of my life happened :) I was like in a washing machine going round and round not understanding where the top or the bottom is. So there I went and at some point I saw the light at the end of the tunnel and stuck my head out of the water. The guards with their canoes where right there and instructed me to grab on to the boat, so I did. I was taken to the closest raft and the journey continued. After a bit I was let back to my home raft :)

The first half was way more challenging than the second, second was like a walk in the park ;) Got to look around and at some point even got to rest as the guides were pulling as around. There was only one boat in the afternoon as all the others did a half-way tour.

In the afternoon, on one of the easy level 2 rapid the guide gave an option to take it swimming - sure thing, so me, my friend and another guy jumped in. We were instructed to form kind of a train where we hold on to each other's life jackets and keep the feet up by the hips of the person in front. Oh that was fun, went through the whole thing nice and smooth, took us about, well, 5 minutes maybe... until... the guide from one of the boats yells that we must get back to the boat immediately, I also heard the word crocodile. The rapid was over but it was quite nice in the water so I figured I won't hurry as they are probably kidding anyways. But they were yelling really loud and waving with their hands, I look over to the guide in the kayak closest to me and his eyes were triple in size. Then I got the point - there really was a crocodile close by and we must get out fast. 50m sprint up the current towards the boat was quite fun - had my sandals and a helmet on and was wearing a life vest. Oh uh :) Turned out the crocodile was just laying a bit further away on the rocks, but I guess it is not very safe to swim with them ;)

At the end we had another magnificent climb with our whole gear straight up the cliff, little bit of waiting, 40 minute bus ride back to town and we were dropped off at our hostel. The day was fun :) We were both so tired so just went over to the backpackers to watch the video the company had made of the day. I was so disappointed that there was no photographer :( They said that usually there is, but just today there was only a video taken. Quick dinner, back to the hostel to pack all our things and to bed we went.

Victoria Falls - 11.sept

2010-09-16T23:09:00.001+03:00

The night was really warm - had all the windows open and it was too warm for a blanket, even just a sheet was almost an overkill. Apparently 4 hrs closer to the equator makes a difference, probably the fact that we are closer to the sea level plays a role as well. The hostel we are staying at is quite small, it has only 5 rooms :) But it is quite modern and has lots of space, there is a swimming pool in the garden and there are many huge balconies. Have found few problems though - something is wrong with the water pump so occasionally there is no cold water, need to go downstairs and ask the guy to turn it back on. First time this happened to me was just when I was covered in soap from head to toe :) Happened to my friend twice this morning while she was taking a shower :D Fun huh :D Anther thing is that the rooms don't lock too well :( They gave us 2 rooms for some reason but only one of them can be locked :(

Anyways - breakfast was served on a deck by the pool, it was super nice. Right after breakfast we headed to town to take care of gazillion things like getting bus ticket to Bulawayo on Monday and booking our sunset cruise and whitewater rafting for the weekend and stopping by at the Internet spot and so on. 1.5 hours later all was done and we headed over to Victoria Falls National Park. The falls measure 1.7km across the precipice and the peak flow takes place in April. Victoria Falls is the largest curtain of flowing water in the world, twice the size of Niagara Falls. The amount of water depends on the rains in Zambia and Angola. Credit for discovering the waterfall in 1855 goes to Dr. David Livingstone, during one of the expeditions he followed Zambezi tribal reports of 'Mosi oa Tunya' - 'the smoke that thunders', he employed local Makololo tribesmen to take him by dugout canoe to the waterfall. It was not until 1960s that cheap air travel allowed Victoria Falls to grow into one of the premier tourist draws on the continent.

There is no point in describing of how beautiful and magnificent it was. Once I get the photos up you can see yourself. The way it is set up here is that you can walk alongside of the falls, basically on the same level as the top of the falls are - quite perfect setting. It is about 1 km walk down and then back through a rain forest. It is beautiful setting. At the moment it is a dry season and there is not as much water as at the peak time, but as we heard now is the best visibility as when there is lots of water all you see is mist. I took probably more than a hundred photos of the falls and the mist and the nature - it is amazing.

Our sunset tour starts at 4 so we walked over to Victoria Falls Hotel for a snack. It has been suggested by many to visit the hotel cafeteria and get an afternoon tea served. This ritual started at 3 so we had almost 2 hours to kill, which was not a problem at all in this gorgeous place. This hotel is huge, it has 180 rooms, as far as I could tell the rooms were only on 2 levels so one can imagine how much of the area the hotel would cover. It is a very luxurious hotel - dress code applies at the restaurant, only suits and dresses. Cafeteria side was quite a bit more relaxed, it was located on a terrace with a wonderful view to the Victoria Falls historic bridge. Whole hotel is like an open history book with the paintings and furniture and all little fancy details and courtyards - truly beautiful place. Had a light lunch - for me that was a Caesar salad with crocodile meat :)

Suggested afternoon tea was a very nice little ritual. Basically one would buy the tea and all the little sandwiches, scones and muffins are complimentary. Serving was beautiful, there was a whole pot of tea for one person and the butter for scones was whipped like it should be! A wonderful afternoon in a picturesque location with fabulous food.

Can't remember how much I have told about the temperatures here? Anyways, the nights and mornings were quite cool in Harare and Bulawayo, but up here in Vic Falls the nights are warm, I'd say at least +17C. During the night it does get a bit cooler, but not a whole lot. I'm guessing the days are about +27C in the shade and well above 30 in the sun. I've seen clouds only once during the last 8 days and then it was only partly cloudy for few hours. Weather is nice here and it is supposed to get warmer and warmer every day with October being the worst - it is called a 'suicide month' here as it gets very hot. Summer or the rainy period starts from November which will make it all humid as well.

We were picked up in front of the hotel at 4 to attend a sunset cruise on the upper part of river Zambezi. About 20 minute drive up the river and about 30 to 40 people were greeted by local dance session and guided to a two level open ferry. Sun sets about 6pm here, so we had about 1.5 hours to go up and down the river looking around and enjoying a much advertised open bar. Everything is a safari in this land :) We saw some crocodiles, a lonely and hungry elephant very close up, lots of hippos in the water, birds and monkeys. Cruise was beautiful and relaxing, sunset was even better. Sun gets really dark red here right before it hits the horizon, apparently that is how it goes here.

Had another activity planned for the evening - dinner at Boma restaurant. This whole setting was a bit too touristy, but then again the food was good and it was quite well organized. Entertainment program was thorough - dance sessions were set up every now and then, for the last performance there was an African drum session where the crowd was invited to join in as well. I must admit I quite enjoyed it even though there were a bit too many people and too much noise. Did I say the food was good :)? I ate more crocodile meat, namely tales this time :) I also tasted warthog and buffalo meat - both were very tasty, first being nice and tender and second a bit chewier. Also lots of different snacks like bananas in cinnamon cream sauce, avocados, crepes, pumpkin, mushrooms, peet and so on. All was good and I must have ate at least 4 plates of different courses all mixed together :)

Tourism is set up quite nicely here in Victoria Falls, it is run professionally and is running like clockwork - buses pick you up from the hostel in time and all goes by the plan, customers are cared for and well informed. There are many many activities one can do, basically anything one can wish for and see in Australia for an example - bunji, whitewater rafting, horseback riding, helicopter rides, elephant rides (probably not available in Australia even ;) ) and so on and so on. Instructors are very competent and equipment is up to date as far as I have seen. I'm impressed to be honest :)

Painted Dog Conservation & Dete village - 10.sept

2010-09-16T23:07:00.000+03:00

Breakfast at 8, transfer to Painted Dog Conservation after breakfast at 9. Painted Dog's are a bit smaller than wolves, they have big round ears like mice and they have many colorful spots all around their body - hence the name, they really do look like they are painted. This conservation camp has a very good overview of their life, exhibition was truly impressive. There are about 200-300 wild animals in Hwange National Park area and around it. Oh, did I mention that Hwange National Park is roughly the size of Belgium :), so just a bit smaller than Estonia :).

Back to the Painted Dogs, so this conservation serves many purposes. Mainly it is a hospital for them - injured animals are brought here where they are cared for and then there is a whole program on how they are released back to the wild. Basically they can't be released alone since the only way to survive is in a proper pack that needs 7 to 15 dogs. At the moment they have 6 dogs ready to be released so they are training them in for being a pack. Dogs need to know their roles in pack and to appreciate the other members. For this the conservation has 35 hectares of fenced area so that the dogs can truly feel like they are in the wild. Human contact is kept minimal so that no domestication happens. There is an elevated track built crossing the fenced area taking visitors to the hospital area. Tried to spot some dogs from there but we were warned that this probably won't happen.

Another grateful deed they do here is that they educate children. They would bring 6 graders from all over the region into the conservation, kids would spend a whole 4 days here (there is a special accommodation even built for that purpose). 4 days would include many educational programs, including computer introductory course, kids would also be taken to the national park and educated on Painted Dog's life.

Then there is the research done on the dogs. At least 1 or 2 dogs from each pack is wearing a special belt that protects them and also has a radio transmitter on it. Protection is against the traps that locals set to catch wild animals, those belts are also reflecting so that in the dark drivers spot them on the road.

On the way back the car broke down :) All the cars here are in pretty bad shape, the doors don't open, there are no windows, none of the speedometers work, seats are falling apart and the noise they make is quite loud. Our driver did not have mobile either so cars who were passing by stopped and took our message to next place (which was the Painted Dog Conservation) so a call could be made and another car would come for us. So we sat there in the middle of the road passing time :) Took perhaps 30 minutes or so when we were rescued.

Quick stop at the lodge and on to Dete village we went. Last night the lady from US was telling us how there is a orphans feeding happening today at the Red Cross building and if would be interested we could go to the village as well. So we did. It is about time that I see the real life as well, not only hostels and safari cars. Ride to the village was not long as the village is only 3 km from our lodge - so I took the 'back seat' of a truck (was sitting in the open trunk :)

Village itself was quite different - a typical Zimbabwean village as far as we would know. There were houses with glass windows and all and then there were clay huts as well, houses would obviously be for better off families. Each house or a hut would have a small yard to grow vegetables. Some yards and houses seemed to have even water pipes, but mostly the water had to be carried by hand from across the village. Yards were very neat and orderly, yards and streets were all wiped and quite clean. Occasionally we would see laundry drying outside and all would be bright white and clean. Even the clothes the people wear are quite clean, they would be worn out, but clean.

Families are big here, the more kids the parents have the brighter future they would have. Many kids don't make it, so if one would have 5 to 6 kids they would hope that at least 2 to 3 of them would make it and care for them in old age. Also, kids are the ones to help grow food and to clean and so on. Basically kids are social security and the hope for better future. Took a stroll around the village, peeked into the yards, talked to the locals a bit and wondered around for about half an hour. Zimbabwe is a former UK colony so most locals speak English in addition to their own language - this makes it easier to communicate with them.

Orphans feeding started around noon. The ideal plan is to provide basic warm meal for orphans 3 times a week. But the reality is that there has not been a feeding since March :( There hasn't been enough food to carry it through. Situation here is quite complicated. It is not even only money that is the problem, it is also the politics and natural causes. For an example to fight starvation one could expand the land to grow more food, but to do that there needs to be a special permit to allow this and then there is the water issue - there is no water for the land. Just complicated all around. Sat at the Red Cross for a while and saw all the kids coming in. Food they made should feed about 150 kids, apparently there is a need to feed 300 of them. There are many orphans as AIDS is a huge problem. Often you see an 8 year old taking care of his/her brothers and sisters who are between 2 and 6 years of age. it is quite sad. I asked about their health checks, apparently there is a Red Cross person going through all the homes 3 times a week checking on the kids and elderly and providing basic health care.

As our bus to Victoria Falls leaves at 4 we had to head back to the lodge, ate our lunch, packed our bags and got on the transfer to be taken to Halfway. Bus was supposed to be there at 4, but just as expected it was an hour late. This time the bus is a bit bigger and more comfortable, they even have a TV and they are playing a movie :) Refreshments are offered and there is an attendant as well. While driving through the countryside we see many cars and buses (!!) in the ditch by the road - so scary. Some cars have been there for years it seems like as they are rusting an all doors and other moving parts have been carried off. Bus arrived at Victoria Falls just a bit before 8 in the evening. Taxi drivers ran us over as soon as we exited the bus, so we got a cab to our hostel, picked out a restaurant offering local food and had a nice dinner in town.

Or accommodation is located in the residential area so basically we need a taxi each time we want to get to town. Our wonderful taxi driver even promised to give us special deal if we keep him for the whole duration of our trip - so be it we said. After dinner we asked him to take us to a bar where we could have a drink or two, it is Friday night afterall :) He took us to a lively backpackers lodge :) Well, the crowd there was definitely lively and it did not take long until locals surrounded us. It was fun though :) A bit before midnight when we left the whole crowd moved on to some other hip bar since this one closed down, but for us it was sleep time.

I just gotta mention that the beds are nice and firm here. I was a bit afraid of what the beds are like, if they would be too soft I would not be able to cope with the back pain, but all is good :) Tonight I opened my mosquito net as well :) Hung it up over my bed - what a wonderful invention, why don't people use it at home? I think I will start to use it during summertime, it is quite perfect actually!

For the closing note - bit more about the names :) So the story is about Previous, Obvious and Innocent :) Previous we met on the bus from Bulawayo to Halfway. Obvious was our tour guide at Painted Dog Conservation center. Innocent took us from the lodge to Halfway. With him it was funny as once we entered the car he goes "I'm innocent", my first reaction was that I didn't say anything or accuse you or anything. I guess he read it out of my face as he just looks at me and says "That's my name" - RIIIIGHT :)

I have made it to Tanzania!!!

2010-09-14T23:37:00.002+03:00

I have arrived in Dar Es Salaam :) !!! All went very smoothly - entering the country and getting the visa, even our luggage arrived without any delay and damage. All is good so far. Except for the fact that Estonian VISA cards didn't work at the currency exchange place in Johannesburg airport so I'm slightly moneyless at the moment, but I'll fix it tomorrow - banks should be able to help :)

As you have noticed there are no photos up yet - as the internet access is so difficult here and also very slow I won't even try to upload the photos. Photos have to wait till I get back :)

So tomorrow morning we are heading over to Zanzibar for 2 days.
I have seen all your comments in my blog, but have not managed to reply, sorry about that :) I hope I will be forgiven!

Take care!

In Victoria Falls

2010-09-11T10:18:00.002+03:00

Just wanted to update you all that I have made it to Victoria Falls :) We are just about to walk over to see the wall of water!

As you have noticed, the updates are coming quite rarely. It probably won't get any better either. Once a week internet access is probably the best it will be :)

Take care! ... and lots of hugs to all of you!

Safari at Hwange National Park - 9.sept

2010-09-11T10:16:00.002+03:00

The goal of the day is to spend a whole long day looking at wild animals on a safari. There are few options, either to go from 6am to 9am or from 3pm to 6pm since during the lunch time it is too hot and all the animals are hiding. Well but we wanted to take a long day to get the most out of it and to avoid driving back and fourth and to avoid paying entrance twice. So, we started at 9, our guide was waiting for us with safari car, our lunch was packed, planning to get back no sooner than 6 in the evening. The plan was to spot some wild life before noon, have a picnic at the park and then do more game drive in the afternoon. Plan was good :)

The day ended up being long and not very productive as far as game spotting goes. We did see giraffes on quite many occasions. Somehow they always go around in threes :) Saw them far and close and in the bushes and on the roads. Then we saw a big herd of blue waterbeests or also called gnu. Then 2 ostriches, whole lot of baboons, we saw zebras, then steenbock, impala, kudu, sable, jackal, crocodiles, one lonely elephant, warthog. There was one hippo hiding in the water, but they don't come out of the water during the day. Now, the most exciting of all, there were lions - but they were too far away to spot them properly, all we saw was a yellow spot under a bush far away. Supposedly there were 4 lions around the bush, 2 male and 2 female, people at the viewing point had been following them since this morning. We were hoping they would get thirsty at some point and come closer to where the water is, but that did not happen :( And again we did not see any rhino :( nor buffalo :( All this has to wait till Serengeti park in Tanzania then!

This long day ended with a beautiful sunset on our way home. Quick shower in our treehouse and another 3 course dinner followed. At dinner time an older lady from Alaska joined us. She is working here as a volunteer for couple of weeks and she filled us in on the local volunteer work around here. Oh it all sounds so interesting. Tomorrow we will try to go to the village and visit the Red Cross volunteer camp there.

After dinner we went to help the volunteer lady who is laying salt out for the animals at the water pond behind our treehouse. She first lays the salt on the ground and then sweeps all the traces so in the morning they can check who has visited the site during the night. Apparently the animals need salt because this is hard to get naturally and they need it due to such warm weather. Lady knew to say that last night there were 4 buffaloes and hyenas there. Just last week they had some lions visiting and elephants are quite common as well.

Just as I'm writing this there is an elephant walking around in our back-yard :) It is dark so I can just hear it, tried to spot it as well under the light but no luck. It must be about 20 meters away, but it is too dark here to see it. And yes there was one local guy with me, my heart rate jumped to the skies when I heard the noise and I would not have dared to go out checking all by myself.

But now off to bed as tomorrow will be another productive and challenging day ahead :D

Bulawayo and getting to Hwange National Park- 8.sept

2010-09-11T10:13:00.002+03:00

Had the whole morning to look around in Bulawayo, our bus leaves at 2pm so we would have plenty of time to walk around in this beautiful town. Up at 7, breakfast at 8, tour of Bulawayo club right after and then headed to town. Bulawayo seems very friendly, buildings are old and big, streets are wide, people seem polite and all seems safe. We wondered around for few hours - National Art Gallery and Natural History Museum. Both definitely worth visiting. Looked around at the park, tried to grasp all the beautiful architecture and lively streets.

Bulawayo is Zimbabwes second largest city and the capital of Matabeleland, home of Ndebele people. Town is located 1350m above sea level giving it a bit cooler climate than in the rest of the country. There are 2 important names to mention that are connected to this region:
King Lobengula - the son of Zulu king Mzilikazi, leader of a breakaway faction from South Africa's Natal that was to become the Ndebele nation, based in this area.
Cecil John Rhodes - an influential colonialist with ambitions to bring the whole of Africa under British control, while increasing his already phenomenal personal wealth.

Those two figures were the leaders of two sides fighting over the land (late 1800's - around 1894), finally peace negotiations took place. 1920's saw the introduction of municipal electricity even before it was in London. In 1931 the first aerodrome opened to service the Imperial Airways London-Cape Town route, and in 1941 Bulawayo was granted city status.

Right before heading back to the hotel I managed to offend a statue :( Full story is that I took a picture of a building and in front of the building there was a statue that was all covered up and two policeman were guarding it (with guns!). And so they were on the photo as well. One police (a lady) walked over to me and asked what did I just do. I explained that I took a photo of the building. Well, the whole conversation took at least 5 minutes me explaining that I did not mean any harm and it is just a photo and I can delete it if that would help at all. But no, the harm had already been done, photo was taken and deleting it would not help at all. They would take me to the central police station where they would then see what to do with me as this is a very very big offence and I could go to jail (yea, they were serious about it). All was sorted out and I was not taken anywhere, but this was quite tense. So lesson learned - not only is it forbidden to take photos of government buildings, but also of police.

Quickly got back to the hotel, packed our things, checked out and took a taxi to the bus "station". There was no station really, the bus was parked just in the middle of the street and that was it :) One bus was facing one way, going to Harare, the other the other way, going to Victoria Falls. Had to get on the last one (we are getting off earlier though, at Halfway, going to Hwange National park for 2 days). For the longest time we were just standing there waiting for our bus from a different company, only to find out that existing bus is actually the one we need - some confusion right there, but I'm glad we caught on early enough otherwise we would have just missed the bus and would be still standing there probably :-P

Bus was packed, it was a minibus with about 17 passenger seats and additional 4 pull-down seats at the isle. I think they put 20 people on the bus :) No air conditioning (did I mention it is about 27C here during the day?) but it was possible to open the windows. They handed out water and also fast food dinner. There was an attendant from the bus company who said a prayer with everybody once the bus started moving :D We were about 40 minutes late getting out of Bulawayo, but we got to our destination 1.5 hours later that originally planned :) One of the reasons were quite numerous road blocks where police would pull the bus over and ask all kinds of questions from the driver.

Bus drive was pretty good though. Even though my chair turned into a rocking chair at some point and the sun was burning hot and the windows had no curtains - it was all good. The crowd was fun :) There were two local guys at the bus sitting close to us and we managed to get ourselves laughing so hard at some point that I got tears running down my cheeks :) Bus ride was about 3 hours. Once at Halfway the others continued on and about 5 of us stepped off. Our accommodation organized a pick-up for us, another 40 minutes in the bus and there we were - in a small quiet camp where housing is arranged at elevated tree-houses :) There are no walls really, just some shades. It all looks very comfortable though: there is a big bathroom with a shower and water toilet, there are 2 comfortable beds with mosquito nets hanging over them. This place is really in a deep deep bush, closest people are in a village 3km away.

They have a habit to serving cereal and a full English breakfast here in the morning and a 3 course dinner in the evening :) Dinner was super nice also in this accommodation. Right next to the open dinner area there was a bonfire lit. Rest of the evening went in the name of Zimbabwe wine, talking, staring at the fire and gazing at the bright stars up above. The stars are amazing here since it is so dark - just beautiful, clear and bright stars.

Bulawayo club hotel - deserves its own chapter!

2010-09-11T10:11:00.001+03:00

This place is a colonial era hotel - most wonderful and truly posh. Check the photos as well to see all the different rooms and settings. Club itself is from 1895, it was founded as gentleman's club where they would socialize and do lots of business networking. This club has some very strict rules, quite many of them still being enforced. About some of them you can read down below. But this particular building was built 1935, at the time it would strongly show their capability and resources, to be able to build such a big and fancy building. It was turned into a hotel just a year ago - there are 16 very nicely decorated rooms on the third floor, rest of the house would be club member rooms, restaurant, coffee rooms, dining area, bar areas, conference room, balcony and so on.

Now a bit more about our evening. Got back from Matopos at 7:30. One of the nicest things here is that you are always approached and asked how are you doing and how the day has been :) It is all very sincere and nice. Once few sentences are exchanged they sometimes also get to the point, this time to ask what time could they expect us downstairs for dinner so they know to set the table :) How wonderful is that? Now the dinner - menu is just for a week. There is a complimentary soup served for all guests dining. There are 3 main meals in the menu (pork,chicken and fish) plus a desert. Food was first of all very pretty - the way it was presented was fancy. And of course it was very delicious as well. Sitting at this table one would forget that he/she is in Africa. It could easily be a restaurant located in London or in New York. At this beautiful setting we had the most interesting discussion about social and economical problems in the world, developing countries and the history of Africa. Those are the kinds of conversations I would like to have more often, those are the talks that get my thoughts running in different directions and afterwards I feel like I have just read 10 books in the last hour :D

Now about the bar :) We were warned previously (already in Harare) that the bar in this hotel is only for men and women are not allowed in there. We just could not believe it and we wanted to see how and if they actually would make us leave, we figured we play innocent tourists who know nothing about the rule. So here is the story of two white females in Bulawayo, the year is 2010:
We walk into the bar area, there are 2 white guys sitting at one of the round tables talking. All the staff is black. We approach the barman asking if there is a separate drinks menu and if we could have a look at it as we would like to have a drink. We make ourselves comfortable on the stools behind the bar. He finds the menu for us and steps a bit back. Nothing else, he does not say anything or make funny expressions or anything - so we figure all is fine. We order our drinks and he disappears to the back room/kitchen area. Few moments goes by and another black young guy comes towards us, leans over the bar and says quite quietly that unfortunately we can't have a drink here tonight. Now the conversation goes something like this:
him- ladies, unfortunately you can't have drinks here tonight
me- tonight? what is so special about tonight?
him- it is gentleman's night tonight
me- so if we come here tomorrow evening we could have a drink here?
him- no not tomorrow, but on Fridays and Saturdays you could
my friend- oh so no women allowed today is that it?
him- correct, no women allowed except on Friday's and Saturday's
my friend- so where do women have their drinks then?
him- there is another bar upstairs, but at the moment it is closed
us just looking confused- where should we go then?
him looking around- well, since it is past 10 already and the bar is closed you can just have your drinks here no problem (but don't tell anyone!)
my friend- but you know there are civil rights and gender equality nowadays!
him- but in this place are different rules and those will never change, never :)
Then the next 10 to 15 minutes we heard about the other rules of the club and what is done here and how it all works and where he is from and all sorts of interesting things :) It was a good talk - I learned a lot about the traditions and about the history. Ah the wonders of traveling and talking to locals - me loves it!

Matobo National Park in Bulawayo - 7.sept

2010-09-11T10:10:00.000+03:00

Up nice and early, at 6, quick breakfast and second try to get a flight out of Harare. Got to the airport nice and early, checked in and had a bit of spare time. They did not ask our ID or passport once when doing the check-in or getting on the plane or getting off :) Wonders of domestic flights :) Got all nicely seated at the plane, plane was quite full to my surprise. Perhaps because they crammed 2 flights on there - yesterdays cancelled flight and then the regular morning flight that we were on now. Anyways, got all seated and plane even made it to the runway when we turned back to the terminal house. Lady announced that the plane has a technical problem that needs attention. Oh uh - not very assuring I'd say. Few men in bright yellow vests ran around one of the wings, more people gathered and they seemed to have some sort of meeting :) We did not get more information and we were left sitting in the plane. Hour later we returned to the runway and the journey started :D No update on what was wrong or what got fixed - the plane just took off :D Luckily we all landed safely 45 minutes later in Bulawayo.

Bulawayo airport is under construction so there was a very minimal temporary terminal up and running - but it all worked without a big hassle, we got the luggage quickly and all was good. Found nobody there waiting for us though. Later found out that they were there at 9:30 already but then got told that there is a delay and never got any news of how long the delay would be. Anyways, got our transfer and got dropped off at our hotel - Bulawayo Club. This place deserves it's own chapter so look at the next entry after finishing this one ;)

Dropped our stuff off at the room and hurried back down to take a trip to Matobo National Park (Matobo is the correct name, but Matopos is used more often). Our guidebook knows to tell that at 425 square km it is one of Zimbabwe's smallest national parks, yet it is second only to Victoria Falls National Park in terms of visitor numbers. Apart from the spectacular landscapes and the hundreds of examples of rock art, which together have given the park UNESCO World Heritage status, the very special Matopos habitat carries the greatest concentration of leopards in Zimbabwe.

First we visited one of the rock paintings at White Rhino Shelter. The paintings are faded, but it is supposedly one of the fine examples of line drawings, probably the best in the country. There are hundreds of rock shelters and caves around this rocky area which have been decorated by descendants of the world's most ancient peoples. This is one of the few areas in the world proven to have supported continuous human occupation for over 40 000 years.

Next stop in the park was at the View of the World (Ndebele, who are the local people, it is their sacred place known as Malindidzimu, meaning 'place of benevolent spirits') and Cecil Rhodes' grave (read about him in the next entry). Rhodes found this place while negotiating peace with the locals, called it 'View of the World' and chose this as his burial cite. He died 1902 in Cape Town at the age of 49 and was buried here. The view is of course beautiful, also the colored rocks here are something that will take away your breath.

The rock formation here are beautiful, our guidebook calls them dramatic rock landscapes :) Granite is the building material and weather the artist as it writes. One can find the balancing rock 'kopjes': huge angular blocks of granite piled on top of and beside one another, forming pillars and stacks. Most dramatic in scale, however, are the massive, bald 'dwalas' or 'whalebacks', grey granite hills rising from the surrounding woodland and criss-crossed with fault lines.

Last but not least our search for wild animals started - game drive. It is really really difficult to spot a leopard, so did not even dream of that. We were prepared to see rhino, buffalo, elephant or hippo, but did not see anything! Only 3 zebras after many hours of driving around. All the wild animals must have taken a day off or something. Our guide even said that this is his first time when he does not see any game at all. We were a bit disappointed about missing all the animals - this being my first safari and all. But the rest of the sights were beautiful. On our game drive we passed through Togwana Dam, being the prettiest reservoir in Matopos.

Just this past weekend they had a huge fire here at the park and we could clearly see the damage it had done. Apparently the ground burns here a lot - it helps to clean the bushes up and is totally natural. While driving around the ground was still smoking from many places and I'd even spot live fire here and there (just very small flickering flames). Our guide informed us that in 2 weeks it would all be green and it would be the best time to spot many different wild animals munching away at the tasty fresh food.

Arrival to Zimbabwe - 6.sept

2010-09-11T10:05:00.001+03:00

Just a note - the wedding day is present in the blog as well now :)

As I last wrote I was hoping that nothing too interesting would happen before I get to Harare - nothing much did :) Leaving Italy went smoothly other than the fight for getting on the airport bus. That was an experience on its own, lots of struggling and yelling and angry people. But luckily I got on it, quite many did not.

My flights were all in schedule and went by quickly. Route was long as usual (Venice-Frankfurt-Addis Abeba-Harare), but my layovers were nice and short. There was a minor setback entering Zimbabwe as the visa given to me in Stockholm did not have the required stamp on it. Guy at the customs was not happy about this and ran around the building trying to find out what to do. I was let in nonetheless though.

My friend had arrived already an hour ago and was waiting in the lobby. Seeing Tiina was a great relief for me as her making it out of Mozambique was under a big question mark due to uprisings taking place in Maputo. Claire - Tiina's friend came to greet us at the airport and took us around Harare a bit. Just so we would not have to sit in the airport for 6 hours waiting for our next flight to Bulawayo.

So Harare is my first impression of Africa :) As I don't know anything else of the local life I had zero reference points and don't really know what to think :) As Claire was taking us around she updated us on local life, politics, history and local happenings. It is always the best part to hear the information from a trusted source who is up to date and familiar with all the facts.

City of Harare is sandy, there is not much green around, but this is due to the dry season at the moment. Buildings are old, cars are mostly run down, streets are not very clean. Oldest buildings are from about 80 years ago or so. Streets are full of people, locals just chatting and going about their everyday lives. As I heard 90% of the population is unemployed.

I haven't updated myself on the history of Zimbabwe yet, so until then just some bits and pieces of what I saw. Photos - a big part of traveling - one is not allowed to take photos of government buildings here. Question I got is just that how I know which building is a government building :D Anyhoo, just gotta be careful when running around with a camera I guess.

One is not allowed to criticize the president Robert Gabriel Mugabe, which is understandable as well. Drove past his residence, it had soldiers with guns guarding the palace. During the night the road passing by the palace is closed to traffic alltogether. As far as I have understood there is some resistance towards former British rule from government and from the people as well. Once I get the bigger part of history cleared up for myself I'll update you too.

I did see lots of bits and pieces of British culture around like a golf course, cricket fields, horse race courses and such. As Claire has two little kids we learned about the public school system as well. Zimbabwe used to be one of the most developed countries in Africa some 15-20 years ago, but is now in the ruins in many areas, also in education system.

Claire was telling us stories of how the locals have strange names, some samples being: Broken Fridge, Pride, Gift and Breakfast (yea, no joke, Broken Fridge is a person's name here). What else? Umm, the electricity! There is more demand that they can produce so power cuts are quite common and many buildings have their own electricity generators. Quite a bit bigger problem is street lighting - it gets dark here around 6pm and none of the roads have lighting. Driving around at night time is mostly avoided as I understood.

Stopped by at Claire's house for afternoon tea. Claire lives a bit out of city center with her family in a nice private houses area. Their house has gate guards, a nice yard with a pool, 2 fluffy white chickens and a big balcony to enjoy the afternoon tea. Chatted a bit and then headed back to the airport to catch our flight to Bulawayo. As soon as we got out of the car there was an official greeting us who informed that the flight has been canceled and we can take the same flight the next morning at 9. Tried to see if there are alternative ways of getting to our destination, but train is not going on Monday either.

Claire invited us over for the night. Had wonderful dinner with her family, chatted about history and our countries, enjoyed a glass of wine - a wonderful evening alltogether. My first day in Africa has been full of surprises and I'm getting a feeling this should be expected throughout my visit here :)

Arrived in Africa :)

2010-09-07T09:05:00.002+03:00

Quick update - I have safely arrived in Harare, Zimbabwe! Currently waiting for a flight to Bulawayo with my friend (who made it here nicely yesterday as well). We were suppose to fly out last night, but the flight was canceled unexpectedly - new try now.

Will update you more thoroughly some other day.
Cheers!

Last day in Italy - 5.sept

2010-09-05T17:26:00.003+03:00

Got up early in the morning and walked to the bus station with my friend whose plane leaves at 11, I still have a whole day here, my flight is at 8pm. Getting to the airport seems to be nice and easy with a bus - 2.5EUR and 25 minutes. It is yet another trick that they send all the tourists to take the water bus. Coming over I was wondering where on earth did all those people go as on our water bus there were only 20 people or so, but there were many many planes flying in. Next time when I'm in Venice I'll be smarter than this :) You live and learn, in any case - you live :D

Around 9 walked back from the bus station, showered, tried my best at getting the printer working at the hostel, packed my bags and headed out. This town is crazy today. Currently there is a film festival in Venice and architecture biennale and it is Sunday - those narrow streets are so crowded that everybody walks at the same pace and it is impossible to pass anybody. At times the whole crowd just stops and you won't know why, can't move anywhere, luckily after a bit the crowd starts moving again. It is absolutely packed.

So on one of those streets packed with people I ran into a friend of mine from home :) Seriously, just bumped into him on the street of Venice (it was Martin K, Liina who were visiting with college friend). We were both surprised as hell :)

Walked all the way past Piazza S. Marco all the way to Isola di S.Pietro and Isola di S.Elena - there was much more space and not that many people. While wondering around I tried to keep my eyes open for any Internet cafe. When telling my sad story of trying to find a place to print few pages my friend jokingly said that most likely there is exactly one place in whole Venice where you can do it and it is impossible to find it. Well, I found it :) Absolutely randomly, just stumbled on the sign and found the only place to print (this whole time I saw only one other place offering Internet access, but there was no printing capability). Now I had to spend 3EUR on buying 30 minutes of Internet usage to print out 5 sheets of paper :( But at least this printing problem got solved as well almost by accident :D

While sitting at the balcony at the hostel, using the last bit of free Internet, I can hear the movie playing outside on the other side of the building - I did not make it to the film festival, chose to sit in the Internet for 2 hours instead :)

Now heading over to the bus station to go to airport. My route will be Venice - Frankfurt - Addis Abeba - Harare. Days here have been packed and intense, nights have been way too short - even Martin found the courage to mention that I look tired. All those long flights should be enough to catch up on sleep :) Hopefully nothing too exciting happens before I make it to Harare, Zimbabwe.

Day in Verona - 4.sept

2010-09-05T17:25:00.002+03:00

Another early wake up call, quick breakfast and a tram ride to the train station. Have to mention that the tram kinda broke down at half way to the station after making a loud horrible sound. It would not move. So the tram driver made a restart :) All the lights went out, the quiet humming noise stopped for a while, then came a beep, humming noise started again, all the ticket machines ran a log and restarted themselves and our journey continued after a few minutes. Must be running on microsoft :) ?

It took a bit over an hour to get to Verona from Padova. All we knew about the town was that we need to go and visit the Arena and Julias balcony :) Of course we found more things to look at, the city is beautiful, city's flag is almost the same as Swedish flag only the cross made of two yellow stripes is aligned to the center of the flag. When Bologna was very massive and heavy, Verona is much different. There is a river winding through the city with many bridges crossing it every now and then, there are even more churches here than there were in Venice, there are statues on every corner and the heavy stone tombs are lifted up to about 3 meters from the ground and accompanied by lots of decorations.

Anyhow, first we found the Arena - a Roman amphitheater, which is internationally famous for the large-scale opera performances given there. It is one of the best preserved ancient structures of its kind. The building itself was built in AD 30 on a site which was then beyond the city walls. The ludi (shows and games) staged there were so famous that spectators came from many other places, often far away, to witness them. The amphitheater could host more than 30 000 spectators in ancient times, currently it seats 20 000 people. It is used for opera performances nowadays.

Next we found Julia's Tomb, but it seemed so boring and half way under construction that we did not even bother to get a closer look. Found Juliet's balcony. Statue of Dante. Walked by the castel- which was magnificent. As wiki knows to inform about the bridge by the castle: with a span length of 48.70 m, the 1356 completed segmental arch bridge Ponte Scaligero featured at the time the world's largest bridge arch.

History of Verona is colorful, starting from Romans, continuing with Napoleon and also Germans. Won't go any further with covering the history, but I strongly suggest looking it up ;) As you all already figured out Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet was based in Verona. Oh and Leonardo Da Vinci was from Verona!

I just have to mention that toilets here in Italy are something different. Some of them are in the tiniest closets, most toilets in public areas (including bus and train stations) cost up to 80 cents. More than once I have found a toilet where there is no seat, there are simply locations for your feet and that is it. Kinda like they used to have in Lauluväljak times ago (this was my friends term). Toilets are all clean and everything but it just seems so ancient and strange to me.

Now comes the story of our wonderful hostel :) It is located right on San Polo square. In the directions that I printed out it was stated that it is best to call ahead of time so they can arrange a pick-up. Well I did call but as it came out this was the only way to get into the hotel, not because of a pick-up, but because they would open the front door via mobile :D Further instructions were given by phone to walk upstairs where we would find the key in a pouch stuck to the door, open the door with a key and keep walking towards a door with my name on it :) How cool is that :) And the house keeper would only come the next morning during breakfast, this would be the time to pay as well. Haven't seen anything that relaxed in a while.

And this place has INTERNET! With a cable and all :) Took me quite a bit more than an hour to make few posts, go through my e-mails and find out what is happening in the world. This was all followed by a quick dinner and off to bed we went - afterall tomorrow we need to wake up very early.

Day of the wedding - 3.sept

2010-09-05T17:24:00.002+03:00

Ryan and Elena's wedding day. We were all asked to gather in the hotel lobby by 10:30, bus would pick us up and take us to Arqua' Petrarca.

Everybody who stayed at the hotel slowly gathered, basically everybody who were from out of town so Ryan's family + friends. Two small buses got decorated with beautiful bows and the wedding day started. About 45 minutes later we arrived at the church in Arqua' Petrarca, they were just finishing decorating the church doors, more people arrived and gathered by the church. Photographer was busy taking pictures of the groom, his family, Elena's family and friends. A bit after 12 we were all invited into the church, everybody took their seats and Ryan was up at the front patiently waiting. Music was playing and he kept waiting for Elena :) Church was decorated quite moderately but it all looked very stylish. More people arrived. Then more people arrived - although the wedding was not very big all in all. Finally all were there and now everybody was waiting for the bride :) Couple of more minutes and there she was, walking down the isle with her father, wearing a beautiful white dress (or perhaps it was light light cream color).

Wedding was held by Italian traditions, it was a catholic church wedding. I don't know enough the religion to go into more details about what was going on there :) Ceremony took an hour and ended with newlyweds walking out of the church into flying rice - just like in the movies. Elena walked around the whole afternoon with rice in her hear though. Ceremony was beautiful and very special in many ways.

From the church we were taken to a local restaurant up on the hill where some refreshments were served. More and more photos, nice music, socialising, wonderful snacks and sparkling wine. Table settings were arranged beforehand and everybody was divided between the tables named after poets - our table was formed of international crowd: 2 Estonians, 2 Germans, 1 person from Sweden, 1 from US, 2 girls from UK and one Finn :) There were total about 7 tables plus Elena and Ryan's table.

Once at the tables the eating feast started. I can't remember how many courses there were, but there were a lot, definitely more than 10 rounds were served :) First came appetizer, then introductory snack, then first course, then intermediate course, followed by something and something and then fruits and desert and cake and coffee :) It was something really special. And the food!! Oh the food was so very delicious. After every 4th plate we went for a walk outside to help deal with the amount of food served. It was all very very good and wonderful. There were more photos and some speeches and more food. Towards the evening some people left and the rest picked up the dance :) Eventually even the dancers packed themselves into the buses and headed back to the hotel in Padova. All guests received a small gift: a small artistically decorated notebook and candy.

It was a beautiful and a special day. I wish a happy life to Ryan and Elena and I hope to see them soon in Estonia (they promised :) ). First they will go to their honeymoon trip in Australia though, leaving in couple of days.

Quick shout:

2010-09-04T23:15:00.002+03:00

Just to update all of you - I'm currently in Venice, arrived from Verona few hours ago. Water level is stable and if there ever was a storm here I don't know anything about it :) There is a film festival right in front of my hostel tough!

I'll do my best on getting the posts up about last few days as well - wedding and Verona.

Tomorrow evening I'm taking off and flying to Zimbabwe. EMT does not have any roaming services there so my phone will be switched off, if I get a local SIM I'll let you know. There are some uprisings in Mozambique, but I won't be going to Mozambique for another 20 days, so all should be fine in this regard.

Just to clear everything up so that nobody is worrying :D
Cheers!

Visit of Bologna - 2.sept

2010-09-04T22:46:00.002+03:00

Alarm went off at 8:45 like every day. Managed to finally get out of bed at 9, like every morning :) This is tough, like a training camp :) But we have things to do and we did not come to Italy to sleep, right? Breakfast and off to the train station we went. The plan was to either go to Bologna or to Verona for a day - today is the day for Bologna as decided. Got the tickets for a regional train leaving in 1.5 hours.

To pass the time our search for internet started - it has to be hiding somewhere :) From information desk they gladly guided us to McDonalds as internet is supposedly there. Well, for McDonalds internet one needs to have Italian SIM card - we don't have it. Luckily the guy behind the counter could direct us to the internet cafe down the road. It was this awful dark little room with about 20 computers all locked and boxed off. Seemed like going back in time. Oh well, there was internet connection at least. 30 minutes went by in a flash - just few updates to the blog and paying a bill. Off to the train we went.

So Bologna. Town of the oldest university in Europe. First impression of the town was not very good - the area by train station has very busy traffic and no trees and lots of lots of people running around, there was no information desk to see which direction the town is at and so on. Bought a map from a coffee shop and started to make our way towards the sights.

So the oldest university in Europe was built on the 12th century already. Buildings in this city are all huge, huge and old. Buildings are nicely labeled with information, but all the text is in Italian of course :) Basically the only thing we can make out are the dates. And the dates go anywhere from 12th century. The arches we saw in Padova are double as high here.

Bologna is also the town of towers. There are 2 very tall stone towers (kinda like very tall pillars) still standing close to the center square. At some point there was about 200 of them but today only about 20 of them are still standing. Read a bit about the history of those towers as well - something to do with defending the city.

Criss-crossed our way through town and found all sorts of neat buildings and places on our way. Stepped into Dominic Basilica - yet another huge and magnificent holy building. This one was not as colorful inside as the others, had mostly white walls and white statues. And yet again many outside courts and little hallways here and there.

As we walked through the city my impression of the town got better and better. It is hard to grasp all the history and how old all the buildings and the whole city really is. Can't even imagine that their university was already up and running on the 13th century (founded supposedly 1088) and quite a bit of the city was already built by that time.

Took a train back to Padova at 8, quick stop at the hotel and search for a place to have dinner started. Found this peaceful restaurant by the river. Seemed to be a family restaurant where the owner would run around and talk with customers. Later came out that the lady of the house was from Bulgaria so she was more than happy to speak Russian for us. It was wonderful 3 course dinner and a long walk was needed before getting back to the hotel as it is not possible to sleep with full stomach.

Day in Padova - 1.sep

2010-09-04T22:43:00.002+03:00

We were instructed to take a train to Padova - 40 minutes and voila. Buying the ticket was a bit of a hassle as one machine did not like cash and the other could not print the ticket. Eventually got a ticket bought to a train leaving in 20 minutes - 5.80 EUR for 2 people :) Unbelievably cheap. Yesterday when trying the machine out the cost for 2 would have been 28 EUR, must have been some direct fancy train I guess. Anyways, got to Padova quite quick despite the cheap train. 20 minute walk across the town and 30 minutes later we were already checked in at our hotel nicely.

Rehearsal dinner is at 8pm, we need to be ready in the lobby at 7:45 - this leaves us the whole day to look around town. Started off at the nearby Basilica del Santo which was built on the 13th century to safeguard the mortal remains of St.Anthony. Guide book also knows that the basilica blends Romanesque, Gothic, Islamic and Byzantine elements with elegant arched loggias, minarets and domes, and is a treasure trove of art works by Sansovino, Tiepolo and Titian (this Titian made it everywhere huh?). Again the interior was magnificent, lots of colors, lots of details, lots of materials mixed together and lots of little boxed areas for all sorts of important people. Too bad I don't know a whole lot about Catholic religion to dig deeper into the meaning of all the little rooms and seats in the holy house, but oh well, it was just pretty and fancy all over. People have done strangest things in the name of religion and built strangest buildings to represent all that they meant - history is beautiful I'd say.

The rest of the day we just wondered around aimlessly and kept our eyes open for anything we might want to have a closer look at. Padova is so much different than what we saw in Venice. Buildings here have roofed areas over sidewalks which form those cute arches you can walk through underneath (don't know how to explain those, just look from the photos what I mean). Stopped here and there to read small information sheets by buildings, had a sandwich somewhere, chilled at a Prato della Valle and stopped to have freshly squeezed orange juice at an open air cafe place. It is so nice not to know and not to have to care what day or time it is - life is beautiful.

In the evening met Ryan, Elena and rest of the crowd by the hotel and walked over to the restaurant all together. Haven't seen Ryan for ages and Elena ever :) Ryan is fluent in Italian by now and speaks also German as he has lived in Germany for years by now. Ryan's family is all here, grandparents, aunt and uncle, childhood friend. Elena's parents, brother with his family and aunt with her family joined us at the dinner as well. Dinner was nice, getting to know each other, speaking with their parents and enjoying the evening.

The plan was to go out after dinner :) Walked to the center of the town and what do you know, bells square was packed with people, just packed. Whole square was full of tables and seemed like a whole town was at this one square :) Strangest thing, apparently this is quite normal in Italy. But on a random Wednesday night at 11pm? Odd :) Tried out northern Italian common drink Spritz, took whole lot of pictures and heard many stories of Ryan and Elena. It was a wonderful evening. Walking home around 1am it was still quite warm outside, just like at home this summer.

Day in Venice - 31.aug

2010-09-02T12:04:00.002+03:00

Alarm went off 8:45, bright and early. I was able to roll myself out of the bed a bit after 9 - shower and quick breakfast downstairs and off to explore Venice we went! There are 177 canals in this city, 8 different types of boats navigate on those waters. Bikes are not allowed in Venice so the choices are limited to walking or to taking a gondola/some other boat to get around. AND there are no stop lights to be seen at all :)

First stop was the train station to find out how we get to Padova tomorrow - seems super easy, there are many machines around to buy the tickets electronically, won't be a problem at all.

Now about the city. We started out from Ferrovia by crossing a new canal every 5 minutes, staring at the passing gondolas and admiring the tiny windows of the buildings. All there is is water, sidewalks and buildings and yet it all seems green thanks to the multiple plants on the windows and on the balconies. Water is cleaner than I thought and it does not even smell too bad around here - I expected the smell to be a whole lot worse but in reality it is not bad at all. Couple of times got stuck at dead end streets where the street simply ends with water and no sidewalk anywhere, still gotta walk to the end to see on which side the closest bridge is :)

Visited Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari on our way. As our guidebook says it is a masterpiece of Venetian Gothic ecclesiastical architecture, it took more than 100 years to build this 15th century church. Inside there are works by Titian and Bellini, many tombs, monuments and statues. Was quite magnificent. All the different monuments must have been built throughout hundreds of years as you could see overlapping of the materials and various different styles of statues. Whole church was a bit eclectic, but definitely worthwhile to check out.

Next strolled south through Dorsoduro district to Punta della Dogana and then back towards Ponte dell'Accademia. One can find many small bridges across the tiny canals, but when wanting to get across the Canal Grande there are only few big bridges (although there are boat services across every now and then). Canal Grande is called Venice's "highway", it is 4km in length, 30 to 70m in width and about 4.5m in depth. Traffic on this canal is something one has to see by him/herself - it is fun to see the boats rush by. At one point I kept looking at the boats and didn't notice the waves rolling in - got my feet all wet as there was no place to hide from the water :) Oh well, gotta expect of getting your feet wet when there is all this water around.

San Marco district with many sights got our attention next: La Fenice, Piazza & Basilica San Marco, Palazzo Ducale, Riva Degli Schiavoni which is a nice waterside promenade, lots of tiny streets and canals, Ponte di Rialto, San Giacomo di Rialto, Rialto market and finally a stop at Chiesa di San Giacomo dell'Orio. That was quite a walk :) Legs were aching already at 1pm and we reached our final stop around 7pm.

Stopped at a hostel to rest our legs for a bit and then on to find a nice restaurant for dinner. This time went towards Piazzale Roma and found a cosy restaurant by Rio Nuovo. It was strange to see the buses and cars when all you have seen all day is boats and people walking. Found ourselves in civilization again :) Although it was nice to not have cars all over the place, the sound of waves hitting the edges of canals is much nicer than the sound of car engines roaring.

Ice cream - gelato! It is everywhere here :) Had it twice today, yum. I'm not a huge fan of ice cream usually, would go for chocolate instead at any moment, but just had to try the famous ice cream here in Italy. And yes, it was delicious. Lemon one was awesome and then hazelnut one too. Yum-yum.

A bit of a history lesson from our guide book as well:
Famous artists in Venice - Giovanni Bellini 1430-1516 and Titian 1488-1576
Outstanding Venetians - Marco Polo 1254-1324, explorer who is responsible of introducing pasta to the western world. Antonio Vivaldi 1678-1741, an accomplished musician and influential composer, his famous work The Four Seasons was only one of his 500 concertos. Vivaldi spent extended periods teaching music at Pieta home for girls here in Venice. Giovanni Casanova 1725-98, romantic figure who was also a diplomat, scholar, trainee priest, adventurer, gambler, notary's clerk, violinist, womanizer, exile, millionaire, writer and a spy - whatta character :)

Venice is full of all sorts of masks - handmade in papier-mache and glittery plaster. Those masks are now strictly tourist fare, but they were once essential attire during Carnival, allowing aristocrats to enjoy themselves in anonymity. Carnival is held in February-March as a count down to Lent, it lasts for 10 days and the grand finale is the explosive Mardi Gras.

Just a note for all of you waiting next looong posts, there is no Internet here anywhere (as I should have known). And I'm in Italy, can't be much better in Africa ;)

Arriaval to Venice - 30.aug

2010-09-02T12:00:00.001+03:00

Whole day went by in the name of sleep :) Was so tired in the morning that I could barely drag my feet around. Flight from Tallinn to Berlin I slept, in Berlin I had 5 hours to spend half of this time I slept and on the flight from Berlin to Venice I slept again :) Good start for my vacation - getting fully rested! Bad thing is that I missed the beautiful entrance to the city, supposedly this was a wonderful sight. Oh well, next time then.

Meeting my friend at the airport was easy - our baggage claim belts were right next to each other. To get from airport to the city we were instructed to take the water bus. There were also water taxi's available, but bus version is much more affordable. Four different water bus lines, 50 minutes of waiting and looking at the sunset and there we were - packed like sardines in this stuffy yellow boat with the rest of 15 tourists. It was already dark outside when we headed out. Lots of rocking back and fourth, splashes on the window and couple of stops, people getting off with their huge bags. Just to be on the safe side I turned on my map service to track our progress, worked out quite nice, little red cross moved alongside of the coast just as it should. Guglie - our stop arrived. Strolled off with some other people and started to navigate our way towards the train station.

As hunger was eliminating our vision we stopped at a roadside restaurant to fill our stomachs. One linguine, lasagna, bread and wine later we headed on towards our hostel. Finding the accommodation was quite easy - navigating here is quite easy in general, before you get lost you are stopped by water :) Was so tired that I basically fell on the bed and off to sleep I went as soon as my head hit the pillow, time was a bit past midnight. There was just one little problem - we had no blankets. They forgot them or something, luckily I had my sleeping bag with so no major hassle with that either.

Vacation 2010 - Italy & Africa

2010-08-02T21:56:00.000+03:00

Countdown for the trip has started :) I have less than a month and so much is still open, mostly worried about visas and plane tickets, not so much about other arrangement (like housing or tours).

Overview of the initial plans go as follows:

30.08-5.09 ITALY ... few days in Venice, on to Padova, Bologna/Verona visits, wedding in Arqua' Petrarca, more of Venice
6.09-14.09 ZIMBABWE ... Bulawayo, Matopos, Hvange, Victoria Falls, Harare
15.09-24.09 TANZANIA ... Dar Es Salaam, Zanzibar, Arusha, Ngorongoro crater, Serengeti, Lake Manyara National Park ... and who knows what else :)
25.09-1.10 MOZAMBIQUE ... lots of beaches and islands, some national parks perhaps. this is still a bit open :)
Arriving to Tallinn on the 2nd of October!

As my vaccination passport is basically full of all sorts of shots and vaccines I only need one to be renewed + malaria pills (I'm a bit afraid of those, but gotta deal with it I guess).

Zimbabwe visa is being processed, Tanzania and Mozambique one will get from the border hopefully :) All the plane tickets between different countries have been purchased, local ones have been booked but not purchased yet. Zimbabwe plans are quite clear and confirmed. Zimbabwe is ongoing and Mozambique is quite open still.

Going to Italy with my friend Kelli, Africa trip will be together with Tiina. Tiina is doing a wonderful job contacting all the needed people and getting itineraries arranged - thank you :)

Long weekend in Portugal - late update

2010-06-16T21:41:00.003+03:00

Wanted to post news about my upcoming trip and noticed that I still have not written anything about my wonderful Portugal trip! So here it goes:

First of all I want to thank Liisi's friend Helen and her partner Duarte - they were the most wonderful hosts. Taking their time over the weekend to take us all over the place and to show us all sorts of things - to introduce us Portuguese culture. Big-huge-enourmous thank you for that!

On the first day we headed to town with Liisi. Tried to see as much as possible - the castle, the shops, the main square and squares surrounding the main square, the train station and all sorts of streets between there. Lisbon is a beautiful town. All the up-and-downs on the streets were a bit tough on our feet, but all of it was secondary :) They got cute trams here! During the day we found was lots of wine and ice cream and scones and salads and snacks and chilling and fountains and many-many beautiful sights. It was a good day. In the evening Helen and Duarte took us to a big shopping mall a bit out of town, across the river, late night shopping + dinner. Arrived home half dead :)

On the second day we headed to Belem with Liisi - took one of the fancy new trams there, found our way to the monastery and then to Centro Cultural de Belém, there was a very nice exhibition with all sorts of practical materials/things turned into art. Since Belem is all about Vasco da Gama (famous Portuguese explorer) our next stop was at Padrão dos Descobrimentos (Monument to the Discoveries). It is this huuuge tower built by the river, tourists can climb to the top and there is a museum with cinema down-stairs. I highly suggest the cinema actually - I quite enjoyed it, although I was fighting sleep the whole time :D Oh and the sardines! I had the best sardines ever! On our first visit we missed Pasteis de Belem :( but we fixed it few days later with the help of Helen and Duarte.

Then came the weekend :) Close to Helen and Duarte's apartment there is a flee market couple of times a week in the mornings so we stopped by to check out Feira de Ladra. Amazing what they sell there - everything from spoons to candles to books to jewelry to clothes. It was a fun place. As Saturday was quite rainy our next stop was even closer to water - we visited the Oceanarium. That was a wonderful place - we must have been there for hours :D Again, highly suggested! Also stopped by the cakes place in Belem - Pasteis de Belem's were wonderful! Aaaah almost forgot, in Belem, at the electricity museum we also managed to visit the World Press Photo exhibition. Quick tour through Lisbon - few viewing platforms, few parks and drinks, few bars and a nice restaurant. What a perfect day!

Sunday, Duarte took us all around to Cascais, Cabo da Roca and Sintra. Now one at a time. Cascais is this wonderful seaside town about 45 minutes out of Lisbon. What a beautiful perfect little Portuguese town. It was simply too perfect :) Had the best ice cream there, walked around and headed on following the ocean side to Cabo da Roca - westernmost location in whole Europe. Location is breath taking - high cliff above dark blue-green ocean. Just gorgeous. Took quite many photos there :D On to Sintra we headed. Duarte took us around the town, showed us beautiful mansions and houses and introduced us to yet another type of delicious cakes. Visited his parent's house and a very large garden, met his brother with his wife and little cute daughter :) Evening was topped off with home delivery sushi and off to bed we went.

I returned home on Monday, Liisi stayed one more day in Lisbon. Don't even wanna write too much about my trip back. Yes, my flight was delayed because of the ash :( I missed my connecting flight and ended up spending an extra night at Stockholm :( Oh that was a tough one. Was dead tired once I got back. BUT!! The trip was awesome and not even this little delay with my return could change that.

Again - thank you Helen and Duarte. Hope to see you soon!

In Portugal for few days

2010-05-06T11:15:00.002+03:00

Forgot to update you all here :) Arrived in Lissabon last night, got through few obstacles with flights and all was good in the end :) Liisi, Helen and Duarte came to get me from the airport - was dead tired so straight to bed I went.

I don't know the plans, but all seems exciting and fancy over here. I also know for sure that I won't be sitting in the web a whole lot, so don't expect too many stories here this time - I'm on vacation you know ;)

Toodles!

29.03 - Monday - to home :)

2010-04-18T23:56:00.000+03:00

Kaspar took off first, his plane arrived exactly 2 hours before mine and is also departing 2 hours before mine. He had the joy of getting to the airport all by himself :) I had the honor to be accompanied by 2 guys :D So lovely :D Goodbyes are not very lovely though, but there is no way to get around them either :(

So sad the trip is over already. Got so much done and so many places visited during those few days. Had the best companions, very patient and not very demanding ones at all. They even all woke up at 10 without one complaint :) when needed. Thank you guys! The trip was wonderful.

My flights back home were luckily very quick and went without problems for all I can remember :) Managed to be productive at the long layover in Copenhagen and watch 2 movies in a row :D Arrival home was cold :( And I got sick the following day :( But that is nothing :) All better now :D

Next trip is planned to early May, but as of today I still have no plane tickets so will see how it goes. Trip of the year in September is getting clearer and clearer - more on the subject in a month or two!

28.03 - Sunday - from Benidorm

2010-04-18T23:32:00.000+03:00

As every year there was a huge mess on my part related to the time change. I had only my phone - which I did not trust to do the time change automatically (and then my computer confused me as well since had forgotten it to Estonian time so it differed from my phone time.. uh oh). Anyways - huge confusion, but all turned out for the best in the end. The plan was to stop by triathletes housing and head over to swim practice. Ended up having famous pancakes (famous rightly so) and then headed out to the practice just like planned. It was refreshing to swim :) More updated on the training camp and more check-ups :)

Goodbyes to triathletes, met up with my travel companions and back towards Barcelona we headed - me behind the wheel. Took us about 5 hours of driving and 1 hour of going around in circles and arguing about the usefulness of GPS devices :-S Best part of all was the wonderful discussions with my friend :), I've missed those! Really enjoyed the drive and the chat - one can never have too many friends with whom to discuss about the world matters for hours without once getting bored :D I'd come back for a visit just for the talks at anytime!

Arrived to Barcelona, one crankier than the other (except me of course :) ), one hungrier than the other (especially me of course ;) ). Dropped off the car, dropped of the packages at the apartment and headed to regular midnight dinner :D at the Japanese buffet place.

Now let's talk about food :) Local specialties I got to try out were:
Pa amb tomaquet - roasted white bread with olive oil and garlic rubbed with tomato. This is how the locals eat bread here, none of this buttery stuff.
Paella - those come in many different variations, the one I ate was 'paella valenciana', it is the original version with chicken and seafood.
Tapas - all kinds of little snacks like meat, sausages, bread, fish served with oils and herbs. One must have is 'patatas bravas' - potato chunks in spicy tomato sauce.
From deserts - Crema Catalana - Catalan version of creme brulee, it is a rich eggy custard with a caramelized sugar topping, YUM!
Then of course 'cava' - sparkling wine made the same way as French champagne and sangria. Sangria is everywhere and is served throughout the day like lemonade.
Another wonderful food experience was definitely the Japanese buffet place we visited in Barcelona - it was grand. You just picked whatever you liked from the menu and everything was served to the table nice and quick. That was really neat as the food was superb. Haven't eaten that much sushi total in my whole life :)

27.03 - Saturday - to Benidorm

2010-04-18T23:27:00.002+03:00

One of the purposes of my Spain trip was to visit my students and friends in Benidorm while they are in their spring training camp pushing their bodies to the limits by getting through unbelievable amount of training hours every day. As their practice was ending around 1pm anyways we weren't gonna hurry a whole lot. Ate breakfast - I had absolutely the best croissant in the world that morning and then headed out of town towards Benidorm. Took a bit over an hour, or was it 1.5 hours, either way not a whole lot.

Ended up spending the whole time in Benidorm with my students. Weather was nice and warm, the sun was out and life was just beautiful. Lots of information had to be exchanged, status updates told, training plans reviewed, future plans discussed, next training camp to be planned ;), experiences to be shared and so on and so on. One student had swimming so figured to go and check out the facilities here, perhaps should attend one swim practice myself :) Either way, club crowd took good care of me the whole time. Training camp is going as planned and even better than expected (or should I say fared?). In the evening the whole club crowd, and friends, got together and we went out to eat. It was truly wonderful, wonderful to spend time with students, with other club members and friends. Good times!

My travel companions had been resting the whole time so it was time for them to start the evening. Stopped by for half and hour, wished them the best time of their life and headed to the hostel. Heard the next morning that their evening went till 6am and apparently Benidorm is THE place for partying. I simply can't believe how they manage to party every single night :) I definitely needed to get my beauty sleep :)

26.03 - Friday - to Valencia

2010-04-18T23:01:00.001+03:00

Uh oh.. let's continue with ancient Spain trip story now :) So Valencia!
Morning was kind of slow. Luckily the guys picked up the car already last night while I was switched off :) Goal was to head out around noon, which meant getting out around 11 to have a quick breakfast and then out the town we go.

First 1.5hrs was major horror on the road - traffic jams and cars barely moving at all. There were 5 of us jammed into a rather smallish 4-door vehicle :D In the end it turned out to be fine, the first hour I was getting bit claustrophobic (just being me). Rest of the ride went a bit smoother. We stopped here and there for food and gas - was quite chill. Got to see a bit of the nature outside the cities and managed to enjoy the views most of the time.

Arrived in Valencia around 6 I guess. It took us forever to navigate to our hostel in the city center and it took about hundred times forever to find a parking spot. After going around the block about 30 times I politely excused myself, stepped out of the car :) and waited on a parking bench. Finally the car got parked and we managed to check into the accommodation place. Hunger was the next most important topic - got taken care of quite quickly.

During dinner time inquired about local culture - we were all quite surprised when we heard that there is another Spanish dialect in Valencia, called Valencian. Catalan is the official language of autonomous region Catalonia - in Valencia the two official spoken languages are Valencian and Castilian (so Spanish I guess).

Walked around in the city center a bit and then headed out to find the City of Arts and Sciences (Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciences) - somebody had heard something good about it. To get there we walked in this strange park like thing that seemed like an old river bed with bridges going across every now and then. The strangest thing was that this whole area was made into a park with wonderful decorations, sports areas, biking and running roads, fountains and sculptures. Now I read from wiki that there really used to be river at some point but has been diverted now - riverbed area is called Turia gardens. After walking forever and ever in this beautiful park we finally made it to the Arts and Sciences center. OH WOW. It was dark outside by now and all was closed, but oh wow! The complex was amazing! The architecture - the surroundings - the lighting - the shapes - the materials - the combinations of water and stone. Just amazing. One of the coolest things I've seen for a long long time. If you ever get to visit Valencia - take the time to stop by there, you will love it.

Next problem was getting back to city center. Decided to take the metro - we were all half dead by now of the long walk, so we gathered our last strength and walked to the metro station that was about 25 minutes away. And what do you know, by the time we got there it was closed - we missed the last metro by 10 minutes!!! I wanted to cry. And the city center was so far away. After walking around and trying to figure out the bus system ended up taking a taxi still.

It was Kaspar's birthday today so of course we had to celebrate :) And what is the best way to celebrate than find a place where one can dance - and dance we did. As custom in Spain goes, it is totally ok to go to eat at 1 or 2am, so that is what we did. Found this wonderful little restaurant that seemed to be run by the owner. He was so generous and seemed to be doing everything there by himself. Food, beer and wine kept flowing. Got back to the hostel probably around 3 or so - after trying to navigate back and taking a wonderful night tour in the city :) This was probably the most walking I have done in a day for years :)

25.03 - Thursday - in Barcelona

2010-03-31T12:27:00.002+03:00

First a bit of an introduction to the city. Barcelona is the capital of autonomous region of Catalonia, official language here is Catalan (all the signs are both in Spanish and in Catalan). Besides great architect Gaudi, this beautiful city is the birth place of Joan Miro, Salvador Dali and Antoni Tapies. Pablo Picasso spent his formative years here and Pedro Almadovar is also from here.

As mentioned - had a whole day to look around in the city and no plans :) Oleg&co took us around, we started from Eixample, walked down to old town and finished up by the sea. First stop was Sagrada Familia - greatest work of Gaudi, building of this Neo-Gothic church started year 1882 and it is not expected to finish before 2026. Passed by Arc de Triomf and walked through beautiful Parc de la Ciutadella. Arrived at Barri Gotic or the Gothic Quarter which is the oldest part of the city, Romans founded new 'colonia' or a town here during reign of Augustus (27 BC - AD 14). Enjoyed wonderful tapas in one tiny eating place with cava and wine. Next headed to El Born, walked down La Rambla - definitely the most famous street in whole Spain, it is a lively street full of newsstands, caged bird and flower stalls, musicians and mime artists. Good thing about being taken around with half locals is that they know all sorts of nice local eating places - chilled with a big bucket of sangria just a block from La Rambla. Final destination was Port Vell area, beautiful seaside complex. As you can imagine, this all meant loots of walking :)

Barcelona is wonderful - city made for people. Streets are wide, buildings are all about the same height, architecture is fabulous and everything just looks pretty. Houses at the intersections are chamfered to allow the buildings to overlook the squares or junctions. Oldest part of the city has very narrow streets, but majority of the streets are wide and city planning has quite rigid structure - streets are strictly parallel and form even squares, there are just few diagonals running through the city.

Evening was topped of with visiting absinth bar (yeah) and dinner + wine at the apartment. Yet another long day was put behind.

24.03 - Wednesday - Arrival

2010-03-31T12:21:00.004+03:00

Flying in Europe is so quick and easy, 2+2 hours and boom you're there - very convenient. Haven't been really traveling only in Europe for many many years so makes you forget how it even works. Another major convenience is traveling with an ID-card :) I had never done that before either. I'm always going somewhere further away and passport is required. I don't think I have even gone to Finland with ID-card? Anyways, now I have - very easy and convenient.

Kaspar was already waiting for me at the airport as he arrived 2 hours before me. We quickly located bold convict looking Oleg as well :) and our journey began. Oleg lives in downtown and as we arrived just in time for the trainstation to close we ended up taking the night bus and then walking half way across Barcelona :) It was all good though, first sightseeing tour was on the way. Passed by Casa Batllo and Casa Mila - great works of Antoni Gaudi built around 1900 to 1910. He was the leader of Modernisme, a variant of Art Noveau that became means of expression for Catalan nationalism.

Once at the apartment I headed to sleep right away - it has been a long day with a whole day at the office + 2 flights and touring the city. Tomorrow we have a whole day for this wonderful place called Barcelona.

Long weekend in Spain coming up

2010-03-20T20:49:00.004+02:00

On Wednesday I will be leaving to Spain for a long weekend, will be back late night on Monday. You ask what the plan is? The plans are grand once again. Just as a side note, there will be a time when I'm gonna go traveling and I can say "there are no plans, absolutely none" :) Someday this will be the case - promise I have made to myself :D

My route will be Barcelona-Valencia-Benidorm-Barcelona. There are 3 goals for this trip:
1) to visit my friend Oleg who moved to Barcelona about a year ago and now happily lives there
2) to celebrate Kaspar's birthday, he is living in Ireland for a year and is flying down to meet me in Spain
3) to say hi to couple of my students who are in a training camp in Benidorm
Quite grand huh :) ?

But so the plans-plans:
- leaving Tallinn on the evening of 24th and will arrive in Barcelona just before midnight, meeting Oleg and Kaspar at the airport and will camp over at Oleg's place
- spending a day in Barcelona on the 25th
- renting a car on the 26th and driving south during the day with all three of us + Oleg's flatmate, hopefully will make it to Valencia in the early evening. Celebrating Kaspar's birthday and staying in Valencia for the night.
- will head to Benidorm on Saturday, morning of 27th, and will stay there till Sunday evening
- driving back to Barcelona on the evening of 28th
- flying back to Tallinn on Monday afternoon, on the 29th and arriving a bit before midnight

Wish me/us luck :)

Ending the topic of Dubai

2010-03-14T15:44:00.005+02:00

Got back from Dubai already two weeks ago and have forgotten to close the topic :) Getting back home was hundred times easier than getting there. Nap at the plane was much deserved, nice and peaceful. Spent the layover in Riga uploading photos and watching movies. Due to the time changes on the way there my notebook showed a bit incorrect time and I almost missed my flight to Tallinn. Oh well :)

Afterthoughts about Dubai - good place to go for a long weekend I'd say. There is not much to do besides shopping and few sights, other than that one gets bored there quickly. There is quite a bit of luxury there, but one needs to look for it, it isn't everywhere and sometimes it isn't even accessible. I've heard that there is not much local culture there - i'd have to say the opposite, but again, one must look for it. Dubai is a desert city, with few green areas and with looots of sand flying around :)

It was a great week, thank you Jaana and Dominique for showing and taking me around!

Now on to booking my accommodation and rentals during my trip to Spain in two weeks.

26.2 - Last day in Dubai

2010-02-27T11:00:00.001+02:00

First things first - laying in the sun for couple of hours in the morning. Finding the house pool half way filled with water was the best surprise yet :) No need to walk all the way to the beach now.

Jaana booked me a safari for the afternoon. I don't know what she told the guy on the phone, but I got special treatment from a handsome tour guide throughout the trip :) Locals seem to have all gone to some charmers courses or something :) But the safari - it was all good. After pick-up we were taken out of town, it was about 45 minute drive towards Oman, to the gathering point.

From gathering point convoys of 4 wheel drive cars were formed. Our tour guide explained the drill that convoys are formed so that if something happens to some car the others can help out. Well, there were no other cars in sight anywhere :) He just smiled and assured that our convoy is somewhere around here, we found it after a bit, turned out that our tour guide is the coordinator and he needs to review all the activities during this tour. Going up and down the sand dunes was neat, made me wanna drive there myself :) Later on we were taken to a little village where lots of food was offered, couple of activities lined up (like riding a camel) and main attraction of the day - belly dancing show took place. We were taken back by 9 in the evening.

Rest of the evening went on the name of my last project - kill time till my flight at 4:50am :D This project looked like it will be a fun one :) Jaana and her friend were gladly planning the time and kept telling one location after another while I just nodded to questions "should we go to place X or Y?" :D

Number one on the list was a Southern African sports bar offering wonderful food, luckily it also had nice big TV's to follow an ongoing rugby game. South African team lost their home game :(

As all sources say, one of the many must visit location for looking at the city of Dubai is The Address Downtown Burj Dubai 63rd floor. Yesterday it was closed, but today it was quite open and packed with people. View was grand, apple martini as well :)

Another pub followed, this time a hidden Irish one. During those lonely 3 minutes we managed to stay in there we saw the band leaving, had a chat about why are they leaving (because everyone wanted to see the rugby game instead) and where can we follow them to (some hotel far away) and witnessed an uncomfortable situation that was so close to lead to a fight - out we went and headed over to a night club :) Me looooves dancing and dance we did, me a lot and the others a lot-lot. Quickly found another dancer with whom to take over the dance floor & let the rhythms take over :D

Party till 2, walk back to the apartment, quick shower, goodbyes, 14 minute taxi ride to the airport, endless lines of baggage scan/check-in/security/entry to the gate. Buuh, can't wait to get to the plane to take a loooong nap - it's been a tiring day.

25.2 - Tourist in Dubai

2010-02-26T08:11:00.001+02:00

Another wonderful morning of sleeping in till 9 :) Relocated for the night to another part of the town - much different one. One with green grass in back yard, two level private homes, area with on the premises tennis courts and aquatic center - a very nice location to live. Sunscreen and bikinis on and out to the sun I went :) Later ended up by the pool - oh the joy of jumping into refreshing water in about every 15 minutes, outside temperature is close to 30C again.

Afternoon went for relocating back to the apartment and visiting the Mall of the Emirates. Yeah, that was a bit fancier shopping center. Not to even mention the skiing hill at the one end of the mall. Looking around one would see quite a bit fancier stores this time like Gucci, Versace, YSL, Ralph Lauren, Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, Christian Dior and so on. Of course all the regular stores were present as well. This mall has over 450 stores, over 75 restaurants, largest indoor amusement park in the region and the ski/snowboarding hill.

For the evening we had great plans: starting off with drinks at Atlantis on the artificial islands, then to dinner at one of the skyscrapers to have a look at the lit up city and later to the pubs. Wonderful plans, was waiting forward to the evening. Now it turns out that Prophet Mohammad has a birthday tomorrow which means there will be no alcohol served from 2pm today for the next 24 hours (or something similar). So there goes our plans for the night.

Alcohol in general is allowed here only in the hotel premises. Due to this all bars and night clubs are located underneath hotels. Alcohol buying license is needed to get liquor from the stores. All private areas (so houses, apartments) require an alcohol permit to have any alcohol in the premises. There are some free zones where the rules don't apply, but I could not figure out what is behind those.

We decided to still go out besides the dry law, we assumed all the places to be totally empty and we were correct. Started at Barasti restaurant located on the beach, with marina, view was very nice - Atlantis across the bay and skyscrapers on the other side. Dubai night skyline is beautiful. Second stop was Atlantis hotel where we simply walked around on the beach, enjoyed Dubai skyline from the other side and peeked into the luxurious hotel lobby. Now was desert time :) For this we made our way towards Burj Khalifa and Mall of Dubai. In front of the tower they have dancing water fountain show in the evenings so we found a cafeteria close by to enjoy our cakes. For the last spot there was a plan to go up to a restaurant located high up in a skyscraper close by, but for some reason this place was closed - so no pretty view from up above for us tonight :( Oh well, there is always tomorrow :D

Another thing about restaurants and clubs here (all sorts of clubs like nightclubs, sports clubs etc.) is that many or even most of them are with restricted access, one needs VIP pass to get in. The place where we went to eat is a complex with a restaurant, marina and a sports club, as I understood the yearly pass there costs about 30 to 40 000 dirhams (so about 100 000 EEK). Good deal that we have the right connections for the occasion :)

24.2 - Day in Abu Dhabi

2010-02-24T18:42:00.001+02:00

Took a few hours before we were ready to head out of Dubai towards Abu Dhabi - the capital. It is the second largest city in the United Arab Emirates. United Arab Emirates Government is located here as well as Emirati Royal Family. Abu Dhabi is the richest city in the world as stated by CNN and other sources.

While driving from Dubai to Abu Dhabi I saw all this sand all around us, fields of sand. But apparently it is soil not sand! And very fertile, as soon as it gets water, plants would grow there very nicely. By the roadside there are always trees and bushes, planted of course. To keep them growing there is irrigation built into the ground to keep constant water supply for watering. As I learned, there is a huge desalination plant to create clean water (since it is a desert here and not much clean water around). Apparently this plant produces way too much clean water and they had to dump whole lot of it back to the sea, so now they have the plant running only for 3 days a week. Also learned that UAE is one of the biggest wheat exporters, they also grow quite a bit of dates around here.

Plants are necessary by the roadside to keep the sand off the road when winds pick up. It is about 160km between the two cities, having 4-by-4 lane road all the way all lit up with street lights :) Very nice I must say :) As the speeds on the road can go up to 160km/h the ride was quick :D And they have similar speed check boxes on the highway here as they are installing on Tartu road ;)

On our way I managed to see some wild camels by the road as well. For obvious reasons could not take a photo with a camel though :) Perhaps some other day ;)

As Wikipedia states, Abu Dhabi city is geographically located on the north-eastern part of the Persian Gulf in the Arabian Peninsula. It is on an island located less than 250 metres from the mainland and is joined to the mainland by the Maqta and Mussafah Bridges.

There is much talk about oil, Abu Dhabi holds 9% of the world's proven oil reserves and almost 5% of the world's natural gas. It has taken on an active diversification and liberalisation programme to reduce the UAE’s reliance on the hydrocarbon sector.

More from Wikipedia: the majority of the inhabitants of Abu Dhabi are expatriate workers from India, Pakistan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Philippines, the United Kingdom and various countries from across the Arab world. Consequently, English, Hindi, Urdu, Tagalog, Tigrinya, Amharic and Bengali are widely spoken. Apart from Urdu and Hindi spoken by Indians and Pakistanis, many South Asian expatriates also contribute other South Asian languages to the cultural milieu, including Malayalam, widely spoken in Kerala.

First we visited Sheikh Zayed Mosque - the largest mosque in UAE and 6th largest in the world (Wikitravel). It was opened year 2007, capacity is 40 000 people. Building was magnificent - all white marble, beautiful decorations, floor is covered with carpet all the way, it is just gorgeous and very spacious. A must see place.

Next stop was Corniche - Abu Dhabi's spectacular waterfront that stretches for miles from the Breakwater near Marina Shopping Mall almost up to the Mina Zayed port. It has a walkway for the entire length, and certain stretches have sandy beaches. Had lunch in Marina Shopping Mall and of course had to squeeze some shopping in as well :)

Right after Marina Shopping Mall there is Emirates Palace - built at an estimated cost of US$3 billion, this was by many accounts the world's most expensive hotel to build, with oodles of gold and marble plating every available surface. The scale of everything is gargantuan — you need directions just to find your way from the gate to the lobby! — and the hotel feels like it's straight out of Las Vegas, minus the slot machines. Day tripping visitors are welcome, and entertainment options include caviar and champagne at the Caviar Bar, a fine Cohiba and cognac at the Havana Club, or a Turkish coffee (Dh 30) at Le Cafe. Rooms for the night start from about US$500 (Wikitravel).

Peeked in Emirates Palace as well - it is exactly as grand as they say it is. Managed to see an exhibition about Guggenheim Museum plans for making cultural center at Saadiyat Island. Seems to be a huge program with co-operation between Guggenheim Museum and UAE - all the plans seem fabulous. If all the financing goes through then seems like Abu Dhabi will be a grand place in few years.

Getting back to Dubai was even quicker as speedometer showed mostly 170km/h - no I was not driving this beautiful grey Porch suburban :D

Now the plan is to go over to Jaana's friends place and make Estonian food for dinner, watch some movies and have good time with the whole crowd :)

23.2 - Bur Dubai

2010-02-24T08:09:00.003+02:00

Perfect holiday morning - slept till 10 :) and spent an hour laying in the sun and reading. It must have been about 30C outside, the sun was burning and seemed to be the most intense sun ever. Was great though, I'd better get a nice tan while I'm here.

We had agreed to meet in town with Jaana in the afternoon. So I ended up navigating my way to Deira City Center by metro. Metro is nice here, it is brand new and it runs mostly on higher ground above the roads. Antoher line will be opened soon. In all the buses and also in metro there are special seating areas for females - men are not allowed to be there. And if there are no seats left in the female area then females are not allowed to stand up or anything, they have to catch the next bus (this rule does not apply in the metro). Strangest thing :) Aah and apparently there are even special taxis for ladies - the driver is a female.

Whole lot of shopping and then via bus to Bur Dubai to visit the Souq's or markets - spice market and most importantly gold market.

Malls are very very much the same as everywhere in the world - no there are no special nifty additions or anything (besides the huge downhill skiing park or aquarium of course ;) ). Food court in the mall still has Subway and Pizza Hut or Hardeys and McDonalds - nothing fancy, nothing special. Stores are the same as everywhere - Next, Gap, Nike, Promode, Zara, Adidas, Banana Republic and so on.

And the markets are just like in Thailand :) They basically block your way and drag you into their little shop to show their goods and to get you to buy at least one little pillow case.

Jaana's friend took us to dinner in Festival City - they had the best cheese cake there :) Dinner was super nice and it was great to dine in a good company. Tomorrow we will go on a trip to Abu Dhabi - the capital.

22.2 - Beach, Burj Al Arab and swimming

2010-02-24T07:46:00.005+02:00

This was one short night. Due to our long discussion and catch-up session last night, got only about 6h of sleep. Oh well :)

Camping over at Jaana's place. She is sharing a nice big apartment with another co-worker. View is quite beautiful, could see the sea and Burj Al-Arab from living room balcony only IF the visibility would be better. At least the sun still shines in this town, not like in Bangkok.

More apple cake for breakfast and off to the beach we go. It was a nice walk through local neighbourhood. Dust is everywhere around here - Dubai is a total desert city. Only green patches are by hotels or public parks, and in the parks they have an entrance fee by the way.

Layed on the beach and got the first sun overdose :) We must have been in the sun for about 1.5 hours or so. I guess I did not do a very good job with applying sunscreen :) I got finger marks on my back and my legs are burned :D But it was so nice to feel the heat, themperature must be close to 30C here - so incredibly wonderful!

Visited Mercato which is famous Renaissance-themed shopping mall, it featured all the wonderful shops like GAP, Laura Ashley and Laura Ashley Home, Promode, Virgin records and so on.

Getting back from Mercato was a bit of a hassle. It is located on one of the main roads here - Jumeirah road. Hassle was because of the bus traffic here, it is very anti-touristy since you can't buy tickets in the bus, you need the buscard, which I did not have :( After 45 minutes of trying to get on a bus, me and one other lady (from Kazhastan) ended up catching a cab to get down the road. Stopped by Burj Al-Arab Hotel - trademark of Dubai. As Wikitravel writes it is famed for being the first seven-star hotel in the world (technically a five star deluxe hotel), this striking sail-shaped building is a symbol of Dubai and one of the most opulent hotels in the world.

By the hotel there is Madinat center - I'd name it a little Venice :) It has canals between the houses where gondolas take people around. There are lots of little shops and restaurants and the whole place is quite nice. Since no-one is allowed to go to the Burj Al-Arab hotel area then from Medinat center one gets a beautiful view :)

In the evening Jaana took me along to the swim practices that she joins here once in a while - that was fun :) The coach is from UK, former swimmer, and trains about 30 master swimmers here. Quick warmup and then 25-125m splits with various speeds, last bit was 2x100 all out. So basically, quite intense training. Whole practice lasted an hour. Dragged ourselves back home and were soo happy to go straight to bed.

Thank you all for the numerous birthday wishes :)

I'm in DUBAI !!!

2010-02-22T00:57:00.002+02:00

I made it! Got out of Munich just fine, flight went fine and all was pretty good. Until the customs. Oh this one was a headache and lots of standing in line. It is more difficult to get into Dubai than it was getting into US 10 years ago. Seriously it is quite bad. I was asked all kinds of strange questions about cigarettes and the like (don't ask). Once I got out of the customs I was ready for some serious drinking - it was bad.

Instead, Jaana was at the airport greeting me with a rose :D for my birthday, how sweet! Later she treated me with apple pie and now, 2 hours after heavy chatting, life is beautiful again. I think I'd be darn miserable in a hotel room at the moment - so thank you Jaana!

And the visa has arrived

2010-02-21T09:18:00.003+02:00

I have got the visa now :) It is pink and all :D

Stopover in Munich was nice - 14h beauty sleep took care of my sleep deprivation very nicely. Now to breakfast and then back to airport and off to Dubai I go!

(dea is dancing.... and singing in the shower :-P)

Stopover in Munich

2010-02-20T18:00:00.004+02:00

I have no clue what the deal with the visa is. For now the the flight has been rescheduled and postponed for 24 hours - meaning, I get to spend the night in Munich :) I'm staying in a beautiful village close to the airport. It is total spring here, temperature outside is +5C, sun is shining and the birds are singing so loud that one can't hear his/her own thoughts. It is nice here.

Airport is wonderful as well, wireless does cost and is quite expensive, but at least it is available in quite big part of the airport (as I discovered by accident).

News about the visa is that it will be approved tomorrow morning at 7:30, my flight leaves at 14:25 so there should be plenty of time to get the documents across and figured out. My friend in Dubai has pulled quite many strings and gotten things stirred up quite a bit as I understand. Will hear the full story once I get there - all efforts are much appreciated!

Sleepless night is doing it's trick and I'm falling asleep as I'm typing here so I'll just go to sleep. More updated tomorrow. Tadaa!

Unplanned take-off in less than 9 hours

2010-02-19T21:41:00.005+02:00

Long story short - Air Baltic has apparently very very strict regulations on letting passengers on the plane and I did not qualify :D Basically the magical visa printout was a stopper (Kaisa, they did not accept your version! Can you believe this??) and here I am in Riga airport waiting for my flight to Munich via Stockholm. From Munich I have hopes to get to Dubai by tomorrow evening.

Uh traveling is fun as always, sitting in airports is not, but adrenaline kicks rock :D

All this precious free time I got now and here are the results:

Top 50 funny computer quotes work e-mail reading pays off well, perhaps should connect to Yammer as well, probably more goodies are waiting there :)

I have already watched 3 episodes of Californication, 8 more to go. I have a selection on movies to choose from: up in the air, the cove, the reader, state of play, seraphine, moon, public enemies, disgrace, bright star

I learned that there was a pearl market collapse around 1930's, year 1966 oil was found in Dubai - and after this the world was never the same :) 1971 Britain left the Persian Gulf and 1973 Dubai joined the other emirates in United Arab Emirates. Today the area has become known for its ambitious building projects or artificial islands and tallest ever buildings and biggest malls and so on.

My task list has numerous rows about training plans, competition guides to complete and e-mails to reply to.. so back to being productive I go :) Will try to keep you updated on my doings!

Oh and just a note about Riga airport - it is a horrible horrible place to be. First of all it is kinda cold in here, it is small, not very clean, here are no eating places (except this one pizza place which provides items that does not qualify for food) and all the smokers use toilets for smoking as there seems to be no separate area for them :( A horrible horrible place to be (well, right next to Hanoi airport I guess). At least they got wireless! It's not for free, but it is cheap.. and it works well.

As one of my friend's status message read: take a chill pill and relax!

Planned take-off in less than 3 hours

2010-02-19T13:19:00.002+02:00

Status update:
- it is snowing heavily outside at the moment, blizzard warning is up
- I have no visa to enter Dubai
- the person who needs to arrange me a visa is stuck in Brisbane (yes in Australia) for all I know

I was assured that all will be ok... so I try not to panic :)

I guess the biggest challenge will be getting on the plane from Riga as apparently they do check visas already there. Oh well, will see what happens :D Not to worry.

The worst case scenario is that I will be stuck in Dubai airport for couple of days I guess :) Simply waiting for my friend to get the visa arranged :D Fun huh? It will be an interesting trip... and I will call it a success if I get into Dubai before my birthday :)

I'll try to keep you all up to date via tweets at least (they are displayed on the right hand side on my blog as well)

Leaving the day after tomorrow

2010-02-17T20:39:00.000+02:00

The bad news are:
a) I still have no visa :)
b) I have not even started to think about all the necessary preparations like packing/money exchange or anything of that sort... I really hope I can figure out in time where I keep my passport :)

The good news are:
a) My friend who I'm going to visit promised to arrange the visa for me by tomorrow - it should arrive to my e-mail during the day
... and that was the only good news I got :D

Ok, well I can think of few other positive aspects, for an example the temperatures while I'm there:

No complaints :)

a bit about Dubai plans

2010-01-13T20:55:00.000+02:00

did a bit of research and here are some thoughts on what I could do with my week in Dubai:

beaches - I definitely would like to lay in the sun for a day or so... hot sun, warm white sand, bright blue sea... yeap. one of those please :)

islands - those strange land formations right off the coast or artificial islands... as I have read it is possible to take boat cruises around them to get a closer look

desert - would be wonderful to cruise around on the sand dunes or take a hot-air balloon ride across the endless sand fields

skyscrapers - tallest building in the world was opened 9 days ago :) it is possible to visit 139th floor :) this would be fun, there are also numerous other buildings to check out

local culture - Grand Mosque, gold and spice markets, boat rides in the old quarter. Fujairah was also suggested, it is a bit out of town - great place for snorkeling, has lots of fish and sharks :)

luxurious shopping centers - if spare time then would be nice to visit some of those as well. one has a skiing hall inside it for an example :D would not mind to check this out :D

quick escape to United Arab Emirates - Dubai

2009-12-10T21:47:00.002+02:00

Less than 2 months from my return I bought the next set of plane tickets :) I'm just that hungry for traveling again! This travel addiction is getting worse and worse I must admit :)

Anyhoo, this time I will be visiting Dubai for 7 days at the end of February - will visit my friend who has lived there for few years by now. Dubai has always seemed to me like this amazing cartoon like wonderland with wonderful beaches, newer before seen architecture, fancy buildings and strange coastal land formations (or should I say artificial islands instead?). I must admit I'm quite excited to go and check it all out, to wonder between those fabulous buildings I see from TV and web, to lay on those staggering white beaches (in February!) and to take a peak into the desert as well.

It will be a fun trip and it will be great to celebrate my birthday in Dubai next year :)

Echoes from Australia-NZ-California trip

2009-10-27T20:21:00.003+02:00

This time I dove into everyday life basically instantly - returned to the office next morning. Transition was not very smooth, but weekend was close and that really helped. I have been back for 20 days already and the pace has still now slowed down - probably never will :) Making a note of giving myself more time in the future to get back into my daily doings. And no, it is not a very good idea to postpone things with adding a note of "will do once I'm back" - bad idea right there!

Now, but I came here to give a bit of a summary and to look back at the trip from my everyday life. Well, all in all - it was one of the greatest experiences, the places I visited were wonderful and I got a glimpse of a world I always dreamed of visiting. While being there I saw and heard of all those amazing things I didn't have time to do this time around. Even before I left New Zealand I already had plans forming in my head of all the things I should do once I return :) So yes, I have a plan to go back to Australia and to New Zealand at some point (just to visit of course). It is a must to include some tropical islands like Fiji or Samoa that time as well :) I'd like to see southern part of south island in NZ as well as Wellington. Many areas to discover in Australia of course - like northern coast. So yes, I liked both countries and I will return someday.

My friend asked what did Australia remind me of. Well, to me it is a big country similar in it's ways to US (I know Aussies hate me for saying that) having English traditions and customs. For me, that is a very strange mixture :) And for NZ I'd say it is exactly as wonderful as everybody has told it would be - the only problem here is that the surprise is stolen from you in that case. And the people, yes they were wonderful, mostly. Actually the most memorable ones were foreigners who had moved there. Bumped into couple of rude ones and those were all locals - just my luck I guess. I'm an optimist and I want to believe that people are mostly nice and friendly so I won't complain about the few rude ones, they can be found everywhere (except in Thailand probably).

Australia is this wonderful big mystery island at the bottom of the world that no one seems to get enough of. Now New Zealand can offer you much much more that one could expect from such a distant tiny country by the edge of the world. If I could choose only one place from Australia and New Zealand I could go back to - it would be Sydney. I can't say that I liked Australia best, but I can definitely say that during my travels I enjoyed the time in Australia a bit more. Next time I will find the same connection with NZ as well - just to make peace with the expectations :)

Now I have been totally ignoring my time in US - it was most wonderful to spend time with Jen and Kris, I have missed you! Thank you for taking the time for going on a road trip, I enjoyed it tremendously! Come and visit me soon!

California is wonderful, the ocean, the woods, the hills and mountains, the wines, the history, the cities, the fame, the technology - it's got everything. I'd go back there at any time.

About next travels - there will be trips sooner rather than later. I don't know how I will manage them with my strictly budgeted lifestyle in the next few months - but I will find a way like I always have. Traveling is an addiction and I have been infected all the way to the bottom of my heart with this one. It is an addiction I never want to recover from.

Thank you for listening and good night :)
Cheers mates!

Getting home - 8.10

2009-10-09T20:50:00.003+03:00

I was pretty excited about British Airways entertainment program - gimme the movies! But guess what: entertainment program for British Airways is horrible. I did not know that they make such small screens! Also, they start all the movies at the same time, first time they announced it (later they did not bother to do even that) and then you had to select a channel for the movie you wanted to see - horrible horrible system!!

Luckily I have 8h battery time now - wohooo! So at least I got to work on slideshow for couple of hours (when there was not much turbulence). In American Airlines they had power outlets one per 2/3 seats and expensive wireless as well so I thought BA would have at least the power outlets - but I was wrong :( No expensive wireless either.

To make it even worse - they didn't have even individual air flow control above your seat! And the service was horrible. Making a note to myself never to fly BA ever again unless absolutely necessary.

Rest of the time dragged by, flight to Stockholm was fine as well as flight to Tallinn. My brother left the car at the airport - there is no better feeling than sitting into your own car and driving it out of the parking lot after many weeks of traveling by bus or walking everywhere. Stopped by a birthday party and then headed home.

Note from the future: I woke up at 7am all rested and ready to go. I started calculating that I have slept 16h total this week :) Oh the joy of traveling, who needs sleep during vacation anyways right?

Day in Atlanta - 7.10

2009-10-09T20:47:00.001+03:00

Why on earth is breakfast served only till 9 :) Getting up was so incredibly difficult, perhaps because all I got was 6h of sleep. Little bit of time on the net and I had a plan for the day in the city of Atlanta :) Packed my bags, checked-out and spent another hour on the net replying to e-mails while waiting for the shuttle. Finally it came, the bus driver frightened me though - he was driving, eating and talking to a handheld mobile all at the same time. Iiih. After I got the bags stored at the airport, headed to town by ever so wonderful MARTA.

There is quite a bit one is able to see in 6 hrs :) Took MARTA all the way north to the art center. They happened to have a very good Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition on. His whole life was put to a timeline and lots of sketches for sculptures were displayed as well as many studies about his work. Spent about 2 hours total wondering around the 2 buildings, 4 floors each and total of 6 exhibitions. Now, whoever designed KUMU should go and learn from this art center how to plan an exhibition hall meant to display art pieces - it was wonderfully set and there was plenty of wall space to display the pictures.

My next stop was a park by botanic gardens and then walk southward towards city center. Temperature was only about 24C, but oh it felt like 30! It was baking! I kept walking on that side of the street where it was shadow :) It was truly truly hot in the sun - shorts and t-shirt would have been even too much :)

On to Olympic Gardens I wondered - a very nice park indeed. Passed by Georgia Dome once more and off to the airport my road lead. I got check-in done and I'm sitting by my gate as I write this.

Here is this guy playing guitar and singing right next to me :) Beautiful sunset is poking into my eyes and life is oh so good!

Georgia Dome, U2 concert with 360 tour - 6.10

2009-10-09T20:06:00.002+03:00

First, before I start with the whole rambling I just want to say that the concert was absolutely awesome! And now the story of a very long day too (21h awake time) :)

From the time the plane landed in Atlanta (at 16:00) to the time I sat down at Georgia Dome in my seat (18:50) I moved myself as fast as I could. Concert was to start at 19:00. If the plane would have landed 30 minutes later I would have probably missed first bit of warmup band performance.

From the airport I zoomed to the hotel which was nice and close and had transfer set up at the airport. It took me a while to get the system and find the correct shuttle bus, but Atlanta airport is quite well organized and managed so no big hassles. Did a check-in and had exactly 12 minutes to head out again and catch the shuttle back to the airport in order to take a city train to town. Not knowing about the distances here and train schedules I figured I'll just try to get to the Dome as quick as possible and once inside then worry about food. I was also pretty concerned about the masses and huge lines, still had to pick up my ticket as well. But whaddaya know :) Trains go every 5 minutes, buying tickets and finding the station and understanding the routes takes about 45" total :D It is super easy to get around over here. So rode MARTA to town, got to the Dome without any problems at all, as soon as I stepped out of the train at the station there were couple of organizers yelling from the top of their lungs "U2 concert to the right" :) Picking up my ticket took another 2 minutes total as there was nobody in line with last name starting with N/O/P :) Anyhoo, the whole process was just super easy - I've never been to this town, I have no idea what the distances are and everything goes very smoothly. Me likes this :D

Allright, so I got 10 minutes left :) Now on to less important things, like food! Last time I ate was around 6am :( I had absolutely no time between flights to get food and they have stopped offering snacks at the flights. All I had eaten whole day was 2 cookies, 1 chocolate bar and a hot chocolate (I was a bit on a sugar high). So grabbed food and watched all the people filling seats. Naturally it took another 30 minutes before the warmup band took the stage - arena was basically half empty still. I was not really familiar with Muse before (I know I know, don't give me hard time about it) but they were awesome :) Got the crowd that was there pretty riled up. They played for about 1h and then there was another 30 minute break.

By 20:45 the arena was about 75% filled. Time ticked on. Tension was growing and growing. Seats were slowly filling up. It was getting closer and closer to 9. :D I'm good huh :D AND then they appeared, there they were!! Right there, in front of thousands of people screaming from top of their lungs and clapping and whistling and taking photos. I have the video clip on my mobile :) They started with 2 newer songs and then few older ones. I was just carried to another dimension - darn they are good. When Bono held the microphone up every single person was singing along - it was like a quire, everybody seemed to sing the tune and words were very well understandable (that is what you get when being in a concert of native English speakers :) wonderful, that would never happen in front of a foreign speaking public, there it would be just a steady humming). When public was asked to raise their hand and wave then every single person in the arena raised both their arms immediately and started waving frantically - it was the coolest thing ever :)

Time flew by. At some point, maybe after an hour or so there started to come some pretty strong political messages. First about Arabic countries, then about Burma and then about Africa. Last message was mostly just about the money raised for helping get medication for AIDS. Well, I gotta admit that the whole crowd just kinda froze during those speeches. In my opinion it was a bit too much - could have stopped after the second thingie :) But perhaps it was just me. During the older songs the crowd was just melting away though. It was fabulous

Day in Oakland CA - 5.10

2009-10-09T09:07:00.001+03:00

I had a day off today :) Jenny had to go to work and I had couple of option of what I could do, but I decided to take a day off. I got my computer already and all the rest of the shopping was done (and much more than originally planned) so no need to go to the mall.

I basically upgraded and transferred data to my macbook, watched whole lotta CSI :) and walked around in Oakland city center. Jenny lives just couple of blocks from the lake so that was easy :)

It was a good and relaxed day. In the evening got pizza delivery, Jenny opened a bottle of wine and we just indulged. Talked about life and just enjoyed the evening. Life's good :) Oh we watched new season of House as well! Darn I miss US TV shows! I gotta check out the streamed series and how it all works.

I have to talk about food now :) The pizza delivery was awesome - Domino's pepperoni and order of cheesy bread. Now I have no idea what they do differently here, but it is soo yummy, I tried Domino's in Australia and NZ, but nope, US one is the best. Also their Chinese deli food rocks :) Panda Express for an example has cream cheese won tons that I have not found in many places - those are my favourite, with sweet and sour cheese (none of that sticky blend stuff we got in Estonia, but good strong and runny one :) ). Let's see what have I eaten here in the past few days:
beagles/cream cheese, cheese/crackers and soda, ribs/fries and soda, burger on sourdough bread/fries, Cesar's salad, pizza, Belgian waffle with butter and syrup/English muffin with peanutbutter, huge roasted chicken salad, Chinese (basically lots of deep fried meat) and soda.

I gotta admit that the first lunch I'm gonna have at home I'm gonna enjoy eating boiled potatoes! I have probably gained 5 kilos with those few days here since all there is is fried stuff and soda (limonaad). Food here tastes good, but is so incredibly unhealthy. People eat so unhealthily here it is unbelievable. The have probably 5-6 cans of soft drinks a day. I can't wait to eat proper food again instead of this deep fried potatoes, deep fried meat and lots of greasy bread. Basically that is just what is available. It is possible to eat proper food as well, but it is just so much more complicated to get it.

Olive oil tasting & Mission San Miguel Arcangel - 4.10

2009-10-05T09:35:00.002+03:00

Paso Robles is not only a wine country, it also has great olive orchards. We wisited one called Pasolivo. Got to taste top notch extra virgin olive oils, olive oils with spices and then citrus blended ones. One of my favourite was tangerine olive oil served with honey :) yum-yum! Got a little bottle of this oil to bring back too.

Before heading back to San Francisco we made a stop at one of the missions here - Mission San Miguel Arcangel. Missions are a big part of Californian cultrue. They started on the 17th century and were established by Spanish all the way from southern Mexico up till northern part of California. There would be a walking path from one mission to the other forming a long route from south to north, path being marked with bells on the side of the road. With time the route got more and more important and grew into El Camino Real.

Idea behind missions was to settle the area and also to educate the natives on religion. Mission is like a fortress, it incorporates the living quarters, farming and agriculture buildings and then of course the church. Here is a whole lot of more information on the matter: Spanish missions in California.

Evening continued with an interesting and not so great incident at the mall, won't go into details, but basically Kristy got couple of coupons for Limited store thanks to their incapable service. But evening did get better with a movie and a nice dinner in Oakland downtown. And of course even better with the decision of taking a day off tomorrow and turning into a couch potato for the day :D Vacations rule!

Hearst Castle & Paso Robles Wine Country - 3.10

2009-10-05T09:34:00.001+03:00

First thing in the morning we made our way towards Hearst Castle up on the hill by San Simeon. It was designed by architect Julia Morgan for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst from 1919 until 1947. Julia Morgan worked on it for almost 30 years - helping Mr.Hearst realize his dream. Currently it is a National Historic Landmark, was donated to the state of California and is open to the public. There are various tours you can take up there, each one taking you through different areas of the enormous main building and other buildings in the complex.

Mr.Hearst's parents had brought the land times ago and once the parents died, William was over 50, he started to build a permanent home there. Castle is situated basically in the middle of nowhere, but he loved the area as this is where they went camping with his parents when he was little. Whole estate is about 1000 square km :) Now the castle is amazing, it is huge and it is luxurious. He incorporated different historic architectural styles, there was a private cinema, tennis courts, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, huge library and enormous kitchen with refrigerators (at that time this was luxury), 56 bedrooms (wherever there was a bed there was also a bathroom right next to it - so if there were 2 beds in a room then there were 2 bathrooms as well), an airfield and the world's largest private zoo with many exotic animals.

Castle has an impressive amount of art in it, starting from books and ending with antique ceilings, covering whole lot of paintings, furniture, carpets, sculptures and so on.

In the afternoon our wine tasting tour started. We managed to visit 7 wineries :) Here they are:

Turley Wine Cellars - specialized for Zinfandel's. Jenny likes zin's so we got to taste lots of those :)

Peachy Canyon Winery - specializing in sustainably-farmed Zinfandel, Cabernet and Rhone varietals. It was located in the beautiful Templeton gap west of Paso Robles in the Old Bethel School House dating back to 1886.

AJB Vineyards - a smaller winery, here all the wines are estate grown and produced: Viognier, Nebbiolo, Sangiovese, Zinfandel and Syrah. Estate is family owned and operated.

Donatoni Winery - another smaller winery, as they say: great trips begin with Donatoni wine :) They use grapes from the Paso Robles appellation for their wine.

Eberle Winery - they celebrate their 30 years of wine making, booklet informs me that this is one of the top 10 most award-winning wineries in USA. Here we got to go on a cave tour as well and learn a bit more about harvesting and making wine. This one was quite established and seemed to be enormous. Our wine pourer told us that there was one Estonian girl working in their winery last year :)

Tobin James Cellars - Kristy is a member of this winery so we got to do the tasting for free and got an extra list of wines to taste as a complementary. We must have done 10+ wines there :) They craft fruit intense wines: Zinfandels, Cabernet Sauvignons, Syrahs, Chardonnays, Merlots, velvety "Liquid Love" Dessert Zinfandel and many others. They had quite a wide selection of different ones.

EOS Estates Winery - very much an established one with quite a bit of beautiful gardening and a special parking lot for Porches :) They were proud to announce that their whole estate and production runs on solar power. Had some nice wines too and whole lot of merchandise.

At each wine testing there is a list of wines that are available for tasting, sometimes it is a fixed list and sometimes there is a list of options from where you can make your own selection. Usually it was anywhere between 5-7 wines, mostly red, at the end some port or dessert wine, few had also white wine available for tasting. Some wineries charged for tasting the others did not. In total there are more than 100 wineries in this wine country :) As I mentioned earlier the key is to eat crackers and drink plenty of water. Usually there were crackers on the counter so you could munch on those as well :)

Pacific Coast Highway 1 - 2.10

2009-10-03T07:49:00.001+03:00

Headed south from Carmel after looking around in town for an hour or so. The road that took us down south was a scenic highway running parallel to the coastline - amazingly beautiful drive! This road has many names, official name is California State Route 1, but it is also called as Pacific Coast Highway or simply Highway 1. Drive along the road takes you buy one of the most beautiful coastlines in the world - it was truly beautiful. I did my utter best of not falling asleep - coke helped :-P

It took us about 4 hours to get to Cambria - we stopped along the way numerous times to awe at the beauty of the coastline. Had wonderful picnic with cheese, crackers and raspberries on a cliff. Met a huge colony of sea lions hanging out on a beach :) Stared at wild zebras who are from old times when mr.Hearst let his collection of animals into the woods. Tomorrow we will try to go and visit the castle he had built. Just look at the photos, can't praise it enough with words :)

This time we started looking for a hotel earlier and we were very thorough :) Decided to stay in a small place close to Cambria called San Simeon. Dinner was awesome, American style all the way - ribs! And lots of them!

Evening was concluded with wonderful Jacuzzi :) Today was a good day! Didn't make it to any of the wineries today, but Jenny is making a list of them as I'm typing this text - I already got some hints on how to manage with all the different wines and amounts - crackers and lots of water is the key :D Wish me luck!

Santa Cruz and Monterey Bay - 1.10

2009-10-03T07:23:00.001+03:00

Luckily I got picked up close to 11 in the morning. That gave me plenty of time to get ready, pack and have a proper lunch. Drive to Santa Cruz was only about 45-50 minutes.

Surf city Santa Cruz was quiet. During off season there is not much activity as it seems like. Even the hand crafted carousel was not working, with the rest of the amusement park right next to the beach. Seals were working though :) There was tons of them - some playing in the water and the rest just laying around wherever they could find free spots, and if there weren't free spots then they just laid on each other :D

Luckily the weather was beautiful and just walking around the pier, beach and town was wonderful. Headed out after having lunch, down south, towards Monterey.

As expected I was in food coma all the way to Monterey Bay :) It is one of the most beautiful drives in the world and I just slept all the way through it. Jenny and Kristy promised that they won't let me sleep in the car any more :D Although tomorrow we'll get the rest of it and about 4 times as much and the best part as I was told, so no worries as Aussies say (I learned something while down there) :)

Monterey bay was great. There is this wonderful scenic route you can take in Monterey called 17 mile drive. It has one of the most famous and posh golf courses in US and even around the world on it. Check photos on more comments on the locations and information. Jenny's friend showed her the trick once on how to get most out of the scenic road - you go to all those golf club restaurants that have views to golf greens and you order some drink and snack. So we did :) Margaritas, Cosmos and other cocktails were flowing :D Arrived at the final location nicely by sunset - perfect timing on our part.

Marine life is pretty active around this area. During the day we saw whole lot of seals, sea lions and sea otters. Oh and squirrels! Plus pelicans and whole lotta other birds who I could not name :)

Last event of the evening was to find a place to stay for the night and dinner location. Decided to drive to the neighbouring city called Carmel by-the-sea. As I was informed, Clint Eastwood lives here and also has a restaurant. Didn't see him hanging out anywhere though :) Everybody being so tired from the long day, we did not look around whole lot and pretty much agreed to the first offer at one of the motels. Same with dinner :) All in all both worked out pretty nice in the end.

California, San Jose - 28-30.9

2009-10-01T05:28:00.002+03:00

Time traveling to the past was great, but I'm still recovering from it 3 days later :) Did not get any sleep on the plane from Auckland to Los Angeles. Mainly because I was watching movies non stop - my eyes were about to pop out from staring at the little screen there :) Also talking to the gal who sat next to me kept me awake. Turns out she is a triathlete and physiotherapist who works with cyclers! We covered a whole lot of useful information about triathlon clubs organization in Australia and I got so many good hints that I can apply to 21.CC :-P I have been bending my brain for a while about the possible packages and now all the thoughts started to formulate and get focused - fun stuff!

Allright, so arrival to LA was good, flight went quickly and no major hassles with that. Had 5h layover in LA :( Customs was awful like always - long lines, lots of questions, forms to fill. Oh and even worse was domestic terminal in LA. Waiting line to the security was about half a kilometer long (and I'm not joking) It went all the way from one side of the terminal to the other and it was snaked in multiple places going back and fourth about 3 times for at least 75m one way - it was absolutely mad. At least the line was moving with a steady pace, longest time standing still was probably 5 minutes when they merged multiple incoming lines. I have never seen anything like that before though :) While standing in the line I was wondering what do those people do who have phobias for such long lines :D ?

Flight from LA to San Jose - no idea how that went as I was pretty much passed out :) Not sleeping on the long flight was catching up with me and I fell asleep while walking around, pretty much :) Once arrived at the flight I was out - can't remember taking off nor landing :D

Met with Jenny at the airport, navigated together to the hotel and then on to town. San Jose has nice little downtown area. Found a nice eatery to chill at and catch up with Jenny - it was super nice to see her after long long time! Due to skipped sleep I was ready to fall over by 6pm again, going to sleep at 7 was a mistake of course as I was up and awake by 2am :D Long story short I never got more sleep and following day in class was a bit of a challenge :) As was the day after that :D

Class - on 29th and 30th I was at Scrum Product Owner course. Course was great, the whole time I kept making notes of what changes to do once I get back to the office :) Beware ;) Course was great, it was wonderful to hear about other's experiences, discussions were insightful and there was lots of good food :) Some photos are here

My evening will get exciting from now on - I just got back from the mall and will start configuring and migrating my notebook :) Tomorrow morning we are heading south with Jenny and her sister - our trip will be spontaneous, will be back in San Francisco by Sunday night. I'm not sure I'll be online anytime before that so probably no updates before Monday :)

Last day in Auckland - 27.9

2009-09-27T11:40:00.001+03:00

I have been on the road for 28 days and far as I can remember this is the first morning yet when I did not have to set a wake up alarm! It felt so darn good to just sleep and not have to wake up to the beeping watch. But on the other hand I could not sleep in peace either as I'm sharing my room with at least 3 other people. Well there are 8 beds here, but I have no clue how many of them are occupied :) I could recognize at least 2 other people in the room and one bed being occupied over the night.

This dormitory style living has become such a natural thing already that nothing surprises me anymore. People entering the room at 3am and turning all the lights on, somebody waking you up in the middle of the night to ask if I've seen a black rain-jacket, people you have never met before starting to talk to you without any introduction just like they are your best childhood friends and so on and so on. At least nobody touches anybody else's things as far as travel bag or clothes left on the bed go - that is a real no-no. Privacy as far as bags/things and food goes is pretty safe around here. There are probably around, oh, I don't know, hundreds (?) of rooms being occupied with backpackers each keeping their little box or bag of food in common kitchen and nothing is ever touched that is not theirs. Pretty amazing, but I guess you do to others what you want to be done to you - everybody basically understands that they want their things to be left untouched and it would be nice if their food would be in the same place the next day as well.

Although I'm getting a bit tired of the dormitory life already - I'm waiting forward to my 3 nights in a hotel in San Jose. Later will probably camp over at my friends place. Staying in hotel has at least one negative aspect as well - total lack of social life and meeting people. I guess if I would be traveling for a long periods of time then the ratio would be about 1 to 10, meaning that for every 10 nights in hostels I could use 1 night in a hotel. In reality, that is pretty much what I have been doing here as well.

Allright but today I had real cultural day. Managed to get myself going by 11:30 and right after breakfast I managed to find myself in front of Auckland Art Gallery. Main exhibition showed works by Rita Angus. Friendly guy at reception explained me that she is a very famous NZ artist, but quite unknown outside the country. Spent probably around an hour there and got a quite good understanding of this lady's life. It was good to see all the paintings of places I've already been to :)

Plan for the day was to make my way over to Auckland Museum. Oh-uh, getting there was quite a hassle - I could not figure out how to get across those criss-crossing motorways that ran right next to each other. Looking at the map I had two options and both of those meant considerable walking. Picked one of them and ended up going up and down the stairs and getting stuck in little quads that did not have an exit on the other side. Finally found the correct bridge to cross, with a help of one local, and made my way towards Auckland Domain. From there it was just a short walk over the hill to the museum.

I had gotten a hint from UK-Canadian couple about getting the sonic music tour while I'm there. Well, this was the best thing ever! You get a little device where you get to choose tracks when you enter the room and of course there are headphones involved. Those headphones were wonderful, all the other noise was left out, all you had was music. So I was not able to hear all the screaming kids and loudly speaking Asian tourists (why oh why do they have to speak so loud all the time!). That was wonderful, thank you for the hint! Museum itself was very nice as well. It had 3 levels and I spent probably about an hour on each one of them. Last level was a bit depressing with covering WWI and WWII, but I guess you can't get over not around it in any proper museum.

History looks so different from this part of the world though. I'm used to much different way of presenting WW than what I saw today. Whole Europe just seems so tiny and in a way pointless when looking at it though the eyes of NZ (which is small itself as well of course). I guess it is just so remote and small compared to all the other big and much more influential countries around here (starting with Australia and continuing with Japan and rest of Asia). Once again it got my thoughts moving in totally different direction yet again. Traveling does wonders.

So I highly suggest Auckland Museum when visiting City of Sails :) By the time I had made my way back to City Tower around 6pm I was dead tired and spent the rest of the evening behind my computer and watching bit of TV. This is my last night in Auckland. I do have half a day tomorrow as well, but I'll probably spend it sleeping in in the morning (well sleeping till 9 is pretty good already, checkout time is 10 around here), packing once again and then just chilling and figuring out a way to get to the airport in time. My plane leaves at 15:05 tomorrow towards California, first to LA and then to San Jose. I'll arrive in destination tomorrow morning at 7am :) Bizarre huh :D Moving back in time - wohooo!!!!

Back to Auckland - 26.9

2009-09-27T11:38:00.002+03:00

Today's goal is to get back to Auckland. I have bus tickets for tomorrow, but as I got my share of caving done already yesterday then I'd like to get back to Auckland now please :) The plan is to talk to the bus driver to let me on board with tomorrow's ticket (it is not possible to change the ticket).

North island time planning was a bit poor on my part :( If I would have planned it a bit better I would have made it to Raglan for 2 days as well. One of my current roommates was telling wonderful stories of this wonderful little town. I'm sad that I never got to see this great place. One more reason to come back here :D

In the morning I had about 3 hours to kill. Besides the regular every morning routine of packing my bag once again (I'm a real bro in that by now, do they hold any competitions in it anywhere :) ? ), I managed to have a wonderful banana-pancake and hot chocolate breakfast :) Bit of time in the wonders of world wide web and then to the visitor center to familiarize myself with caves in the local caves museum. Besides caves, it covered a whole lot about glowworms - I feel like a glowworm specialist now :)

Time for catching the bus got closer :) As I mentioned yesterday, I had an arrangement with a couple from UK-Canada who would give me a ride to Auckland at 2pm if I get stranded here. Then I would have another 2 hours to kill though, but that is better in any case than to spend another night here. Finally the bus arrived and bus driver did not even hesitate on taking me on board :) To Auckland I go :)

I was complaining previously that there is nothing to do in Auckland. Well, I gotta take my words back. Since the city is just spread out over a huuuuge area, it takes a while to get to the fun places around here. Now I'm finding all kinds of things to do, but most of them are not doable in 2h time :( or even not doable with less than 12h notice :((( For an example here one can go Canyoning! Found out about it through a couple from US. Also I was a bit suspicious about going to a museum here, couple from UK really praised it and suggested to take the music tour. So will try to get to that tomorrow.

Got to town at 5pm, again the check-in and then headed to town. With my few hours I managed to walk all the way up to Albert park and take a look at Auckland University campus. Next followed a random road to the port and went looking for -5C bar.

-5C bar is something Ave suggested me to go and check out :) Found that around the corner, right next to Lenin bar :) Lady at the counter gave me a discount (the prices increase at 6pm and I got there just 5 min past), entry includes one free drink and whole wardrobe to keep you warm in there. Wardrobe would be jacket, pants, boots and gloves. I just went for gloves and jacket. Come on, it is just -5 ;) Drink was served in a glass made entirely out of ice, the whole bar counter was made of ice as were the walls. Bar itself was quite tiny, I imagined it to be a bit bigger than that. There were couple of "couches" covered with animal skins and whole lot of ice sculptures. It was quite nice. I happened to be there with a group of NZ ladies who had come to town for the weekend to see a musical. They were all about to fall over when they heard that I'm traveling alone and coming from such far away country. Just like everybody else I meet, they were no exception in saying the famous sentence "you are the first person I meet from Estonia" :) So that is what it feels like to be a celebrity :D juust kidding!

My evening ended with coffee place that offers the best hot chocolate ever! They also offer 1h free internet usage with any purchase. I got 2h :) , because the guy who took my order forgot my blueberry scone in the microwave for 25 minutes, finally when I went to ask for it he was apologizing for 2 minutes in a row.

I've been anting to go to movies for the longest time already so decided to use my Xday (whatever they day is at any given time) evening for a movie. Movies selection is surprisingly poor for such a big city :( Managed to find one though - Quentin Tarantino's new movie "Inglorious Basterds". Very Tarantino as was expected, people die here and there throughout the movie - even main characters just die without warning, typical Tarantino. Great camera work and good setup of the story. Mr. Pitt is getting old though :) And his character was a bit too typical for him - would have liked to see something more original than that. But oh well, all in all it was good one.

Waitomo - 25.9

2009-09-26T01:03:00.000+03:00

I've been hearing all those stories about the caves and all the fun things you can do in there, all the climbing and rafting and glowworms and so on. Everybody says this is the coolest thing in whole New Zealand and in the whole wide world in general. So I was getting all excited! Have gone through all the options, read about this and that, I've been thinking if I should do the half day or a full day trip and should I go to see the glowworms separately or not.

So, I get to Waitomo at 11:30. I get dropped off by the only booking office in this little village. I walk in and before I can really even say anything the lady behind the counter informs me that due to the rain in the past few days all the caves are flooded and trips have been cancelled. WHOOOTTT?!?!?! CANCELLED?!?!?!?! Argh. But she so pleasantly says that it all depends on the weather and perhaps I should come back in the afternoon to check the situation. There is nothing they can say about tomorrow as it depends on the weather. As I try to ask what time would the trips leave in the morning she keeps repeating the fact that the caves are flooded. Oh great. Finally I get the information out of her that the tours would not leave before 9am anyways.

Right, so I go and check-in to the hostel, I find the internet being nice and fast so I spend an hour or so behind the computer updating my travel log and photos. Trying to pass time, no going outside as it just keeps raining. Have started on putting the trip summary slides together already :( - sad face is because I'm realizing that at some point this trip will be ending :((( So finally the clock ticks closer to 2pm and I make my way to the booking office again.

I walk up to the same lady to acquire about water level situation - nope no change she says. Then she looks at me and goes, what were you interested in doing anyways? Oh so now you ask!?! This lady was not being very nice to me this whole time. So I tell her about my confusion about all those different trips and they all seem like the best thing since sliced bread. Then she goes and explains me how there are hundreds of caves (if I understood it correctly) and how there are many tour operators and they are mostly the same anyways. Lot of operators are doing combos, like all great X in one: 100m abseil (declining on a rope), climbing, walking, seeing glowworms etc. Advertising all sorts of different lengths of tours ranging from 45 minutes to 7h, lunch included or not, dry or wet - you choose and so on. VERY CONFUSING. So as it comes out not all of them include black water rafting and as it turns out, not all of the caves are flooded afterall!

After few calls to some operators she asks if I'm up to 3pm black water rafting trip :) Understanding that it is still raining outside I give thumbs up. 42 minutes later I've got my swimsuit and towel and I'm ready to go :) Group is only 4 people this time - which is so incredibly nice. We are given wetsuits, boots, belts and helmets. We get changed and head over to the caves by a minivan. Now getting to the caves is funny :) Minivan stops by this random field, we get off, open a gate and hike across a field full of cows (who try to attack us on our journey) making our way towards a hole in the ground - welcome to the cave :) 5 minute introduction and training follows and on we go. We are handed tubes (inner tires for floatation) and off we are :)

Now this thing is great! We go down the steps and enter the cave. Our guide gives us time to adjust to different light, he introduces the cave and gives bit of facts on history. We were down there for 1.5 hours and it went by in a snap! We get to jump off the edges and high rocks (he makes us do it back first), we are swimming in a 10m deep stream towards a slide, we slide down a 7m fall, he forms sorta train of us (you sit in a tube and a person in front holds on to your legs and you hold on to the legs of a person behind you) and we get to slide down the stream as he guides us in the dark, we see glowworms throughout the whole journey, we walk, we look at rock formations and bones. It is great. The whole thing is quite narrow so we bump off the walls as we straddle along. Water is also pretty cold - around 11C I'd say. And there are thousands and thousands of glowworms the whole way through. Apparently this is the longest stream there is in all the caves around here for black water rafting :) Anyways, it was pretty amazing :)

I have decided that I have had a pretty good chance to see the cave and do the rafting, I'm guessing the water level will not get much better tomorrow, so rest of the caving experiences need to wait till next time :) and most likely I'm heading back to Auckland tomorrow. Gotta see if I can convince the bus driver to take me on :D

If the bus driver won't let me go a day earlier then I can catch a ride with a couple from UK who moved to Canada a week ago :) They figured to take a 5 week trip while all their furniture is being shipped over by boat :), apparently it takes some weeks by boat. Met them in the evening after me and one of my roommates (who I met just the same evening) had finished dinner in the only pub in town :D There is nowhere else to go in this small place so all the locals and tourists were gathered there for dinner and drinks - so were we :) Later another guy from UK joined our discussion and the party continued :D Fun times!

Rotorua - 23 & 24.9

2009-09-24T08:59:00.003+03:00

Yesterday (the 23rd) I did not do much. The usual routine of packing and check-out in the morning. Used the internet for a bit to upload photos and then headed to town to catch the bus to Rotorua. It is raining - good day to sit in a bus :) Bus ride was 4 hours and there were few stops on the way. Arrived in Rotorua at 5 and I had Maori concert scheduled for 6.

Tamaki Maori village was the location we were taken. We got to see the local Maori village, their songs and dances, there was a huge dinner made on hot rocks just as it was during old times. The show was a bit too commercial just as the village setup and all the rest. But I guess that is what it takes as the culture is being preserved only commercially nowadays. Food was good and it was still interesting to hear the stories told during the show.

Also got to meet the people on our bus and it was good to hear about their experiences of what they have done and how has their trip been. As I said before, that is my favourite part :) There was a lady from Canada who came over with her daughter, for now they are traveling for couple of weeks and then the daughter will be working for a year on south island - at a chocolate factory!!! That would be fun!

So for today I had 2 plans: Te Puia and Hells Gate :) First a bit of introduction about Rotorua (as I love doing ya know) :D

Rotorua is New Zealand's most dynamic thermal area with spurting geysers, steaming hot springs and exploding mud pools. City smells like eggs :) Due to the sulphur from the thermal areas. Apparently this is one of the most visited locations in the whole northern island! It is also important to note that today 35% of the population is Maori.

Now Te Puia is one of the most famous geyser parks in Rotorua, it is located a bit out of the city though. It has wonderful walks and main attractions being 500+ springs, most famous being Pohutu which erupts up to 20 times a day and as high as 30 meters. This location is also home of the Maori Arts and Crafts Institute. I also visited kiwi house here and got to see that peculiar shy bird running around during it's morning exercise :)

Second activity for the day was Tikitere & Wai Ora Spa, known as Hell's Gate :) There I took the walking tour and saw the largest hot water fall in Southern Hemisphere, mud volcano, geothermal mud and sulphur lake. Why I went there was to enjoy the much spoken about mud baths. It was good of course, but when they say SPA, I get totally different expectations of what it is going to be like. It was very very basic and there was no SPA feeling whatsoever. Water and mud was all natural and very nice of course, especially considering the cold rain that was coming down mercilessly the whole day.

So ok, in the mud bath we were allowed to be only for 20 minutes due to the exfoliating effect, then icy cold shower followed :) Then we got to spend however long we wanted in Sulphur Spa, this consisted of 2 basic pools with muddy water, one was 39C and the other 41C. I spend probably about 1.5h total in there.

On my way back I met a couple who were on their honeymoon, the trip had been organized by their families - the trick was that they found out on their wedding day that they will be traveling for the next 3 weeks, departing the next day :) And the itinerary was not told, now they are opening a golden envelope every day to find out what they will be doing the next day :D How cool is that? I'd like a present like that one day :D :D

Getting back to the hostel I tried to do everything in my power to get rid of the eggy smell of my skin - to no result :) I guess it just has to wear off with time :)

As it is absolutely pouring outside I'll fill my time with watching some movies and keeping hot tea close by at all times :) Tomorrow morning I'll take a bus to Waitomo!

Auckland: Waiheke Island - 22.9

2009-09-24T08:56:00.000+03:00

Arrived in Auckland late last night. Got the hostel booked already in Christchurch times ago, but forgot to ask for the exact address. Luckily I got the travel guide - or so I thought :) Well I do have the travel guide and I managed to navigate to the address where the hostel is supposed to be, well surprise surprise, it is not there anymore. Helpful people guided me to the correct location - it had moved a year ago :) Anyhoo, got all checked in and to bed by 11:30 so all good!

I hadn't done really any research on what is there to do in Auckland. But I did know I wanted to head out of town for Rotorua and Waitomo - so got all that set up with help of locals. About an hour of sorting and booking and checking and set it was. Now I had a day to look around in Auckland. Figured that it should be easy - pick up couple of booklets, grab a map and head to town. Wrong :). All the booklets tell you are the museums and islands. Oh well, so I picked one of the islands. At least the ferry ride should be nice.

Ferry took about 40 minutes to get to Waiheke island. It was a beautiful little place. Great views, nicely marked hikes and beautiful beaches. Did about 3h walk covering Ocean View Road, Oneroa Bay, Beach Parade, seaside walk up to Newton Road, walk through the streets to the opposite shore, The Esplanade and way back through Oneroa to Matiatia Bay. It was great. Apparently the millionaires are quarreling over the best pieces of land here - I can see why, the place has wonderful views and nature.

Once back from the island walked around in town. There is not much to do in Auckland it seems to me, other than visiting the museums as it looks like. As I have another half a day there before I fly to California I did quite a bit of asking around of what is there in Auckland. 75% of people said that they could not find much to do either :) So my conclusion is that this really is a dump as described by people in south island ;) One of them actually gave me a question in this format: "why you going to Auckland? It is a dump. And there is nothing to do in north island - you should spend the time here instead!" :D :D :D Funny people! As I see then Australians really don't like New Zealanders, then again south island people in NZ don't really like north islanders. Now the question is who the north islanders despise :)

International Antarctic Center - 21.9

2009-09-22T09:19:00.001+03:00

In the morning I just looked around in Christchurch, covered most of the city within 2 hours :) Before heading to the airport I stopped at the International Antarctic Center located right next to the airport. It has been suggest by all the sources and now I see why - because it was absolutely awesome! I read all the information leaflets and writings on the walls, it was so interesting. I watched all the movies shown, most of them even twice, just so that I could grasp all of it :)

At the Antarctic center I got to ride Hagglund - vehicle that is used to get around in Antarctica, it can go up and down on steep angles (also sideways), it can go over quite big cracks, if it falls through ice it can move in water for about 2 hours. Got to experience an arctic storm with winds up to 40km/h and see feeding of Little Blue penguins. Additionally I read up on the climate, ice forming, plants, animals, base stations, research, communication and much much more connected to this least known and coldest continent on earth.

Now you are gonna get whole lotta facts about Antarctica :)

Antarctica, South America, Africa, India, Australia and New Zealand once formed a giant southern continent called Gondwana. Over the last 200 million years Gondwana broke up and the continents moved to where they are today.

Antarctica is the driest and coldest continent on earth. The coldest temperature on earth -89.2C was recorded in Antarctica - so cold that if you went outside in everyday clothes you would die in less than a minute.

The highest wind speed recorded in Antarctica peaked at over 320km/h, blowing as hard as a violent tornado or cyclone. At these wind speeds all unsecured buildings, machinery and people are simply blown away.

Antarctica is almost entirely covered with a sheet of ice. The ice has been built up slowly over tens of thousands of years from snow falling on Antarctica. The ice covers 14 million square kilometers with an average depth of 2.3 km and contains 90% of the world's fresh water. Much of Antarctica's ice eventually grinds its way through the mountains and rocks, flowing downhill much the same way as liquid water, until it eventually reaches the sea. These rivers of ice are called glaciers. When it slides into the sea it forms giant floating glaciers called ice shelves, such as the Ross Ice Shelf.

Ice sheet is a broad, thick sheet of ice covering an extensive area of LAND for a long period of time. Ice sheets are also referred to as continental glaciers. Ice shelf is ice that is attached to land but projects out and floats in the SEA. Ice shelves form where ice sheet reaches sea level and extends across the water. Sea ice is formed from ocean water that freezes. Because oceans consist of saltwater it occurs at about -1.8C

Antarctic fish's body temperature is the same as the water, minus 1.9C. Normally blood freezes at minus 1.1C, but antarctic fish have an antifreeze chemical called glycoprotein in their blood and their kidneys are adapted to conserve the antifreeze.

Lights in the sky, or aurora, are called Aurora Borealis in the Arctic and Aurora Australis in the Antarctic. I never knew there is a difference :)

The Antarctic Treaty is a unique legal agreement that ensures the use of Antarctica for peaceful and scientific purposes through international cooperation. It bans all military activities and promotes the freedom of scientific research on the continent. Treaty was first signed by 12 nations in 1959 and it has been ratified by over 40 nations since then. Estonia signed the treaty in 2001 :)

Many many countries have bases in Antarctica, few are year round ones and the rest are operated only during summer time. Almost all activity in Antarctica relates to science. There are over sixty research stations operated by scientists from twenty-four nations.

Winter means 6 months of darkness and summer 6 months of daylight. Scientists wintering over survive months without sunlight. They must be psychologically and medically fit to cope. In Antarctica body hair grows twice as fast, the body lays down more fat and during winter skin loses pigmentation.

Akaroa - 20.9

2009-09-20T11:37:00.000+03:00

Strange city-tour shuttle left Christchurch at 8:30. I say weird as it seemed just like a regular shuttle taking people from point A to point B, but at some point the driver started talking about houses all around us and giving out facts like population of Christchurch and so on :) It was strange, getting out of town we also switched vans and then we got one very talkative lady for the driver :) Anyhoo, as time passed and more facts followed I took it I had entered a tour taking me from Christchurch to Akaroa - this was completely fine with me.

Views were beautiful as always. As Lonelyplanet tourguide informs me, Akaroa is situated on the Banks Peninsula and its hills were formed by two giant volcanic eruptions. Historic town of Akaroa is the highlight of the peninsula, the name means 'Long Harbour' in Maori and is the sight of the country's first French settlement. Everything in the town is trying to re-create the feel of a French provincial village, with it's street names, houses and eateries - in my mind it was doing a splendid job at that, it was full of doll-houses located on pretty street names :)

On this weird shuttle-city-tour bus I met a group of 3 from Minnesota :), they had booked a trip to go swimming with dolphins. I headed to Akaroa to see the dolphins as well, but was not very keen on getting in the water at all (as it is cold here). After their talk about dry-suits and all the fun I figured to go and check it out from the tour providers. So as I found out there was still just one spot left on the tour, they were all out of dry-suits but wet suits would be fine as well they assured me. Apparently the water only gets up to 1 degrees around here even during the warmest time, at the moment water is fine with being 9 degrees :D Oh-uh :) Asking about other options to go out on the sea they still highly recommended swimming with dolphins as the best option - oh well, I guess I'm in then :)

The fuzz about the dolphins here is the fact that the smallest and rarest Hector's dolphins live at the waters around Akaroa, this is the only place in the world they are found at.

Had an hour to look around in this pretty town and then the show started! We were all given our suits, 3 people were doing the wetsuits thingie and others had dry-suits. Dry-suits looked so odd :) they were like astronauts :D Wetsuits were nice and thick, we also got boots + gloves + hoods + snorkels. Once I managed to put all the clothing on I looked like a Martian myself :) Few photos, safety talk and off we went. Long story short: we were chasing the things for 2 hours on very very stormy waters and in cold wind, we got to see the dolphins, but not swim with them. I'm kinda glad that we were not made to get in this freezing water. All looked fine in the shop, but once you are on the boat that almost tips over twice in 5 minutes with all those rough waves and the strong wind wants to blow your ears away - you really loose the interest in jumping in for a swim :)

We did get to see dolphins from the boat quite many times. They are little cute animals. We also saw a seal swimming and few tiny penguins. Tourguides took us over to see seals colony in one of the bays and we drove by a cathedral formulation by the cliffs. In the end I got to see everything promised on the other tours, only thing I did not get to do was swimming with dolphins in a 9 degree water :) For that we got refunded as promised, got hot-chocolate and a nice warm shower. I was happy in every sense :)

On our way back to Christchurch we got to visit the last cheese factory in the area, got to taste different cheeses and hear about cheese making. Rest of the way I slept - naturally :-P It is vacation after all ya'know :)

Tomorrow evening I'm flying on to Auckland. Check-out is at 10, will try to finally take a look at Christchurch itself as well and have a look at the ever so famous Antarctic Center.

Long way back to Christchurch - 19.9

2009-09-20T11:36:00.000+03:00

Seems like every morning I got the same routine of getting dressed, packing and eating. This morning was no different. Wonderful thing about it is that I don't really need to pack as such since my back bag is half empty I just kinda throw my things in there and zip it up. Once in a while I need to clean and organize the bag, much like cleaning and organizing my apartment at times - just so that I would actually find my things in there :)

Last night ended up being a long one. SPA was nice and relaxing, my roommate (the German guy) was there with his friends and many other people as well of course. At some point it emptied out and then only few people were relaxing each in their own corner. Me of course was talking away :) Later drinks followed at a local bar. This is a town of 300 people and all the pubs and restaurants are totally empty as it is not the tourist season yet.

This night for the first time I saw stars! It was all clear and the stars were nicely visible.

As my beauty sleep was short I bet on getting some good sleep on the bus rides today. First bus was from Franz Josef to Greymouth - about 3h. Second bus was from Greymouth to Christchurch. I did get some sleep (on a first bus), but not a whole lot in total. Way from Greymouth on was very windy, our bus driver did not seem to care whole lot about client satisfaction and was driving very carelessly. At some point I was getting sick to my stomach because of all the sudden turns and deep wholes he passed through - so no I did not get much sleep there. For the most part that was probably even quite good as the scenery was very beautiful :)

Once I arrived at Christchurch, check-in followed. Then quick stop at the computer room, laundry and dinner. Now is the time to catch some quality sleep :) Tomorrow I'm planning on going to Akaroa for the day.

Franz Josef Glacier - 18.9

2009-09-18T08:14:00.002+03:00

When I got up at 7am it was raining. Got over to the tour center by 7:45 and as I was guessing they have canceled the climb because of bad weather. Apparently there is lots of standing around and doing it in rain is just no fun, it also seemed that there were too few people registered for this one as well. So I got an option to choose any other tour - I went for the full day one.

At the tour center we were all given a coat, trousers, boots, crampons (kassid) socks, gloves and a hat. All this clothing was much needed once on ice - as I learned in a little bit :) So we packed ourselves in and headed to the bus that took us to the parking lot by the glacier. From the parking lot it was 2.5km walk to the ice line.

Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers are one of the kind in the world as nowhere else at this latitude do glaciers come so close to the ocean. The glaciers development is due to all the moist air building up over the ocean and heading towards the island where the high mountains catch it. So at the mountains it falls down as snow and all this snow building up forms glacier that is constantly falling downward like a waterfall, melting at the bottom in the rainforest. The fall is quite deep, speed that the glacier is moving at is about 1.5m a day!

At the ice line we got to put on our crampons and off we went. Within 30 minutes on the ice we were all wet from head to toe. One helping factor was us getting stuck between two walls of ice. There were 8 of us in a group, the guide went first and then we followed in a single file. So there is this narrow passage way between two high walls we need to pass through. The walls are not even by any means, passage way is curvy and the bottom is rough - so it is difficult to walk. At the end of the passage way you needed to take few big steps up to make your way out of it. So there we are, the guide made his way up, but first girl was not able to pull herself up the steps. There was nothing to hold on to either and the walls were all slick. So there we stood all packed up. Passage way was quite narrow - you had to turn sideways to fit though, and hence walk sideways throughout to be able to keep going. Passageway was about 30m I'd say. But there we stood then. Our guide yells down at us that he will go and get the rope attached and throw it down so the first girl can grab on to it and keep moving.

As we stand there we are tightly packed between the walls. As it is raining there is water everywhere, it is coming down from both sides on the wall, standing there it is worse than in the shower :), water flows right down your neck and sides directly of the wall. Of course, this is not the most comfortable situation for a claustrophobic one like me :) Yeah, it was pretty tricky to stay calm there. But we made it out and after this incident I stayed well up front as I can get though tough spots, I can deal with anything as long as we are moving :)

I just can't believe they let us do some of the stuff on the track without any security ropes. I had hard time getting up and keeping my balance quite many times. "Don't look down" and "keep your body weight close to the ice" took you to places over here. Even if you wanted to use your hands you could not as your fingers were frozen and you could not feel your hands. We were given little axes though, those were great help, could at least lean on them and use them for balance.

There were 3 groups of us. 1st group was the fastest and went first, we were 2nd group and there was also 3rd group behind us. The fastest group was led by senior guide who also chose the track. At some point our guide just looks up and seems a bit lost. He turns to us and goes "I don't understand why he chose this track, nobody has been here for months" :) Oh goodie good :)

Another great moment arrived when we had just passed a tunnel and we see the next tunnel right in front of us, but between is a huge puddle of water. We see the track going on at the second tunnel, but the puddle is chest deep! Our guide was quite puzzled, he kept looking all over the place for an alternate route, finally we ended up finding one and just went around. But he figured that first group had passed it about 20 minutes ago and then the puddle was perhaps up to knees. Didn't realize that the rain is so heavy, saw many puddles later on as well, I guess they just fill up in no time.

The way up was about 2.5h. We did the whole trip a lot quicker than usual as we skipped many breaks (including our lunch break!), whenever we did take breaks they were very short as we were all wet and got cold quickly. Once we started our trip down I just looked at my feet and tried to remember what it felt like having toes :)

Way down was a lot quicker and it got warmer with every step. We were all just so indifferent, going through water up till half a leg nobody even bothered to lift the legs, just dragged ourselves through it. Once back at the tour center it was such a relief getting all those soaked things off :) Now everything was soaked. I was only dry from my hips to my chest I think - everything else was wet and cold. Now also all my documents got soaked. I wasn't smart enough and left the documents bag in the back bag - so all my documents were dripping wet once I took them out of the bag :( So if you know of a quick way how to dry off my passport quickly - please do let me know!

At first I was really bummed out that I did not get to do the ice-climbing, but at the end of the day I'm glad I got to go at all. It was absolutely awesome to be hiking on the glacier! Even besides the cold and rain - it was really something different and quite extreme!

Now I'm heading over to the local SPA - apparently this consists of some hot pools where water is from 36 to 40C - can't wait! 2 hours later my fingers are still not functioning quite well :)

Palju õnne sünnipäevaks kallis isa!

2009-09-18T08:12:00.001+03:00

Oi-lii oi-laa oi-la-la-la-laaa,
me õnne sulle soovime ja rõõmsasti kõik laulame
oi-lii oi-laa oi-la-la-la-laa!
uiiiiii :)

Palju palju õnne sünnipäevaks kallis isa!
Tuhat kallistust ka kaasa!

The wonderful Hobbit land :) - 17.9

2009-09-18T08:10:00.002+03:00

Day started early as usual. I'm dreaming of a day when I can sleep till 10! Did you just notice how I said 10 :) not 1pm ;) Yeah, even 10 would be like heaven at the moment. Anyhoo, I had to catch a shuttle to the train station at 7:15, train leaves at 8:15. TranzAlpine train ride from Christchurch to Greymouth was really nice. Views were breathtaking! Hobbit land truly is great.

There were few unplanned stops here and there, resulting the train to be 10 minutes late in arriving to Greymouth. This was exactly the 10 minutes I needed in order to grab a lunch. Oh well, who needs to eat anyways right ;) Headed over to the bus stop, the bus was late as well - but there was no way to predict the time of arrival so I just stayed put there.

Bus from Greymouth to Franz Josef was a little minivan. It took about 3h to reach the destination. I guess it kept going south towards Fox Glacier as well, so as we all got off the bus one guy was left. He was thinking of going to Fox Glacier but as he saw everybody getting off here he just got off as well. We both ended up at the same hostel as we were wondering around and looking for a place to stay.

Evening consisted of a glowworm walk and a movie :) German guy had borrowed a flashlight and we tracked the location of glowworm habitat down on a map. It was around 8:30 in the evening and it was pitch dark outside. We had to make our way into the woods - oh it was creepy :) First we did not see anything, we kept going deeper and deeper into the woods turning the light off once in a while to try to see the glowy things. Well it was probably just few hundred meters, but in the dark it feels like forever. Finally there they were - there were tens and tens of little bluish lights under the trees, it was so pretty. Looking up there were stars and looking down the glowworms seemed like stars on the ground :) It was really neat.

Watched a movie once back a the hostel and then to bed. Movie was called something "Money", "True Money" perhaps? Point was pretty good, but I've seen much much better movies.

Tasmania (Hobart) -> New Zealand (Christchurch) - 16.9

2009-09-16T10:35:00.003+03:00

Today went in the name of getting from point 'A' to point 'B'. 'A' being Hobart, Tasmania and 'B' being Christchurch New Zealand. Oh it has been a very very long day. Up since 4am :(, that means only 4 hours of sleep due to BINGO night ;)

So the result was that I slept through both of my flights nice and easy. Managed to keep my eyes open for the last 15 minutes of the second one and got a great view on New Zealand from up above - it is gorgeous! Hostel check-in went smoothly as always, got to the city nicely as well. The rest of the day went by trying to figure out what is the best and most optimal time usage here, what can I fit in and what I should do. The plan for the next 3 days is the following:

Tomorrow I'll be taking the ever so famous TranzAlpine train ride. This is one the greatest train rides in the world - it will be traversing the Southern Alps between Christchurch to Greymouth taking me from the Pacific Ocean to the Tasman Sea. By Arthur's Pass there will be 8.5km tunnel on the way :) Supposedly the views are magnificent! From Greymouth I'll catch a bus to Franz Josef and stay the night there.

The day after I will be hiking and ice-climbing on Franz Josef Glacier :) There will be total of 6 hours ice time :D That should be fun! Staying the night in Franz Josef again, there is one hostel with sauna in it, will try to get a room there.

On the third day I'll be catching a bus back to Christchurch. I guess that will be a boring day, but I gotta get back here somehow. Then I still almost 2 days to look around here, on the 21st I'm off to the northern island, to Auckland.

It is very very nice to travel during off season: there is no problem on getting a room in a hostel, tours are not crowded, prices are lower - it is perfect. Almost. The only problem is the air temperature. I'd really like it to be a bit warmer than it is, even 5 degrees would do :)

But now, I'll head downstairs. They are offering free shots even in the computer room - can't even imagine what is going on downstairs at the bar then :) Gotta go and check it out :D

Hugs to all of you! Take good care of each other!

Tasmania: Mt. Wellington & Mt. Field National Park - 15.9

2009-09-16T10:32:00.001+03:00

Our day started bright and early again - pickup was at 7:55, by now I already knew most of the people on the bus as they were on past 2 tours as well.

First stop of the day was Mount Wellington, it is 1270 meters above sea level and provides very good views on Hobart and surrounding areas. Of course for this the weather needs to be clear, not misty and rainy as it was when we made it up there. There was also unbelievably strong wind up on the mountain, wind mixed with rain :) Apparently in the afternoon the weather will be even worse so we made it up there as the first thing.

For the next stop we headed over to Mt. Field National Park where we got to take many walks in the woods, by the waterfalls, on the Mt. Field and by a lake. On the walk by lake Dobson there was quite a bit of snow on the ground still, so small snow fight was held :)

In the afternoon we got to see local Tasmanian animals in a wildlife park. There were Wombats, Platypuses (those we did not get to see though), Wallabies, Koalas, Tasmanian Devils, owls and other local animals.

Today our tour finished kinda early, we were back in town already by 5pm. Stopped by the hostel and then headed over to 5AUD pizza with others who we have been on couple of tours together and stay in the same hostel as I do. After dinner I used the chance and uploaded some photos, I still can't believe how expensive Internet access is here :( We had agreed to meet at the hostel at 8 and head over to northern part of Hobart for BINGO night :) There is really nothing better to do in Hobart on Tuesday night than to play BINGO - like 80 year oldies :-P There are couple of us who have to take 4:34am shuttle to airport to catch a 6am flight to Melbourne. Couple of brave ones are going to stay up the whole night :D, and I'm not one of them - any sleep will do, even if it is only 4 hours.

BINGO ended up being lots of fun. There were 8 of us heading over there, walk through the cold rain was not the most enjoyable one, but once there we had tons of fun. One of us even won one game and got a pitcher of free beer :)

I really like taking local tours. For one, you always get more stops than just the destination. For an example on a day we went to Port Arthur, we took a little detour and stopped at a town named Doo. At one point one of the families in the town named their house Doo-Little :) It took no time for all the people to start naming their houses as well. We saw all kinds of fun stuff there like Doo-Me-Too or Wee-Doo :) There were many and really funny ones, but I can't remember them. Another positive side is that as the tour guides do this for living they are full of interesting facts and stories that you can't read in the books, and this is not for the destination only but also for the whole trip - things you see out of the window when driving. You would also get adequate answers for any questions you might have about local life. For third, you always meet other travelers when on tours. Mostly you are stuck in a small bus for some amount of time so talking to people sitting close to you usually happens within the first 10 minutes of the trip :) And most of the time you end up going to dinner or spending other free time with them during your stay. Meeting other travelers is a good opportunity to find out about your next destination or share your thoughts on your previous destination. For one, I got quite a bit of insight on Christchurch, where I'm heading next - what to do there, where to stay and where to eat :) Good times I must say!

Tasmania: Freycinet National Park - 14.9

2009-09-14T15:03:00.002+03:00

Today's trip took me to the oh so famous Wineglass Bay and Freycinet National Park. We were picked up at 7:25 from the hostel, once I stepped in the bus I already saw familiar faces from yesterday :) So nice to recognize people and actually know their names in a strange country. Anyhoo, ride to the Freycinet National Park was about 3 hours including few stops on the way.

Freicinet National Park was declared in 1916 - one of the first two national parks in Tasmania (along with Mt. Field). Our first view point was looking over Wineglass Bay - one of the most beautiful beaches in the whole world (as selected by some famous publication). It was truly pretty, white sand, nicely curved bay and bright blue water. Next stop was at Honeymoon Bay, apparently this is one of the only places in Tasmania where you can watch the sunset over waterline (I did not quite get that, of how it could be possible, but that is what I think the guide said). Our lunch spot was at Sleepy Bay - beaaauuutiful place, rocky but just beautiful. Last stop took us to the viewing point by the lighthouse - very nice views from there as well. Once done with that it was time to head back. On our way we did stop at a wonderful berry farm for an ice cream - yumm yumm :)

The drive there and back was a bit much, but I was sitting up front by the tour guide so I managed to use my ability to ask a thousand questions about life in Tasmania and in Australia in general (pour tour guide :D, that was 3+3 hours). Well and so did he as he is going to tour Europe for 4-5 months next year and was wondering if he should stop in Estonia as well or not :) I think I managed to convince him that he definitely should.

Bit more facts: Tasman Sea is named after Dutchman Abel Tasman who was the first European explorer to chart this coastline in 1642, he also named the island Van Diemen's Land (later renamed to Tasmania in his honor).

Now some facts about Hobart. The background story goes that yesterday I was trying to find a place to eat around 8pm - nothing was open in city center, nothing whatsoever, all was closed down. So on the street I ran into one family who we were at the tour with - they were trying to find a place to have dinner as well. And then we ran into my roommate from the hostel who was looking for the bottle shop (alcohol store). She gave us a hint that there is a good fast food place by the sea called Mures which should be open. We headed over there and whaddaya know, another couple from our 11 seat bus was there :) Apparently this is one of the only places open on a Sunday night :) Now the fact about the town is that there are barely no residential areas in town - it is all either hotels/hostels, shops or restaurants. All the locals live out of the city center so the center is usually quite deserted as soon as the shops close down.

A bit about my future plans as well. As I'm going to be in California and close to San Francisco I figured to check what Jenny (friend from college) is up to. I have not seen her for at least 6 years by now, some time ago she lived in San Fran so I figured to see whereabouts is she located now. Told her about my training for 2 days and my plan for a road trip south after my training. Got a reply that she is back in California and is trying to see if she can join me for the road trip :) I hadn't gotten any reply on my following e-mails with all my flight information and timetable for possible road trip, so an alarming e-mail went on the way. AND I got an answer today - turns out she had been traveling and hence was not able to reply. BUT! In her e-mail I see she has already taken Thursday and Friday off from work so we have a long weekend for our trip. Already before she mentioned that we can take her car. As San Jose is just 1h from her house she offered I'd stay at her place or her sister's place which is even closer to San Jose. In any case, she said, she'd meet me at the airport when I arrive :)
I was about to fall off from my chair from happiness :) I can't wait to see you Jenny!

So the day was full of looking at beautiful beaches and short walks to and from the locations. And evening brought some very good news as far as Californian activities go!

Tasmania: day at Port Arthur - 13.9

2009-09-14T12:01:00.000+03:00

Today there are 500 000 people living in Tasmania, Hobart is about 200 000 in population.

First stop in the morning was to introduce a bridge that saved the locals from 1.5h drive to get to Hobart from neighbouring peninsula. A long story about ship bumping into the bridge, part of the bridge collapsing, accidents that this caused and how the ship lays on the bottom of the bay till this day followed.

So what I learned today is that most of the history here in Tasmania revolves around prisoners and everything here seems to be built by convicts (roads, houses, bridges etc.). Convicts from British Isles and its colonies had been transported all over the world between 1619 and 1875. First they were sent to West Indies and North America, after American Revolution other destinations had to be found. While most of those transported after 1787 ended up in Australia (Sydney), others were sent to Gibraltar and Bermuda.

Route to Sydney went between Australia and Tasmania, French had shown increasing interest for Tasmania and England saw a threat to their ships as soon as French would settle in Tasmania. So English dispatched two ships with 300 convicts, some soldiers and free settlers to make a settlement to prevent the French controlling the shipping lane to Sydney. Another ship was sent on the way from Sydney which established the first settlement at Risdon Cove in 1803. Risdon Cove being the 2nd oldest place in Australia. There were total of 70 000 prisoners sent to Australia and Tasmania from 1803 to 1853 and 99% of them would never return home. At the time Tasmania was seen as a one prison island - 70% of the population was prisoners.

Before Europeans arrived in Risdon Cove the locals had not seen foreign people for 12 000 years - this is known as the longest isolation in human history. Aborigines were isolated in Tasmania since it became an island and was separated from Victoria.

On the way to our next longer stop in Richmond there were more stories and pauses on the way. We saw the initial location, Risdon Cove, where Europeans landed and met local Aborigines in 1803. We heard about local prison, roads built by prisoners during old times, about famous convicts of the time and much more. Our guide was super! He was full of information and all sorts of facts. He seemed to know everything about different cultures, sports and TV shows :) When he heard I'm from Estonia he said immediately that the capital is Tallinn (he also mentioned Eurovision song contest and then mixed Estonians up with Latvians :) ). Most people just go blank when they hear a country named Estonia, few moments later they would go "and where is that?" :)

Bit more about Richmond - it used to be 3rd biggest town in Tasmania, as soon as abridge got built and traffic was not going through Richmond any longer it became a ghost town. There are one of the oldest buildings in Australia though, like the oldest existing Catholic Church in Australia, dating back to 1835.

On the way to Port Arthur - the most secured prison of the time - there were many stops, for an example the only sea canal in Australia, two passageways that led to Port Arthur and had to be crossed by escaping prisoners. So Port Arthur was absolutely the worst place where prisoners could ever end up at, only the worst convicts were sent there. Throughout the years there were many escape attempts, but only 2 groups (one 3 and other 7 people) are known to escape Port Arthur.

Once we arrived we had 3.5 hours to look around and take the ferry tour. Quite many of the buildings have been destroyed, but general overview was given which was quite enough. I was surprised how the prison worked - all convicts were trained up on different skills (woodwork, construction, shoe making etc.) and taught to read and write. This was all in order to prepare them for life after prison. But the stories about the amount and kind of work they had to do were horrifying of course.

After Port Arthur we drove by couple of scenic places on our way back. At the bus we learned about the life of Tasmanian Devils - those are native protected animals, they are about the size of a cat and live all around the island. As with many species they are decreasing in population and hence are protected.

This was a long long day, lots of walking and just exhausting. Me going to bed now :)

Sydney -> Tasmania - 12.9

2009-09-12T14:02:00.001+03:00

Oe it was soo difficult to drag myself out of bed once the alarm went off. I got to "sleep in" till 8:30 :) No more waking up by myself at 7am, apparently. Packed my things and sat behind the computer for an hour or so, did the checkout around 10. It is so strange that checkout time for hotels and hostels is so early around here, very rarely they extend it for an hour, which is not whole lotta help :)

Then followed scheduled breakfast and last walk in town. As usual when somebody leaves there are sad sad goodbyes :( It is truly sad to leave yet another city and a friend behind once more. There are only that many goodbyes I can handle in such a short period of time - waaaa.

Airport shuttle was scheduled to picked me up at 12:30 from the hostel so I would make my flight at 14:15 to Tasmania. Now I get to the airport, I do the checkin and head over to the security check. Over here they ask you to take all metal objects out of the bag and set them on a tray - so for me this means my macbook and a camera. I open my bag and take out the laptop, next should be my camera, well, it's not in the bag! At the hostel I had kept all my stuff between two beds and it seems that I did not check the area carefully enough when checking out :( I had left my camera to the hostel :( I run over to the phone, having a bit over an hour till my plane takes off.

Meanwhile I almost lost my passport (when running from the security area to the phones), luckily one lady found it and walked around with it trying to match somebodys face to the photo :) Managed to find me quite easily as the terminal was almost empty. Anyways I call to the hostel and tell them my sad story. They could not figure out any way to get the camera to me at the terminal. One option would be to ship it for me to Tasmania, but I'm not sure how that would work. So basically the only thing I can think of is to grab a taxi and hope that the return trip can be made within 45 minutes - in Sydney that is :) I ruuuun to the closest taxi driver and tell my sad story. 40AUD (370 EEK) and 35 minutes later I'm back at the terminal with my camera :) I like happy endings :D

Flight to Hobart, Tasmania, takes 1.5 hours. Getting out of the plane we had to walk outside to get back into the terminal - it is sooo cold here :( Well, Australian winter again with it's 18C, but I tell you, it feels like 12C around here. Airport is about 10 minute drive from the city, I get dropped of real close to my hostel. Checkin goes smoothly as always and then I head to discover the town. As it is so cold here I wear all the warm clothes I have with me and it is barely enough :) In the evening it is probably close to 10C or something. Now I just have to say that this place seems totally deserted. I have read some comments about it being slow around here during winter time - yeah, so it is.

Blue Mountain National Park - 11.9

2009-09-12T13:58:00.002+03:00

Pickup was at 7:25 and to gather all the people from the city seemed to take forever. Only good thing was that I got to see different parts of the city while the bus was circling the streets. Throughout the whole time our bus driver/tour guide was babbling about all kinds of facts and telling stories, laughing at his own jokes with rehearsed laugh. At first it drew me insane, by the end of the day I seemed to get used to it and actually even enjoyed some of the stories (if I was able to follow the whole story from start to end that is). One fact that I remember was that there are 4 million people living in Sydney and there are 180 nationalities represented (don't quote me on this as I have no idea where our tour guide got this information).

We made few stops on our way to the Blue Mountain National Park, it was about 1h ride to the park and we were going to make few stops at different locations. First view point was at 875m above sea level and the view was gorgeous of course. Got to take tons of photos :)

The story with Blue Mountains is the following: mountain range is mostly covered with eucalyptus trees full of essence oil, once the sun heats the area the fumes that evaporate from the trees seem blue in daylight. Simple as that.

Second stop in the park was to view a waterfall which is taller than Niagara as our tour guide knew to mention. Then followed lunch in a nice small crafty town called Leura. It reminded me of Ely in Minnesota - main street with small crafts stores, galleries, cafeterias and restaurants on both sides of the road. Oh and the hot chocolate there! Ooooh, that was a good one!

And now the real fun started! We were to take the scenic ride in the Blue Mountain National Park which consisted of:
- cable way that took us down the side of a mountain which was very very steep :)
- a wonderful walk in the rainforest down below
- railway back up on a 52% angle :D Apparently this is the steepest railway in the world

Railway ride was pretty scary actually :) Scariest part was towards the end when it made quite a big jerk. Once we got off the thing our tour guide said that they have had trouble with the railroad all day, apparently it was going only half the speed as usually and the jerk at the end was very much unexpected. But we all made it - phew :)

Before heading to the ferry there was also a park stop to try to find kangaroos in the wild. I have to admit it was semi-wild as it was still quite organized area with camp sites and parking lots. Surprisingly enough there was one kangaroo munching away on the grass right by the stream. It did not seem to be disturbed by the crowd at all and just kept munching away.

Last attraction (well almost ;) ) was to take a ferry back to central Sydney. Ferry was very similar to the CityCat in Brisbane, it did drive quite a bit faster though :) Ferry ride was 30 minutes and very much enjoyable. Arrival to Circle Quai was fabulous.

Made my way back to the hostel, took advantage of a 3AUD for 24h internet for about an hour and later met up with Aivar. Evening was a long one :) Had Domino's (yummm!), sat by the Opera House, walked all the way up to and over the so called "coat hanger bridge" right next to Sydney Opera House (Sydney Harbour Bridge is its official name I believe) - view was absolutely marvellous! Also checked out so nicely lit Luna Park on the other side of the bridge. It was a wonderful evening in lit up city with good company. Back at the hostel by 2:30 :)

Long day in Sydney - 10.9

2009-09-12T03:26:00.003+03:00

Alarm went off 5:05 in the morning, threw last things into the bag, checked out and met Ave downstairs at 5:30. Plane took off at 7 and landed in Sydney 8:30, I was all checked in at the hostel next to Alfred's Park by 9:30.

When I peeked in through the door of my hostel room one of my roommates just woke up and had a conversation with me without opening her eyes thinking I'm the other roommate :) She was a bit confused :) Anyways, from her I learned that there are 4 Estonian guys staying here as well. Met Vahur, Taavi, Oliver and Henri shortly when sitting in the quad, using 24h free wireless. Recognized one of them by the accent immediately :) 4 guys from Tartu who are here thanks to the economical downtime - good for them, they got a whole year to look around.

Online time is getting really precious here as it is difficult to find good internet and it is even more difficult to find the time :) After about an hour of cruising around in the wonderful world wide web I headed for a long walk towards city center just as David suggested - get on your walking shoes and go to explore the city he said. That I did.

Oh I just have to mention that it is kinda chilly here :( The more south I go the worse it gets :( I don't wanna know what is the temperature in Tasmania :(( In Sydney I need to wear long pants during the day and warm sweater during the night. I'm not liking that :( I wanna have the beach weather back!!! Darn this winter with it's 20 degrees in the shade! ;)

Back to the topic of exploring the city, here is what I saw during my 6 hour walk in this wonderful place:

First Alfred's Park, Hyde park and St.Marys Cathedral were on my way from the hostel to the city center.

Then got to Royal Botanic Gardens. WOW! I just mean WOW! Again, they have botanic gardens in the city center for easy access and for all to enjoy freely. I probably spent around 3 hours just walking along in there - it is gorgeous! And it is friendly. For an example, at the entrance they have big signs saying: "We want you to walk on the grass, have a picnic, smell the roses and hug some trees" :) How nice is that? There is also a rainforest walk there, made so that people would take couple of minutes to experience the rainforest and to forget about city life. It was all just so gorgeous.

At the Botanic Gardens park there were tons of runners, they were everywhere. Figured to ask from the locals if it is always like this or is it some special occasion today. I was told it is so every single day - people from close by offices come for a run during their lunch break, then go shower and back to the office :) How nice :)

With everybody running around I got worn out :-P and took a nap in the sun by the fountains. Ooh, there was also the coolest outside swimming pool at the Wooloomooloo (hii hii) Bay. Whadda name :D

At the end of the walk I made my way to the oh-so-famous Sydney Opera House. I gotta say wowee. It is gorgeous! It is visible from quite many different places in the city - and rightly so as it is seriously fantastic. After that spectacular view there came food stop by Circular Quay, watched a street performer ride the tallest unicycle ever and listened to local Digideroo music :)

Next my tour took me to Campbells Cove under Sydney Harbour Bridge, through warfs on Walsh Bay, to the top of Observatory hill and towards Cockle Bay. Stopped at King Street Wharf for a glass of cider and wondered how on earth am I gonna be able to keep walking :) I have been up since 5am, walked for good 6 hours almost in a row while covering most of Sydney - I'm tired.

Oh another thing I wanted to mention - they all talk like Schmike here :) Cheers mate!

Evening continued in the company of Aivar, friend of a friend who happened to be in town. Long talks about the world an beyond + getting lost in Sydney = me very tired and needs some sleep uuurgently!

side note: I'm doing my best to catch up on travel stories - stay tuned!

Brisbane: Moreton Island - 9.9.9 :)

2009-09-11T12:51:00.003+03:00

Whatta date huh :) ?

So today I had a trip to Moreton Island. It is the 3rd biggest sand island in the whole wide world and known universe :D Island itself is about 35km long and 10km wide if I remember correctly. On the island you are allowed to drive only four wheel drive vehicles as you either drive on a sand road or directly on the beach.

Our tour guide for the day was Logan - born in New Zealand and now lives in Brisbane. He was a bit crazy driver which made the whole thing even more fun ;).

Our agenda was to do some sandboarding on the sand dunes and go snorkeling by ship wrecks. I had done sandboarding once before in Peru, but this was entirely different story. In Peru I was going down on a board in loose sand whereas here the sand was hard and oh the speed one acquired :) We were going down either on our stomachs or sitting on the board single/double. I tried the belly down thing twice and sitting double on the board once :) It was great fun! And yea, we were all covered in sand from head to toe immediately. Logan worked hard on giving us as much speed during takeoff as possible :D

Gladly the next thing in the agenda was soaking in the ocean :) Now to talk about soaking, I put on a wetsuit and a life jacket (tour requirements) and even that did not help with the cold. Water was probably around 18C - it was freezing. All I wanted to do was swim as fast as possible to get warm, that was not possible as I had this floating device (life jacket) tied around my body and to see the fish down below one needs to stand still. Oh I was shaking all over my body and managed somehow to get through the thing. Floating (not to say swimming) by the wrecks was pretty awesome, although nothing beats Great Barrier Reef, probably ever. After snorkeling there was lunch time and back in the car we went.

As the roads were very good on the day thanks to the rain few days back (rain evened out all the bumps) we were able to drive faster than usual (faster and with less injuries from knocking our heads in the roof, considering how our guide was driving, don't get me wrong it was awesome to race in the sand of course, but I could not imagine being in the car if roads would have been "normal"). So we managed to even make few extra stops - one to the lighthouse and then to the northern point beach as well. To get to the lighthouse we drove on the beach, not on the loose sand, but between the waterline and the loose sand - most of the time the beach was deserted and we got the whole huge beach to ourselves :) And those beaches here are huge!

The lighthouse was built on the northern tip of the island - view from there was absolutely wonderful. Beaches seem to go on forever with bright blue water and huge foaming waves hitting the sand. On the sea we saw dolphins! Apparently it is also the whale season so should have been possible to spot the waves as well - didn't see any though. Dolphins on the other hand were all over the place :)

After lighthouse we raced back around the northern point so that we would not miss the ferry - we made it of course :) Although we got to hear some stories of almost missing the ferry due to getting stuck in sand on the last minute :)

Got back to Brisbane around 6 and we had planned to get together with Ave for dinner as it is my last night here. Dinner was wonderful and cocktails were good :) We took the time to talk and talk and talk. I enjoyed this evening tremendously and was very sad once I realized it might be a while till I see Ave again :(

Ave will pick me up at 5:30am tomorrow morning and take me to the airport. My flight to Sydney is at 7am. This will be a very short night :)

Brisbane: Lone Pine Koala Santuary - 8.09

2009-09-11T12:48:00.002+03:00

For some odd reason I have woken up every morning close to 7 and I'm wide awake. This morning was no different. As we are meeting up with Ave at 9:30 I had way too much time to kill :) So I decided to have a long and good lunch at the center of the town - 1h breakfast plus people watching :) Nice to look at all those people rushing around all around, running to offices :-P and I get to just sit there and not think about work :D Finally walked over to the south bay area, met up with Ave and we headed to the boat that took us over to Lone Pine Koala Santuary.

It took about 1h by boat to get to the santuary. Boat ride was very nice. Along the way we were given way too much information about the river and every single house on it ;) Some facts that I remember:
- it is 19km from the city to the santuary that we will travel
- boat is called MV Mirimar and is the oldest boat of it's kind that is still in service
- Mirimar was built for this purpose and has been servicing on taking people to Lone Pine Koala Santuary for decades, there used to be no other way of getting there due to poor infrastructure
- now this is rather interesting one: river of Brisbane changes direction 4 times a day due to tides :)

Once at the santuary we had a bit more than 2 hours to look around. Santuary itself was not very big, but it had all the animals we wanted to see - the native ones. We got to see possums, LOTS of koalas, we got to hold a koala :), we got to pet a kangaroo (or perhaps it was wallaby, no idea :) ), we got to see a wombat, I got to see all kinds of venomous snakes, there were lizards and whole bunch of different kind of birds. All in all it was wonderful. I learned quite a bit about koalas while there. For an example that there is only one kind of koala breed in Australia, they are just different color depending on the region. In Australia one can find 800 different types of Eucalyptus trees, but koalas feed off of only 50 types.

Our way back was again by the boat. Once back we attempted a bit of shopping again, but somehow we never got on the mood for that. Gathered my computer and other things from the hostel and headed over to David's house for a dinner with his parents and Ave. It was a very nice evening, they are great people and it is so nice to talk to locals - to ask questions and get their perspective on the culture, this is my favourite part when traveling.

Today was a very good day!

discovering Brisbane - 7.09

2009-09-10T03:20:00.001+03:00

Started off from Noosa on Monday morning around 10am, made it to Brisbane in a bit more than 2 hours. I was dropped off by my hostel, meanwhile Ave went back home, so I had close to 4 hours on my own. What to do what to do :) Decided to explore the city a bit.

From my hostel they gladly gave me the map of the city and already drew some lines on it where I could go for my exploration trip - so I followed the lines on the map :)

First stop was Botanic Gardens. What amazes me is that they have set botanic gardens up in the city center in one of the local parks - how nice is that? The same was in Hong Kong. This is perfect setup as it is easily accessible by everybody. Another amazing thing was that I saw tens and tens of people using the grass areas in the park for structured workout grounds. When I say structured I mean they were doing all kinds of exercises there - using cones for marking down different workout stations, doing jumps over the cones, doing squats with weights and on and on the list goes. Plus there were many many runners and step-walkers.

After Botanic Gardens the line on the map took me to the South Bank of Brisbane river. Park runs all the way alongside the river with beautiful recreation areas, gardens and a beach :) Yes, there is sort of an artificial beach built by the river - kinda nice, it is small, seemed clean and well organized with all the little fountains and passage ways. As Ave told me this is total tourist attraction and locals don't ever go there. A big sightseeing wheel is also located by the river. South Bank park ends with arts centers and state library. Never made it to the art galleries and exhibitions unfortunately, perhaps in Sydney I'll have time for that.

Our plan for the evening was to shop a bit, have a snack and head over to the movies. Met up with Ave by Queen Street Mall and started our shopping tour, but whaddaya know, most of the shops were closed by 6pm :( Ended up having a nice dinner in the middle of the pedestrian walk and cake at a local cafe shop.

By the time we arrived at the cafe shop it was dark outside already. We made ourselves feel like at home by the corner of the shop where there was a glass wall facing to the river (river was still one block away, but we were facing towards the river). As we were chatting away and killing time I kept noticing how the whole sky lit up from time to time. At first we did not pay whole lot of attention but the lightning grew bigger and bigger with every minute. About 30 minutes later everything grew really quiet outside, like the air was standing still. I guess most of you can already guess what came next :) Very extremely strong wind followed by harsh rain. Our seats were perfect for observing the storm, the only worry we had was how are we going to get to the movies if it is raining like mad outside. Anyways, at the time the rain arrived we were keeping our fingers crossed that those huge glass walls are strong enough as what was going on outside was absolutely crazy. People seemed to fly around outside due to the strong winds and horizontally pouring rain. It was a disaster outside, rain came in waves and people tried to run to shelters as fast as possible, whoever was left outside was soaked within seconds. We kept enjoying the view and counting down minutes to head out and be prepared to get soaked as well. about 1h later when we had to head out the rain was gone :D

Move we went to see was called "Young Victoria", sweet movie. We were both expecting whole lot more drama and tears, but that never happened.