To my parents...

I don’t think I could ever put into words the appreciation I have for being granted this amazing opportunity. As I packed up my room and looked at all of my pictures and souvenirs, I could hardly believe the places and sights I had seen. I’ve stood at the gates to the Imperial Palace in Japan, trekked the stone stairs of the Great Wall of China, and sailed the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. I have gazed at the stunning beauty of the Taj Mahal, snorkeled in the world’s most crystal clear waters in Mauritius, and have stood minutes away from the very tip of the African continent at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. I have tread one of only four of the world’s treetop canopies in Ghana and hiked through the depths of the Amazon Rainforest. I have met incredible people, enjoyed fascinating conservations, and lived once-in-a-lifetime experiences. I often think about the question my dad once asked me, “after you’ve seen all this, how can you ever be impressed with anything else?” I’m not sure my answer to that, but the one that plagues me more is, “after you’ve seen all this, what are you going to do about it?” Now I don’t think I can truthfully say that I’ve decided to drop out of school and go to some remote village in Africa to devote my life to children (my brother took care of that for me), but I can tell you that I now will view the world through a new mindset. This mindset is one of appreciation and humility. I will appreciate more how fortunate I am to have been born in the United States and the endless opportunities I have been granted in this country. At the same time, I have seen the beauty and wisdom in cultures around the world, and will never look upon them with impudence, but rather with the utmost reverence.

I have traveled 26,000 miles and sailed to 13 ports across the globe. I have had a journey that has changed my life (Literally. Every 120 days you have an entire new set of red blood cells). This blog has been such a great way for me to remember my experiences and provide an outlet for my reflection. I can’t thank those of you enough who have been keeping up with my adventures and have tolerated my sometimes crude Annecdotes. I am very grateful to my parents and friends who have served as faithful email correspondents and made me feel still connected to my home and UVa. I also can’t thank my grandparents enough who took the time to write me sending me great stories and pictures. I hope my blog has served as a way for you to vicariously experience my journey. I also truly hope that through my words you have learned what I have learned through my travels-- What a Wonderful World.

Amazon!

The next morning we woke up at the crack of dawn (literally it was 5:00am) to go on a sunrise hike. I coated my body in bug spray and tucked my pants into my socks, ready to face the jungle in style. We treaded softly through the trails, keeping our ears and eyes open. The sound of the insects in the Amazon was almost deafening. Birds were really active, singing their beautiful songs and flying from tree to tree. We spotted a colony of squirrel monkeys about thirty minutes in and watched as probably over 100 monkeys swung from the branches, eating the fruit. At one point in our trek, Alex stopped me and handed me a stick. He told me to rub it in my armpit and then stick it in a small hole in the ground. This was a little disconcerting, but as directed I rubbed it in my sweaty arm pit, and then slowly guided it into the hole. I felt a little pinch and then he told me to pull out slowly. I pulled out the stick and to my surprise and terror was a huge tarantula. Tarantulas are blind, and are attracted to human sweat, hint the armpit thing. The walk was about an hour and a half, and at the end we came upon a tower in the middle of the forest. We climbed up and on one side we could see the Amazon river and dolphins breaching, and the other was the thick Amazon rainforest. A really pretty sight.











After another delicious meal, we took a nap on some hammocks before our next excursion at 9:30. With Alex and another one of our guides, we were back in the jungle. This time though Alex took the time to explain to us about some medicinal and other functions of specific plants and animals. At one point he found a tree vine on a ledge, and had us take a running start and swing on the vine. I felt like Tarzan. We hiked the woods for about three hours checking out different birds and plants. The whole time I felt like that kid in Charlie Brown who constantly has a swarm of dirt around him, only mine was a swarm of mosquitoes. I had no idea what the natives did without bug spray or anything.

Our guides made us crowns and deemed us queen and king of the jungle


HUGE ant hive

We came back from our hike sweaty and panting, but after a couple hours break we were back on the water. We went out on the boat and visited a small village, where they make small crafts. Alex showed us a flower that the locals use to paint themselves, and Jason proceeded to put it all over his face. We also had another run in with a snake, where I was able to employ my professional reptile modeling abilities.






After the village, we took the boat into a flooded forest. They call the trees floating trees, because it looks like they are just resting on the water’s surface. We were in Brazil during the “winter” months (I find it hard to say 85 degree weather is winter, but hey), and in this time the rains increase the size of the river substantially, flooding forests and trails. We took the boat down a path that is typically a walking trail, and turned off the engine to listen to all the wildlife. It was so peaceful listening to the birds and the hum of the forest. We saw tons of toucans, and even a sloth monkey resting in a tree with its baby.






We got back to the lodge and ate dinner. After dinner we had a free night. No one at the lodge except Alex spoke good English, and even his was a little rough, so Jason and I were kind of outcasts. With no TV or open bar, we were on the brink of severe boredom. Luckily for us though a big rainstorm came, so we watched as rain pelted the lodge and lightening broke over the river. The next morning we were leaving around ten so we got up to take the short hike to the tower again. We saw some great wildlife, which was a nice end to an incredible trip to the Amazon.



Annecdote:
Yet again, both of our planes were delayed on our way back to Salvador. I was really starting to hate Brazilian air, but I forgave them when they facilitated one of the funniest moments on the whole trip. So in the middle of a flight, Jason pressed the flight attendant button to get a drink. A lady came scurrying over, and Jason asked “Can I have a coke?”. The lady looked confused, and he repeated it. Her eyes popped open and she became really frantic, and said “I don’t speak English” and ran off. A male flight attendant came next and asked us what we wanted and Jason said again, “can I have a coke?” The male flight attendant threw his hands in the hair and yelled “oh my gosh” laughing and went off to get the coke. When he got behind the curtain we saw him talking to the other flight attendants and everyone broke out laughing. Jason and I were really confused. A couple minutes later the girl sitting next to me turned to me and said “In Brazil, coke means cock.”

Finally...Brazil!

It was a bittersweet feeling pulling into Salvador. Brazil was one of my most anticipated countries and I was so excited to be going to the Amazon. However, Brazil also represented the end to my amazing journey. In less than two weeks I would return home, and leave forever behind this unforgettable experience. I was determined to make the most of my last port, and in reflection, I think I achieved it.

We had a flight scheduled for Manaus later in the afternoon of our first day, so Jason and I set out to do a couple hours of sight seeing in Salvador before heading to the airport. We took the famous city elevator from lower town to upper town, and took in the view of the harbor. Next, we walked the cobblestone streets of the city admiring the beautiful cathedrals and quaint shops and restaurants. We stopped in at a small café for lunch before setting off to the airport.



I don't know about you, but to me this statue looks like a giant bra:




We arrived at the Salvador airport around 1pm and waited for our boarding call at 3pm. 3pm rolled around and there was no boarding call. 4pm rolled around no call. 5pm, no call. 6pm, finally we could get on the plane. We were going to miss our next connection, so we had to get book on a later flight, putting us into Manaus at 3am. Long story short, it was a tiring day. However, I did get some good people watching in during my 14-hour stint in an airport. My most common observation, you ask? Brazil is a very lascivious culture (granted, this may be due to the fact that I have been in countries like India and Ghana, where holding hands in public is considered a sin). That aside, all the rumors I heard about the very sensual society of Brazil seemed to be true. I have never seen so much PDA, every woman I saw was wearing 4-inch heels and had a sultry sway to her hips, and every advertisement seemed to include a naked body. They really seemed to embrace sexuality, and surprisingly this free-spirited mentality was a welcomed change in comparison to my experiences in previous countries.



Day 2

We got into Manaus at 3am, and our tour agent was there to greet us. She was a plump and cute twenty-something, who immediately calmed my fears about being scammed. She took us to a small hostel and we gratefully discovered there was a time-change and it was actually 2am. We were happy to get an extra hour of sleep before having to wake up at 8am to be transported to our Amazon lodge. My happiness soon changed when we were guided to our rooms. With no air conditioning, no hot water, brown stains all over the sheets, and huge cracks in the wall, I would’ve been happy to get out of there an hour sooner. This actually ended up happening as Jason did not change the time on his phone, so we got up at 6 am instead of 7 am. So after approximately four hours of sleep, we were up yet again walking the deserted streets of Manaus before we had to meet with our tour guide. This small town was very cute, and was a home to a very famous opera house.



After paying our tour agent, we loaded into a van with our tour guide and another set of tourists. They were from Japan, working in Brazil. We became fast friends and it was a lot fun to be able to recall our experiences from Japan with them. We arrived at a small harbor and loaded onto a speedboat. After about a five minute ride we had reached the Meeting of the Waters. This is where the Rio Negro and the Amazon river meet. The black waters of the Rio Negro do not mix with the muddy waters of the Amazon, resulting in an unusual convergence. Right upon our arrival to this sight, we saw a herd of the famous pink dolphins.



We arrived at our lodge after about a two-hour boat ride and took a tour of the premises. The Amazon Riverside Hotel is composed of a number of small cottages right on the Amazon River. Its backyard is the Amazon Rainforest, and almost immediately upon our arrival our guide, Alex, told us that he had seen a number of jaguars right from the hotel. We were really in the middle of the jungle. We sat down to a delicious lunch, and after a couple hours of rest, we were off to do our excursions in the Amazon.



Our first activity was piranha fishing. We took a small canoe and meandered through shallow waters off the main river, to get to the prime spots. Not five minutes after putting our poles in the water, did we start getting bites. Our guide caught one first, and displayed their razor sharp teeth. He then went on to show us the scar from his arm from where he had been bit by one years before. I kept a 2 feet radius from the piranhas at all times.







After fishing for a couple hours, we took a fifteen-minute journey down the river to a rubber plantation. The funniest man I have ever seen owned the plantation. We walked into the forest, and he cut a small nick into a tree. A white glue like substance began pouring out of the tree. He collected the latex, and then took us back to his work station. On top of a smoking volcano-esqe mound of dirt, he poured the latex on a spinning stick. It quickly hardened, and felt exactly like the rubber we know at home. He then went on to make us a big bouncey ball. It was really cool.









Hot water only runs in the lodge from 6-7, so we began to make our way back. On our ride, we saw tons of the pink dolphins swimming along. They make sounds very similar to cows, which made me do a double take a few times. Dinner was at 7, and they gave us a delicious spread of authentic Brazilian food, the piranhas we caught that day, and plenty of fresh fruit. The fruit in the Amazon was absolutely the best I have had anywhere.



After dinner we when on a nighttime caimen spotting trip. After traveling a couple miles down the river we cut off the engines, and shined spotlights across the water. Before I knew it, one of the guides had reached down into the water and snatched up a baby caimen. The guide explained to us that the caimans get up to about 9 feet long, and teeming in the waters of the Amazon. He told us a story of how recently a caimen took down a horse at a local village. I was really glad this one was just a baby.





Annecdote:
Fun fact: Did you know the Amazon River contains 1/5 of the Earth’s freshwater and that one in every five life forms is found in the Amazon rainforest?

Ghana

When we arrived in Ghana, Jason and I hired a taxi who took us around to different landmarks in Accra. At one of our first stops I met the nicest woman ever. We talked for a while about her life in Ghana, her children, and her job. She offered to host Jason and I later that week for a barbecue, but unfortunately we were leaving too soon.



Jason bballed it up with some local kids


Village in Accra:


President's house


We had arrived on a Sunday, so many of the popular places in Accra were closed. Long story short, we eventually found a casino and spent the rest of the day there...

The next day we had a SAS trip to Kakum National Park and to Elmina Castle. They were some great landmarks, but out of the twelve hours we were on the trip, eight were on a small, tiny bus. This took away a little bit.

This a is a forest canopy bridge. Kakum has one of the four canopy walkways in the entire world. This one consisted of seven bridges, over 40 meters above the ground. I thought it was so much fun, Jason on the other hand embarrassingly yelled "Mommy!" more than once.







After we left Kakum National Park, we went to see Elmina Castle. Elmina Castle is one of the oldest slave forts in the world. It was built by the dutch and between 2000-3000 slaves would be imprisoned here before loading on ships. It was a very somber and depressing visit.


This church, on the inside of the fort, was built directly on top of all the dungeons.



For the next two days in Ghana, I spent walking around Accra. I did some fun shopping and met some interesting people. However, the lack of a lot of pictures is because I just didn't really get to see that much. Ghana is still in infant stages of development and has minimal infrastructure making it very difficult to get around. Additionally, the landmarks are very far apart, some more than 8 hours by bus. Only having four days there made it impossible to see a lot. I would not recommend Ghana for independent travelers, as it is just not prepared for tourists. I am glad I went though to get a glimpse of "proper" Africa. The poverty is astounding. It is arguably the worst we have seen on the voyage.

One of the highlights though, was the coolest bar I have ever been to. It was very out of place, right in the middle of an impoverished neighborhood. It was six floors of cool dance floors, lounges, and bars. Quite a fun last night.



Sorry for the short post! I'm in Brazil now though, next stop: AMAZON!

You do what?!

The next morning we woke up early to make the long trek back to Cape Town. Before we left, our guide showed us his collection of poisonous snakes, located in his garage next to our lodges. He had over one hundred snakes held in cages or tupperware containers lining the floor and walls of the building. He also had thrown in there, giant scorpions, tarantulas, and other creepy insects. At one point, after showing us a scorpion, he dropped it and it got loose in the garage. After that, I decided it was a good time to leave. We spent the rest of the day hopping from buses to airplanes, to more buses. I got back to the ship later that evening, and I went out to dinner and then bar hopped with other semester at sea students. Rugby and soccer played on tv’s in each corner of the bars, getting everyone riled up for the 2010 World Cup being held in South Africa in June.

This is the mascot for the World Cup.


The next day we had planned to go great white shark diving, but due to rough seas our trip got canceled. At 4:45am I got a call from Jason asking if I still wanted to go because his roommate had two open spots on his trip. I magically got ready in five minutes and was out the door, ecstatic that I would still get my chance to shark dive. My enthusiasm was soon ripped out beneath me when we got to the bus and two other people had somehow gotten there before us to fill the open seats (I was in a minor state of depression for the rest of the day, until I heard that after driving two hours to the shark diving location and getting suited up, their trip ended up getting canceled too). Wide awake at 5:00am, Jason and I walked the deserted harbor for an hour until we finally realized nothing was open and our searching for something to do was pointless. After sleeping for a couple hours, we set out again and decided to get a cab to take us to the Cape of Good Hope. We took the most beautiful drive that winds along mountains overlooking the coast of Cape Town. We made a quick stop at an ostrich farm before finally arriving at Table Mountain National Park. It is commonly thought that the Cape of Good Hope is the most southern tip of Africa, but this is a misconception. The most southern tip is about 90 miles away, but that fact doesn’t take away from the impressiveness of the sight. As usual with anything this amazing, I’ll let the pictures do the talking.



Chapman's Peak, a scenic stop along the route to Cape of Good Hope




Cape of Good Hope:




I'm approximately 12000km from home!


After we left the Cape, we ventured a few miles away to see the famous wild African penguins that reside on the beaches of South Africa. They were absolutely ADORABLE. They also were pretty domesticated, letting us get close enough to pet them, as you can see by the picture below.







I trudged back on the boat downhearted to leave such an amazing place. I urge everyone reading this to plan his/her next trip to South Africa. I know it is the first place I want to go back to out of all the countries I have been to so far.

Annecdote
4/5/2010: After our couple hours of sleep, Jason and I got off the boat and searched for a taxi driver. In our state of delirium from lack of sleep, we went with the first guy we saw holding up a looseleaf sheet of paper with Cape of Good Hope tours scribbled on it in pen. This should have been our first sign. Our second sign should have been when we walked to his “taxi” and got in a 1980 dented up kia with no door handle and missing seat belts. I was a little disconcerted at this point, but decided to disregard it, as Jason was happily talking up a storm in the front seat with the driver. As we made our way to the Cape of Good Hope, our driver started talking about the really rich houses along the coast and the wealthy people that live there. He told us how they do tons of illegal drugs and have orgies on the weekends. I awkwardly laughed and was really regretting getting in the cab. When he went on to tell us that he trafficked coke for the guys, I decided it was time to pull over. I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t make taxi driver decisions in a foreign country after going on 4 hours of sleep.