Coconut Madness

Elihu (a peace corps friend) and I sharing a coconut as Dan catches the action. I lost my composure a bit, but luckily Elihu maintained focus and was able to get a substancial amount of coconut juice in his mouth. We practically finished off all the coconuts on the island, thanks to Dan's climbing and rock throwing skills. (Chizumulu Island)

Voices from Malawi and More

Dan sharing a cup of tea with an Elland in Zimbabawe. He has a real way with the ladies!

Malawi has been great! Tons of fun, sun, hanging with the locals and just being a bum. Lake Malawi is full of beautiful water, smiling faces and a slow pace of life, which was definitely appealing to both Dan and I. We spent the first couple days in Senga Bay hanging on the beach and going to the local bars. After a near death experience in a dugout canoe, we decided to spend more time on land and less in the water. It turns out that Dan is quite the pool player, and he made a big impression at one of the bars. It only took a couple of games before people started buying us drinks! We spent three nights in our tent praying that the heavy rains would not leak through. Fortunately, they didn't!

After a couple of days, we decided to head north to Nkhata Bay to catch a ferry to some of the lake's islands. I have to say that the ferry ride to Chizumulu was about as uncomforatble as it gets, filled from top to bottom with piles of people and their things. Dan snuggled up on the floor with a handfull of children and had his temper tested by a local drunk man that fell right in his lap. Thankfully Dan recognizes patience as a virtue and refrained from throwing the man over board. We then offloaded the ferry into a small life boat and headed to shore. It felt almost like we were smuggling refugees under the cloak of darkness. As soon as we reached the island the atmosphere changed quite dramatically. It was the difference between night and day, from a slave ship to a private island resort.

On Chizumulu Island we met a group of Malawi Peace Corps volunteers, and were having so much fun that we decided to remain on Chizumulu for the entire stay (instead of spending a couple of days on Lakoma as well). Life on the island consisted of snorkeling in the crystal clear waters and a plethera of games. The island night was lit by fireflies and colorful conversations about Malawi. Christmas eve was spent singing broken lyrics to age old classic Christmas carols, and on Christmas morning Dan participated in the white elephant gift exchange with the Peace Corps volunteers. Dan ended up with a serong and tupperwar full of candy. This was a pretty good gift considering that of others (i.e. cigarettes, tuna fish, peri-peri hot sauce).

Overall, Malawi was fun and will be missed. We left Malawi yesterday and spent an entire day hoping from mini-bus to mini-bus and eating rice and beans. So far from what we have seen southern Tanzania is beautiful and full of hills and mountains. The Tanzanian people appear to be excellent farmers, for the hills along the road have been decorated with all kinds of different crops.

Jon is teaching kickboxing to
the local children of Chizumulu Island (Malawi)

Dan with a few Peace Corps volunteers, spreading the love, Christmas week.

(Chizumulu Island, Malawi)

This was the missing picture of Jon at Vic Falls

More to come soon!

Victoria Falls

Meditating over the view at Vic Falls. I've never really been one for ropes or railings. It was nice to be able to sit right at the cliff edge and soak in the beauty of the waterfalls.

This is Zimbabwe

Jon and I (Dan) have been in Zimbabwe for the last two weeks, away from normal internet communications and have thus neglected our task of sharing this journey with others that might like to see what is happening. This country is an amazing place. As soon as you cross the boarder from South Africa the atmosphere, the landscape and the people change immediately. In fact this country seems to be in a constant state of change. Every time that I return here things have changed. This time the situation is not good to say the least (if you have been keeping up with news reports on the situation in Zim then you will know). I will spare you the details for now as some information may not be appropriate for distribution at the moment. Accept to say that there is a massive Cholera outbreak within the country right now and many people have been affected, with over three hundred dead already. Please keep the people of Zimbabwe in your thoughts and prayers. 

As there is not much time to tell stories right now, I will instead try and give you a quick summary to catch you up to speed:

We survived our first real Chicken Bus experience, from Jo'burg to Chiredzi- 16 hours long.

We have played with Elephants, some of whom were a bit frisky but very cute 

We've watched amazing Zimbabwean sunsets

We've gone camping in the bush with friends

Jon goes running with the Giraffe in the morning, just to get ready for the day

Most most artistic picture of the week goes to Jon, with this amazing pic (one of my personal favorites)

And just this morning we were hanging with the King of the Jungle, about 20 feet away sitting in the back of an open truck.

Traveling Friends

This blog entry is the first episode of our Traveling Friends section. In this weekly section of the blog we will introduce you to someone who along the way has been worthy of calling a dear friend. Though there should be many of these, this section will showcase the cream of the crop.

Let me introduce you to our dear traveling friend, Alessandra from Italy. We spent three days and nights traveling with her on the Baz bus, and though her words were few (maybe because she was trying to ignore us, or maybe because she wasn't very comfortable with English), the joy that she brought to our days was great. Alessandra has a real kick for life. Thank you Alessandra, you will be missed.

This is a video from our hike on the Wild Coast. What a breath taking view. We got up early Friday morning and hiked about two hours down the coast toward Hole in the Wall. About halfway, we were greated by a young local boy who offered to guide two lost American's such as our selves. He was good company. His name was Aaron, quite fitting for the setting, seeing as we were surrounded by open pastures filled with grazing cattle, sheep and goats. The dog that decided to acompany us (who by the way thought he was our guide and was thus ticked off when Aaron suddenly took over the role), took it upon himself to systematically herd every four legged beast in the area, which needless to say didn't make us very popular amongst the local herdsmen and herdschildren, which was the more common of the too. At one point I though we were going to have to surrender to three young boys who wanted to cane us for the dog chasing their goats down over a very steap hill. We barely escaped with our lives as we fought of their attack dogs for the next 100 meters. No joke. Anyway, it was an amazing hike filled with great beauty and many questions. I am forever challenged by the way of living in rural Africa, the contrast between the beauty and poverty of life. A place where so many tourist flock to see such great beauty is also the very same place where many suffer from extreme and absolute poverty. Many questions that are not going to be answered here in this post but that come to mind when I watch this video. How can I reflect on God's ever present Spirit which inhabits this beautiful earth without at the same time questioning what my place is in the whole thing, where is God in the lives of those who suffer on the edge of this most beautiful coast line? But that's a question for another time.

Our South Africa leg of the quest is over and tomorrow we jump on a chicken bus and head for chiredzi Zimbabwe, where we will meet up with many friends, and face a whole new set of questions. We are still trying to work out why we have joined together for this crazy quest, why are we traveling through Africa; is it for our own enjoyment, our own pleasure; is it to benifit others; is it to find something in the faces and lives of those we meet that will reveal the very nature of God and this life? Maybe it is just a little bit of everything, and is yet to be revealed to us. We wait in eager anticipation to discover why we have taken up this quest and we hope that our imaginations will be streched, that our hope will be expanded, and that our lives will be changed. I hope that we might become dear friends, and truly learn how to serve others and enjoy God's great gift of life. I have truly come to love Africa, and this is only the beginning.

Dan

Coffee Bay

This is a pic of the beach at Coffee Bay. This entire area is surrounded by bluffs covered in green grasses. It is very beautiful how the green hills contrast with the blue ocean and the massive rocks that line the beach. It is quite the spectacle, which unfortunately, this picture doesn't fully capture. But it does give you an idea.

Jon

The Wild Coast

Jon and I hiking on the wild coast of South Africa with our little dog friend Frodo which nearly got us killed by some local children.

Rain at Jeffrey's Bay

Today Dan and I got caught in a little rainstorm here at Jeffrey's Bay.

The morning had started off sunny, so we saw no harm in taking a little stroll around town. Boy were we ever wrong.

We were about 4 kilometers away from our hostel when the rain came down. Instead of heading straight home or finding shelter like normal people were doing, Dan and I decided to first head to the grocery store and do a little shopping. We had hoped that we could get some food for the evening and then hop a taxi back to the place, but no taxi was to be found. We therefore walked through the freezing rain as the cold wind blew across the sea to meet our soaking wet bodies. All Dan and I could do was laugh about the situation.

It's amazing how a simple rainstorm can bring forth so much good conversation and happiness, especially when our initial objective was to try and stay out of it. I highly recommend to everyone to take up the opportunity to walk in the rain at every chance you get. It truly is an enjoyable experience.

The evening so far has been pretty relaxed. Dan made pasta and salad, and then we sat around the kitchen and jammed some songs on the guitar with some of the other travelers staying here at the Ubuntu Hostel. We all basically just sat around and enjoyed eachothers company as we discussed some of our previous travels together.

It really is an amazing experience to be able to travel around the world and meet so many different people; all with their own ideals and agendas. To me the traveler is a very special person, for they have stepped outside of their own world and have embarked on a journey through that of another's. I truly believe that if everyone traveled a little bit more and began to share their world with that of others, the world would become a better place.

Well that is it for this evening. Dan and I will get back to you more as our story unfolds.

First day in Jeffrey's Bay. Damn that magicseaweed. No, waves like we had hoped. But we found a very chill place to stay called ubuntu, you would like Wayne, just your style. Their trying to teach us conscious living.

Dan