New York, New York!!

Our flight from Dubai was our 9th flight of the trip, and the longest one yet- 14 hours! Fortunately, Emirates Airlines is niiiice. We had individual screens with hundreds of TV and movie choices, and the food was very tasty. They also have in-flight calling and text-ing and emailing capability, so we called our families at midnight PST and EST to say "Happy New Year! I am in a plane and it's $5 a minute so I can't talk, but I love you!" Another super neat feature of Emirates, is that they have cameras mounted on the front and bottom of the plane, so you can watch the views. Juan napped some, but I didn't manage to, so after 4 movies, 4 TV episodes, and 3 in flight meals, I was very ready to disembark.

Tired, poorer, huddled, and yearning to breathe free, we arrived in New York City, NY, USA. We are staying at my aunt Amy's in Brooklyn Heights, and it is enough of a taste of home that I was ecstatically happy to arrive despite complete exhaustion. We dropped our luggage of and went straight to eat the best welcome back meal we could ask for- pizza at the famous Grimaldi's. The walk along the promenade was chilly but beautiful with the sunset and the NY skyline, although we were too out of it to take pictures. The pizza was everything Juan had promised it would be, and well worth the hour long wait in 40 degree weather. After 11 or 12 very much needed ours of sleep and some very much needed cleaning of our laundry, we are ready to go out and explore the city.

Do Buy in Dubai?

So after a long flight we arrived in Dubai, worn out, grumpy, and finally really sick of each other. There are some cool buildings, but we decided pretty quickly that our willingness to pay for a day in NY instead of a day in Dubai was high enough that we changed our flight to a day earlier. The city looked like it would be a cool city, once it's finished, but at least half of it is still under construction. By some accounts, literally a quarter of the world's cranes are in Dubai.

A typical view:

The future tallest building in the world, under construction of course:


That first day in Dubai, before we crashed hard, we went to the Mall of the Emirates, a gi-normous shopping mall of epic proportions with hundreds of stores, an arcade with carnival rides, a bowling alley, and of course- ski slopes. Dubai is a city of contrasts, of burkas and bowling, and Mc Arabia.

Mc Arabia- mmmm:

After a good night's sleep things looked a lot better and we even got along again, so we decided to make the most of our one day in Dubai. Since the amphibious Wonder-Bus tour was booked, we took the cheaper "Juan Matute Hop-On Hop-Off" tour of the city, which involved walking through a lot of construction sites (Dubai is by far the least pedestrian friendly city I have ever been to- and I grew up in LA!). We saw camels, did an Abra ride on Dubai Creek, wandered through the souks, watched the sunset on the Burj Al Arab hotel, and went skiing (fun!), before finding ourselves down by the creek to bring in the New Year watching the boats and a very unimpressive 5 minute fireworks display and heading to bed exhausted for a couple hours sleep before our early morning flight to New York.

The camels were friendly:


Abra on Dubai Creek:


One of the souks (open air markets):
The Burj Al-arab at night:

New Years on Dubai Creek:

Winelands

We spent about 24 hours in the winelands, which was not enough to fully enjoy the beautiful scenery. The wines were OK, I'm coming home with 3 bottles, mainly to drink and remember the scenery. This trip got me looking forward to the annual Solvang trip.

Scenery:

We stayed at a lovely country house with a great view:


And on the way to the Cape Town airport saw this:

See the rest of the amazing pics here.

We're currently in the Johannesburg Airport (for the 4th time on this trip) waiting for our flight to Dubai. So our next blog entry will be from the fastest growing city in the world.

Cape Town: Peninsula Tour & Sundowners

Today was our second day in Cape Town. I visited my friends Jamie and Mo here in 2003 and was looking forward to coming back. It's a beautiful city, and it still ranks as my #1 travel destination.

Today we went on a day trippers tour of the peninsula. This included a tour out to see some seals:


some beautiful views:


a quick visit to see some penguins:


a bike ride and a hike at the cape of good hope:


After the tour, we went for sundowners at La Med. We got the perfect table in the corner of the outside seating overlooking the cricket pitch. Sundowners at La Med was the most memorable thing I did last time I visited Cape Town and I think tonight topped it. It was simply amazing.

Tomorrow we head to Wine Country!

Check out more of our photos from Cape Town.

Cape Town, South Africa

Cape Town has to be one of the world's most beautiful cities. It is this dance of the built and natural environments. Today was our first day and we headed up the cable car to the iconic Table Mountain. The views were breathtaking and it was really nice to get out and hike a bit. We finished the day with fish and chips at the V&A Waterfront and a sunset cruise along the coast. Tomorrow we head off on a day trip to the Cape of Good Hope.

The Cable Car:

A taste of the views:

Cape Town from the sea:

Safari: Overland tour through Botswana and South Africa

At the Zambezi Waterfront in Livingstone we met our tour leaders and the rest of the people on our tour (23 of us total). Most of them were from the UK or Australia, and one couple was from Croatia. Our tour which we booked because it was the only safari we could find in our price range for the days we needed, was an overland, which we soon learned meant A LOT of time on the road in our truck, whose name was Rafunza. A lot of the folks on our tour were coming off other tours in Kenya or Namibia. Some of them had been overlanding for 40 days! Hard to imagine since it means 500km most days or 4-8 hours of driving. One guy on our tour had climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro and seen Gorillas in Uganda before joining our tour. Some of them were on extended holiday and would be heading to NZ and Australia and then Asia before returning to the UK.Our trip seemed short by comparison, but they were impressed by the number of different places we had squeezed in a little over 3 weeks.

Our safari began with a lot of rain, but fortunately there were clear skies ahead. The first day we set up camp in the mud and took a tour on the Chobe river. The rain let up a bit for the tour but was cold and most of the animals were still in hiding. We did see some hippos and crocodiles, and some birds including fish eagles.

Things got sunny after that at Elephant Sands in Botswana. It was wonderfully sandy there, no mud and gorgeous. The Bushmen, or San, who usually lead a wildlife walk had gone home for christmas, so the owner of the place led us on a walk through the brush. It was lovely. We saw giraffe and elephants and kudu.

The following night we camped along the great, green Limpopo river along the border of Botswana and South Africa. The border crossing in the morning took a while, but we saw a sign that we shouldn't worry :).


The last two days of the overland tour were amazing. We stayed at this beautiful camp where we upgraded to a neat little hut. It was nice to have beds. Right after arriving we did a night game drive that was definitely one of the highlights of our whole trip. We headed out in this open air 4wd that felt like Indiana Jones. The ride itself was cool, but then we got to see elephants, including a baby, and lions.... literally a couple feet from the truck!! It was incredible.


Elephant!Lions!

The last day we did a full day game drive that was also neat, saw our first zebra and rhino and warhog, and more of the now usual impala. You can see lots more animal pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/juantravels/Safari

That night was Christmas and the kids at the camp performed a dance and there was a Christmas feast that include warthog ribs (lots of pumba jokes), gnu sausage, and kudu steak, as well as lots of drunken revelry and 'Carol-oke"on the part of our fellow travellers. Then it was goodbye and back to flying as we head off to Cape Town for the next journey.

Off on Safari

We leave bright and early tomorrow morning for a six day safari with Acacia Tours. The overland tour will take us camping through Botswana and into South Africa. We met with the guides tonight and some of the people, (there will be 23 total mostly from the UK and Australia) and it sounds like it will be a grand adventure. I am very very excited. We will be away from internet until the 25th of December but will have LOTS to blog about on our return. Happy Holidays!

Helicopter ride through the gorge

Today we went for the balance of our helicopter tour, this time a tour of the Zambezi River gorge below the falls. Being a bit of a helicopter nerd, I recognized the copter as a Robinson R44, which is manufactured in Torrance, CA, where I was born. The previous chopper was a Bell Jet Ranger (206). I had wanted to go for ride on each of these two choppers, so it was nice that I was able to in one of the world's most beautiful places.

I was expecting that we would go on a tour above the gorge and be able to look in at the wildlife and rapids below. I was amazed when the pilot took the chopper down into the gorge, which was about 500 feet deep, and we traveled through at an altitude of about 250 feet, getting as low as 100 feet. It was incredible. I couldn't have asked for a better helicopter ride.

In the chopper:

We got low:

The gorge was gorgeous:

Zambezi River Sunset Cruise

This evening we boarded the African Queen for a sunset river cruise along the Zambezi. The cruise featured an open bar- which made for some extra cheery tourists, hippos and crocodiles- that reminded us we were in Africa, and of course, views of the river- which made for a lovely sunset.

We also met a great couple from New York, Scott and Ron who chatted with us about tasty restaurants in Chelsea and their travel experiences.

A beautiful way to end an incredible day.

Juan imbibing the view and a drink:

Hippo!!

The incredible sunset

Zimbabwe

Today we went to Zimbabwe to see that side of the falls. We were nervous about going to Zimbabwe because the country has food shortages and riots and stuff, but Richard, our inn-keeper, said it would be fine. It was, and it was also beautiful. It was a great trip, about 3.5 hours total with 4 or so miles of walking. I felt safe, and the cool Zimbabwe Visa and the awesome view was totally worth it. I'll let the pictures below do the talking. There are many more on our photo album.

Crossing the border:

Our first glimpse:
I'm taking it all in
Nurit is overlooking the falls
One of many rainbows

Check the album for the rest of the pics from the Zimbabwe side of the falls.

Victoria Falls: Flight of Angels

One of the highlights of our trip that we were most looking forward to was the helicopter ride over Victoria Falls that is known as the flight of Angels. Victoria Falls, at the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe is the widest waterfall in the world, where the mighty Zambezi River drops into a gorge. It is known by the locals as Mosi-oa-Tunya, or the smoke that thunders.


We told Richard at the lodge that we were interested in the ride and he was able to arrange it for us almost immediately, leaving time only for a quick lunch, but it was a gorgeous afternoon so we said sure why not start off with a bang. We chose the 30 minute ride rather than the 15 minute one, because hey, how often will we be at Victoria Falls. The company called and said there was a forty minute delay because they were switching helicopters due to mechanical issues, which made me a bit nervous, but at least they were paying attention to these things. Before we knew it the driver had arrived at the lodge to take us to the heliport.

I had imagined the flight would be extremely loud, and fast, and jolting. It was the complete opposite. The loudest part was as we approached the helicopter to board. Once we were in, with our ears covered, it was peaceful and quiet, and absolutely pure magic. Words can't really capture the feeling of hovering over the river and the lush green plains and the falls, with the wind through an open window. I will let Juan's photos speak for us.

Excited:

The falls:

After the ride:

I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to fly. And the best part was that because a storm was coming in fast they had to cut the flight to 15 minutes and we will get to do the other 15 minutes on Wednesday morning when we'll be able to fly down into the gorge. I can't wait to fly again.

In the evening, back at the lodge we had a delicious dinner that included a game stew made with Impala meat (which was very tasty). I had a vegetable curry which came with salads (yay vegetables) and made me very happy. Both the curry and the stew were eaten with a local staple called Nsimi made from Maize, that bore a strong resemblence to the Fufu we had in Ghana.

An incredible day. And it's only been 6 days since we arrived in Africa. Wow.

___
Apparently people are missing the photo album, so here are some big links

• More Photos from Victoria Falls
• More Photos from our trip
  

Livingstone, Zambia: Chanters Lodge

This morning we took our long awaited much delayed flight from Jo-berg to Livingstone, Zambia. It was a beautiful morning and as we looked out over the lush green and caught a glimpse of the falls from the plane, we had the sense that the real adventure was beginning.

Flying over Zambia:

We arrived in Livingstone to find out that two of our bags apparently liked Jo-berg better and decided to stay, but we were too excited to be there to mind much and decided to look on the bright side- 50% less to carry. We were met at the airport by Richard Chanters, owner of Chanter's Lodge, who patiently waited while we filed our lost bag reports and offered to bring us back to the airport tomorrow just in case our luggage decides to join us in Livingstone.

We had read online about the amazing service and hospitality Richard and his team provide at Chanter's Lodge, a place we found in Lonely Planet: Southern Africa. And unlike many things you read on the internet that turn out to be much exagerrated, we discovered Chanter's to be underrated. Richard, who has been in the hospitality business and in Africa for over 20 years, is a true gentleman and very kind. He really goes above and beyond for his guests. We don't even have a room number in our room overlooking the garden. It is that personal.
You can read about the lodge on Richard's blog here.

Poolside at Chanters Lodge:

The restaurant in the garden just steps from the room is very tasty with great service. Everyone we have met in Livingstone so far is extremely polite, which according to Lonely Planet is part of the culture in Zambia. We spent part of the day searching around town with the vague hope that someone might have a battery charger for Juan's camera, once we discovered it was in the checked bag that stayed in Jo-berg, and everyone was very helpful. But one of the guests at Chanter's reassured us that bags stay in Jo-berg 9 times out of 10, and nearly almost arrive the next day. Our fingers are certainly crossed for that, as we need the camera for the 6 day safari to come.

Best Hotel Ever

Two queen beds, a hot shower, affordable room service and a free shuttle to the airport were all we needed after 28 hours on airplanes, immigration offices, and airport benches and lounges. The Airport Grand Hotel in Johannesburg is a welcome oasis.

The Airport Grand Hotel is very close to the airport:

Why We Are Not Fond of Richard Branson, or The Saga of Virgin Nigeria

So perhaps we should have been suspicious of Virgin Nigeria when they wouldn't take payments with US credit cards. But we were excited to find a flight from Accra, Ghana to Johannesburg, South Africa for only $800 per person. The only flight we had found previously was through London on British Airways for upwards of $5,000 which would have meant not going to Capetown. But now, as I sit typing this on my pda in word mobile, and we are stranded in an airport in Lagos, Nigeria with no baggage and no passports, I wonder if my mom wasn't right when she told me 'the bitterness of low quality lingers long after the sweetness of low cost.'

Today has me tempted to change the name of Juan's entry yesterday when a freak accident broke his contact in his eye from 'a difficult day' to merely 'an interesting day' by
comparison.

But back to the beginning of our Virgin Nigeria saga. We were told that they only accept UK credit cards but that we could pay in cash at the airport in Ghana. As this flight was our only way to get to Southern Africa, I decided I would feel much better if it was paid for and the tickets issued before we left the country. So we sent a check to Eric Rassman, a colleague from Anderson who was studying in London and was kind enough to agree to pay with his debit card. However the check took forever to clear and when it finally did Virgin Nigeria told him, the day before he had to leave London, that in order to be able to pay they would have to snail mail him a letter to his UK residence and he would have to write back a confirmation. So we were out banking fees, Eric had wasted time, and we now had to carry $1600 extra in cash to
Ghana.

We were able to pay for the tickets successfully upon arrival in Accra and got the most interesting hand written paper tickets. It was upon arriving back at the airport to leave Accra today that things took a bit of a turn for the worst. We were told that our connecting flight from Lagos, Nigeria to Jo-berg was cancelled and we would have to spend the night in Lagos, a place most definitely not on our top 5 vacation spots list. But, they said, they would 'take care of us'.

At this point we began to be skeptical of Virgin Nigeria. We were told we could only take one carry-on and after some scrambling for our most dear belongings, such as malaria pills and Juan's Rebel XT camera, we waved goodbye to our luggage, knowing we were likely not to see it again, and boarded the hot humid plane to Nigeria.

We arrived safely in Lagos, soon to be known as the Land of No Answers, since they could not tell us what hotel we would stay in, where our luggage was, or whether we would be able to leave the airport at all as we had no Nigerian visas.

The Land of No Answers:


After many hours that involved circling the airport with immigration officers, who kept our passports much to our dismay, many expensive calls home and to airports and hotels to sort out the changes in our itineraries, and a makeshift dinner of Ghanaen plaintain chips we bought on the street on the way to Accra airport, and rice and chicken from a Lagos airport café that was out of sandwiches and told Juan to come back in twenty minutes for his food and for his change, converstaions with our fellow stranded passenger Paolo who is an Italian who lived in Mozambique and the UK and is quite well travelled, and trying to get those answers that evaded us.....thanks to a friendly Virgin employee named Abba who showed a little initiative...things have finally looked up.

The answers are:
1. They have found all four of our bags and supposedly have them in their office
2. We cannot get a visa and will need to spend the night in the airport
3. Immigration will not give us back our passports until boarding time tomorrow morning

We are now in a comfortable airport lounge, a significant improvement over the random metal airport benches we spent hours in, where we will wait until morning. We were able to book a hotel in Johannesburg for tomorrow and reach the hotel in Livingstone that was supposed to pick us up at the airport tomorrow and let them know that we would be a day late. We still have not been able to reschedule our flight to Livingstone as all of South Africans offices are closed and their website happens to be down, but we will try again in the morning.

And best of all...there is internet access here! So Juan feels at home, and I am able to post this.

Blogging away:


All is well that ends well...and this saga will I think. It makes for some interesting blogging and lasting memories. While in the airport I got a text message from Sergei and told him where I was. He wrote back saying that Joan, who is well traveled, says hi and being stuck in Lagos is a given..shes been stuck here 3 times.

After banking fees in the UK ($60), an unknown number of cell phone calls at $3.49 per minute ($?), losing our Zambian visa waiver due to delayed arrival ($100), flight change fees from South African Airways, and exchanging a day in Victoria falls for a night in Lagos Airport, I am reminded of the time as an undergrad when I tried to save money by not buying the $75 parking pass at UCLA. After the third $45 ticket at expired meters I realized I would have been better of with the pass.

Right now the British Airways flight through London sounds awfully nice.

By the way, our last day in Accra, which I can't believe was earlier today, was lovely and included a trip to an Art market, lunch with our good friends from Net Impact Ghana (who we signed a memorandum of collaboration with) and my first official Ghanaen FuFu- a stew with
yam ball and goats meat.

Art Market

Collaboration Agreement with Net Impact Ghana

FuFu!

And so the real adventure begins.

Travel day

Right now we're waiting for a ride to an arts & crafts village outside of town. Later we'll catch our Virgin Nigeria flight to Lagos and then Johannesburg, where we'll wait for several hours for our South African Airways flight to Livingstone. It will be a full 21 hours of intra-Africa travel. I'll be off the blog for a while, but when I do post again I'll be within earshot of Victoria falls. I assume it's loud.

My eye is feeling much better this morning.

Millionaire's Casino

Ahh, relax. After a long too eventful day we went out to a lovely final night dinner at a restaurant at the Golden Tulip hotel. The hotel lobby had a "Millionaire's Casino" which must have been from the days of the old Cedi (80,000 old cedis = 8 new ones) and also, strangely had this crazy double drum/statue that looked just like Juan with his injured eye, but unfortunately the camera was out of batteries and we couldn't take any pictures. After a tasty buffet dinner with lots of Kelewele again (spiced fried plantains) we went out by the pool to listen to a live orchestra and choir performing Christmas songs and Ghanaean songs. A very nice end to a very long day. And now, to sleep.

A difficult day

This morning I got up early and exercised before eating breakfast and heading off to our meeting with Dr. Fred Sai. Dr. Sai is considered the father of family planning. He is extremely well trained, with a medical degree from the UK and an MPH from Harvard. He was at one time the top world bank official on population planning and is currently the presidential adviser on HIV/AIDS in Ghana. He was also on the UCLA public health faculty as a visiting professor sometime in the late 60s/ early 70s, which I think is why he took our meeting.

After some difficulty in finding Dr. Sai's house, we finally arrived a few minutes late. We were waiting outside, about to head in when the UCLA Anderson bag (the one they gave us during A-Days) that I was using to hold my notebook and laptop, snapped, and the strap whipped up and hit me in the eye. It was a freak accident. I was instantly in pain and suspected my contact lens had been shattered. I wear gas-permeable lenses (also called hard) which are made of harder plastic and usually last several years.

We went across the street to a bathroom at the UN High Commission on Refugees, which had a mirror. I couldn't locate any of the pieces in my eye, but I knew from the pain that there were at least two pieces lodged deeply in the corners.

I decided there was nothing I could do there, so I sucked it up and we went to meet with Dr. Sai. He was afterall, a doctor, and could offer some suggestions. He is an extremely nice man and he instantly understood the MDI program. We met with him for about 20 minutes, talking about topics ranging from building managerial capacity in NGOs to the problem of the public perception of HIV/AIDS. The doctor also had a suggestion of an eye doctor to visit, which would be our next stop.

We got to the optomotrist, who was located in in a brand new shopping mall, but had to wait about 20 minutes for the doctor. Here's a picture of me waiting

Looking for the lens (aka: Lets see if I can gross you out from Africa)


Luckily, the doctor was able to remove the pieces from my eye. Here's a picture of the pieces


After a few more minutes of eyeball examination, we were told to return with my glasses, so we took a taxi home.

Which broke down about 30 minutes into the 40 minute drive:


Finally, after finding another taxi, we got back to the hotel and took another taxi for about 45 minutes to GhaNet, where we met with Sam, the Director of that program who attended the first MDI in Nairobi. Sam's also featured on the MDI brochure. Here's Sam and Victor:

After Ghanet, Nurit & I headed back to the mall to bring my glasses to have the prescription tested. Not being able to believe that my eyes were really that bad (and also not having any contacts more powerful than -6.5 in stock), the optometrist tried to sell me some underpowered lenses, which she did, although I reserve the option to exchange it for more powerful lenses tomorrow. We went shopping at the mall's wal-mart/target equivalent and then headed back in another taxi, by far the best one of the day.

Now I'm back at the hotel, drinking a Guiness, and blogging about the day (obviously). For those of you slightly concerned, I'm feeling much better and I only have a slight scratch to my cornea. I should be back in contacts by the 2nd day at Victoria falls, which I was really hoping I would get to actually see.


Friday by the numbers:
Shattered Contact Lenses: 1
Fathers of Family Planning met: 1
Taxi break downs: 1
Times robbed, even though were were standing around waiting for several minutes in shady places: 0
Hours in Taxis: approximately 3.5
New Pictures posted: 30
Cheese-Bacon Crackers Eaten: 2 dozen
(the msg makes them more bacon-y)