Craziness and home!! :)
OK...Friday 19th March...St Patricks night so good cause for celebration I'd say...turns out everybody else thought so too!! Did the usual...bbq (or a brai as its called in SA) at one of the guys houses...happened 2 b gavins this particular day. then went off 2 colobus. Shots we're on special offfer at 500 shillings each!!...yes, that is 25p a shot!! :O we were told by sky (our new friend who is the promotional manager at colobus) that if, between all the customers in colobus on that night, we could get through 7 bottles of green zappa (green sanbuca) which was the shot on offer, they would be 500 shillings a shot FOREVER!!!! woop!!! For those of you who have been checking cats blogsite too...ignore her...she drank LOADS!! hahaha!!
Caught the bus down to Moshi on saturday afternoon in order to be with adele for her birthday on the sunday...(adele, flic and charlotte went down to moshi on the friday afternoon). we were staying with one of the rugby guys that flics snoggin at the moment. so...nick and flic, (haha!! that is NEVER goin 2 grow old on me i dont think!!...small minds, i know! :S) adele and charlotte came to pick me, martyn and ellen up from the bus station in moshi (martyn is officially an honorary sekei girl!) and took us to a very quaint little cafe where we saw MAHUSSIVE birds flying around!!! eee!! they were beautiful and SO low down!! As we drove back to nick's house on the back of his landrover, and the sun was setting around us, the views of kili were breathtaking. Moshi is well known for having perfect views of kili on a clear day and it was so amazing to watch the sun set over the masses and masses of sugar cane plantations. i have a couple of brilliant photos of snow-topped kili.
The next day it was adele's birthday, we had sneakily arranged 4 her boyfriend to ring my phone as a pose to hers so we could surprise her...it worked!! :) she already had cards that had been given to her before she came here so we couldnt really do much...we had a big chocolate cake for her though!! that day, on our way home we stopped at a hot springs and went for a dip....it was BEAUTIFUL. The water was so clear that i dropped my ring by accident in water that was at least 2 metres deep and i could see it from above the surface!! It was stunning, the setting; which was in the middle of nowhere, the actual water was so refreshing; just the right temperature. Apparantly a girl got eaten by crocodiles about 10 years ago in that same springs but not even that bothered me (until we went for a little swim into a more shrubby area) (is that a word?!). chill out though ma, apparantly she jumped into the water thinking it was a lot deeper than it is and hit her head so she was already dead when the crocs got hold of her!
Went out for a chinese that night which was very tasty but i was somehow not that hungry. Because we were going on our big adventure the next day, me, cat and martyn decided we would just stay up all night. Our taxi was booked for 4:45am from our house up in sekei to take us down toi the bus station so we went to masai 4 a bit then went bk 2 gavins who went to bed whilst we stayed up and watched sleepless in seattle...that is, until we broke the television!! :S oops!
We arrived back at home at about 3:30am and packed by candlelight. Flic and delly (adele) weren't coming on our little trip so they were in bed. I arrived in our bedroom and saw a little black thing crawling around in a bowl i had left on the floor, i immediately thought it was a cockroach so i ran out of the room, however, ellen came back with a candle and shone the light to find it was a little mouse!!! very cute!! its called monty!
We arrived at the bus station at about 5:15am and met up with steph (a girl from st margarets school who, bless her, had organised the little bits of the trip that were organised!!) on the bus by 6am and that was it...off we went to Dar es Salaam on our crazy, highly unplanned trip to Zambia to see the great Victoria falls!!
The bus journey was nice, not uncomfortable, (not comfortable either though, im not a fan of coach rides, even less so at 6am in the morning!!) not too long and very scenic which always helps!! Arrived in Dar at about 2pm, VERY hot and VERY sticky and VERY tired! not a good combination :S We found a hotel to stay in and checked in...spent a while laughing at the mispellings on the menu, although i didnt find it as funny as the others, think i was just too tired! Had a bit of a wander in Dar on the Tuesday in anticipation for the train that was leaving at 3pm. Dar is a horrible place...we did not see one thing that caught anybody's eye. It is like a relly big horrible, smelly, fumy (is that a word?!) city that is very deprived...in fact, it IS a really big horrible, smelly, fumy city that is very deprived!!
The time finally came for us to make our way to the train station and get on the train...when we boarded it, we found our room...a 6ft x 6ft room with 6 beds in it and a miniscule little table! it was a very old fashioned train, 3 bunks on either side of the room and a little window. Although it was a little squashed, it was so much fun!!! We regularly stopped although we were'nt allowed off and the scenary was lovely!
Eventually we reached the Zambian border where the bopmbshell was dropped that the visas were $60 each!!! Mistake one) plan trip more carefully and research things like costs of visas
We finally arrived in Kapiri Mposhi, 44hours later, only to discover that livingstone was another two bus journeys away! :S a 2 hour bus journey to Lusaka and a 7 1/2 hour bus journey to Livingstone later and we arrived at our destination...the jolly boys backpackers hostel. This was a lovely little place, obviously VERY popular with both backpackers and tourists. it had a cute little swimming pool and a little lounge area with a tree house above it...luxury!! We got up early the next morning and decided to get on it and book the thing we had gone all this way to do...So, there we were, all 6 of us, booked in to bungi jump off the third highest bungi jump in the WORLD!!! we were booked for that day so, before we knew it we were on the dala dala to the falls and getting weighed for the jump. Off we went and, in turn jumped 111metres over the river zambezi, at 75mph!! at the bottom of the jump u could see the rainbow...it was a full circle..the most beautiful thing i have EVER seen in my life. I think i got a bit carried away with the special offer we had been informed about and i jumped three times!!! The third, backwards in a different harness, something called the elevator so, rather than hangin from my feet upside down, i hung from my chest and went horizontally!! VERY scary but muchos funos!! The next day we took a wander into town...checked out the internet cafes, which were all crap and slow and breaking, decided against it and went back to the hostel, did a bit of sunbathing, had a swim, more sunbathing...aah...this is the life!! At about 4:30ish we got our asses into gear and went to the actual falls. As we arrived in the centre of town we decided to get a taxi to the falls becuase we were quite late. We finally managed to get a taxi for an arranged price and squashed the six of us in (its a regular occurence in arusha, what with 6 of us living together; 2 in the front seat and 4 in the back!!) as we started to drive off the taxi driver was a bit crazy and started saying he wanted more money than we had agreed. we told him that if thats how much he wanted then we wanted to get out of the car and get a different taxi but he woudnt stop!! he was drivin less than 5kmh down the road and we were in a rush so we just said we wanted to get out anyway. he wouldnt let us out either so ellen opened her door, then martyn opened his door and i opened mine and he was just driving down the road at, like, 3kmh with all three passenger doors wide open!! cat put her hand on the horn (me and cat were in the front!) and kept it there, i pulled the handbrake up and turned the steering wheel so we were on the side of the road and he STILL wouldnt let us out!! cat proceeded to tell him that he was mentally unstable and ellen was punching him in the arm, bless her, dont think that made much difference! but it was only when he spotted two policemen walking down the road that he let us out!! CRAZINESS!!
we finally arrived at vic falls...it was amazing. words could not even describe how beautiful it was and the pictures we have, although they are nice, they do not do it justice. we got absolutly DRENCHED and watched the sunset over the falls...bliss.
when we arrived back at the hostel we all had a bit of a kip, i was shattered from my adrenaline rushes from the previous day!! we went out for a meal that night to a bar where there was a really cool rasta signing bob marley songs!! then a really crap comedian came on and then the cool rasta again!! i was up dancing with some african girls!! endless fun!!
at the end, as we were leaving, we saw the singer and told him he had to come to arusha and do a gig!! he promised he would so....we'll see i guess!!
OK, sunday, we had white water rafting down the Zambezi river booked. The bus left jollyboys at 7:30am so we were up bright and early for that. they took us to another hotel on the waterfront where we were given breakkie. we then got briefed on what would happen, picked up our equipment (helmet, lifejacket and paddle) and off we went!! it was about a half an hour lorry thing drive to the river then i big descent over cool man made steps made out of pieces of wood...not very safe, but cool!!
ARGH! iv run out of time!! keep updated tho, might b able 2 update 2night, if not wont b 4 another week now cos we're off on safari 2moro...im sure u all want 2 know about how i nearly drowned tho!! :S
lov u all lots and lots and lots and miss u a little bit, although it has been proven that exciting holidays make it less hard!! And i am officially calling here home now, england is 'back to england'!! lotsv love, al xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
posted by Alice x @ 11:02 PM
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