#176: Go to Africa

AFRICA! 

Africa Video

   I could rant and rave about this trip all day. I was so excited for this trip and planned it months in advance. Typically, my trips are the result of last minute vacation time from work. Usually they are only planned about a month out. But this trip was planned and paid for 6 months ahead of time which made it so it felt like I was waiting for eternity.

     I had about two and a half weeks of vacation from my terrible office job in America. It still blows my mind that Americans work for a year at a dull and uninspiring job and then are only rewarded with two weeks of vacation. Most people I know around the world have a standard of about a month off and often even more. Sometimes people in America are even discouraged from taking that vacation time because some feel like it isn't showing a true commitment to your job if you want to take a break. What kind of backwards thinking is that? You work hard for 50 months a year, take those two weeks! After a year of hating my life and spending eight hours a day talking to elderly people on the phone about their retirements plans *snore*, I quit my jobs right before my trip and didn't look back.

     When deciding what to do with my precious two weeks I asked my Seoul Sister Sejeong if she wanted to go somewhere. We both didn't have any one place in mind so we just threw ideas around for a bit before landing on the perfect one. Africa. In just a few minutes I was able to find a budget backpackers safari which was about 1/10th the price of all the other Safaris out there. It was designed for people under 35 who wanted to see the best that Africa had to offer and didn't mind camping under the stars and helping cook food. If we were staying in hotel accommodations I feel like we would have missed so much. One night I fell asleep to the sounds of hippos fighting in the nearby river and another I woke up and opened my door to see elephants wandering through the campsite. Not your typical 'budget' experience.

   During the planning process we picked up another fellow travel who wanted to join in the fun, my brother. So now the three of us were going on the adventure of a lifetime. The tour was 12 days and started in Zambia and we made our way down through Botswana and Namibia. Before and after the tour we were set to spend a few days in South Africa. All together is was about 19 days of fast paced, early morning, water chugging adventuring. We saw all the animals I could dream of. We saw so many elephants and zebras that it began to be just a normal thing. One night we camped around the watering hole and spent hours just watching the elephants, zebras, giraffes, and rhinos drink and play. Giraffes are my favorite animal so I was thrilled to see them in their elements instead of in cages and abused like they are in zoos. They are such dainty dorks you can't help but smile when watching them, especially when they drink water.

   Our guides were funny and informative, the food was delicious and the moments took my breath away. Looking back it seems like it was all a dream because it seems too amazing to even be real. If you have ever thought about going to Africa, go. If you haven't ever thought about going, go anyway. It is not secret that so much of the amazing wildlife that we were blessed to see is dying out. Everyday we hear about how many rhinos are being poached by hunters and how soon there wont be any left. It isn't fair and it isn't right. But you have to see them before they are gone forever.

    I can't compare it to any other trip because it wasn't like any trip. We took small boats through the reeds and saw hippos tiny ears pop up next to us. We road quads through the Namibia dessert and saw colors I had never seen before. We saw penguins laying on the beach in South Africa. We had our lunch stolen by a baboon who jumped off the car onto my back. We went hiking with our Uber driver because he didn't want to miss the view. We drank wine while watching baby elephants play in the mud and get scolded by their moms. We saw lions eating an elephant that they had taken down. We saw sunsets that covered the sky. We hung off the side of Victoria falls and tempted fate. We saw more stars than I have ever seen in my life. And we were smiling every minute.

It was rich, raw, perfect and absolutely unforgettable.
Thank you Africa

                               

#64: Go to the Great Barrier Reef

    Australia is a big beautiful play land. My last stop before I left was to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef. You can't really spend 6 months living in Australia and not make it to its biggest attraction. Thankfully I was heading there during off season when it was 'cold' and by cold it was in the 90's the whole time and I left with a sunburn despite the buckets of sunscreen that I applied.  

    I missed my plane because they changed the gate and didn't announce it to anyone. So everyone at the wrong gate had to book a whole new flight. It was a really frustrating experience as I only had two whole days in Cairns and was fully booked for both days. It was a bad start to the weekend but I got it sorted. 

     When I finally got there I went and had a walk around the city which had a great market to wander around in. In the morning I went to the docks for my day trip out onto the Great Barrier Reef.  One of the highlights of the trip was actually the ride to the reef where we were surrounded by whales for a whole hour. It was amazing and such an unexpected surprise, of course no good pictures were taken because that is an impossible task to get a good picture of a huge animal in the distance.

     When we got to the reef we stopped off at several different snorkeling locations. The water was shallow enough that it would have been a waste to scuba dive. The rest of the day was spend boating around and getting an inevitable sunburn. 

     The next day I went on a tour of the Daintree rain forest. On the way we saw wallabies and kangaroos. We went stomping through the marsh in search for kangaroos and crocodiles. There were wild turkeys everywhere at Josephine Falls and had amazing food at an all you eat buffet. 

    The highlight of this trip was seeing all the baby crocodiles on the side of the riverbanks. You never think of them as being as tiny and adorable as they are. Many of them don't make it to adulthood, but the ones who do are quite impressive. They don't move much as they spend most of the day lounging on the riverbanks. But even so they are really exciting to see!