just kidding.

i almost made it to ghana last night... and then, that didn't happen.

ill be in cairo for the next few days. again.

strike one for not planning things. apparently a pre-approved visa is kind of a big deal for getting into ghana. who knew.

phase 2: check.

and so ends the oh so cliche "post-graduation i dont know what ill do with my life so ill travel" trip. i have an afternoon in rome tomorrow and then i begin the most drawn out trip to accra ever. begining in cairo i fly through... khartoum, addis ababa, possibly lagos if im lucky and eventually/finally, accra.

we finally ended up leaving greece for croatia a couple of days ago. after a stunt at the pink palace in corfu, we took too many overnight ferries to dubrovnik. croatia was incredible and one of my favourite spots in europe thus far. we spent days poking around the old city, learning about socialist experiments and the war, kayaking/biking (injury free) around a few islands, and eating. its a funny mix in croatia of max maras, outdoor adventures and bullet holes. it was a cool spot to spend my last few days before heading back to the camp... interesting to see how tourism and reconstruction work out together.

not a lot more to be said about the past few days. suppose ive been a bit preoccupied with going back to the camp.. i think ive stocked up on all the food, relaxation and toiletries ill need for the next while and now im ready to go. next post should be from somewhere in ghana!

the big return...

I’m going back to the refugee camp…

This is a sort of a huge change of plans, but I’m confident that it’s the right thing to do. I learned a lot this past year in creating and running Eat to Feed Liberians and have had a growing list of things I’d have done differently or just simply done in the refugee camp while I still had the chance. While lying on the beach in Zanzibar, I realized that I was at a point where I could actually go back and check things off that list. So.. I’m making the plane changes tomorrow.

I’m going to need a lot of help from anyone that’s willing. This extends way beyond financial donations for the feeding program… From a boat between Mykonos and Athens, these are a few things I predict I’ll need.

-Bodies. I need people to volunteer both at home with fundraising and, if you’re interested, actually in the camp. Email me if you’re interested in any kind of project. I’ll suit it to you.
-Suggestions. Of all kinds. What do you think I should have done differently? Where could I improve? What information do you want from the camp? Anything. Seriously.
-Help registering ETFL as an actual charity, and finding out what is involved in Canada with recruiting volunteers.
-Ideas for finding steady funding. Corporate sponsorship has been tossed around (sorry DEVS students.. I know this is a touchy subject…).

There probably won’t be other international volunteers in the camp so, I’m going to need all the help I can get to build this project into something more substantial. If you have ideas, or want ideas, please email me. Greece seems to have a lot of wireless and a friend has brought my computer over to me.

My blog will make the switch from a travel journal back to the ETFL temporary site in about a week.. so check it if you want to keep involved!

As always, thanks for the help so far… After a few weeks of having no responsibility beyond catching planes, its time to get into this project more than ever before!

Oh yeah and for the trip... Greece is still going well. I've been cruising through the islands for about a week now. Hit up Crete, Santorini, Ios and Mykonos. Spent a lot of time vespaing randomly around them, eating good food and drinking more than we should...

cheese and vegetables... finally.

the first thing i ate in greece was a greek salad. fresh veggies and cheese are so overlooked in africa and it kills me. i had another one today.. equally as delicious.

we had a very rushed goodbye to devyn the other day as eric and i tried to catch a really tight connection to cairo. we made it with a whopping 5 minutes to spare, and settled into our flight through khartoum one more time. kenya airway again had delicious food and has been my favourite airline so far (quick sales pitch for them)...

in cairo, we decided to go all out with tourism. we rented the camels (theyre huge, not especially comfortable and make me sneeze) and climbed on the pyramids and into some tombs. it was very cool to be able to check that off my list of things to do in life.

that same night, we jumped on the tourist boat up the nile. saying it was weird is one of the understatements of the year. it was complete with a huge buffet, strange belly dancers, asian tourist busses and no beer in sight. ramadan strikes again. to be fair, the night finished with this crazy guy who spun for like half an hour non-stop with a massive skirt on.. its hard to explain...

the next day we went to alexandria which is up there iwth favourite cities. it looks a lot like miami but less obnoxious.. just a huge beach along the coast with cafes, sheesha and a lot of walking. way less touristy than cairo a well, which was really nice after an intense day.

were now in europe on crete and some other islands for the next few days iwth carolyn. its certainly a change of pace and im going through the usual i miss africa bout. on the plus side, im back there in just over two weeks for another few months (oh yeah.. im staying out here until christmas) so, its not so bad.

the good luck was bound to end at some point...

some how, im on the last leg of the africa part of this trip. im not quite sure how it happened but, im now writing on a german computer overlooking a white beach and the indian ocean. i had no idea water could actually be this colour without doctoring the colours. pretty cool.

spent a night in dar es salaam after flying from kigoma the other day. i never thought to check religious holidays before planning a route but that might have been a wise idea.. its ramadan and for the next while, im in muslim dominated areas. oops.

food has been easy to come by because zanzibar really is tourist island... booze has been more of a struggle. couldnt sort it out in dar and figured a night off might be okay. on the island, any place that serves is hounded by tourists. kind of hilarious.. especially watching every person take a picture of them sipping out of a coconut at sunset or hanging over a railing with 30 oother people to capture the perfect sunset with an island and palm tree silhouette. personal favourite is when people approach traditionally dressed muslim men with littler girls and ask to take their picture while they walk on the beach.. holding hands if possible. check that stereotype off the tourist photography bingo sheet i guess.

the other day we rented motorcycles and cars to avoid having to go on the tourist busses around the island. it was very cool, if you overlook the car accident that happened on the way home. were all fine.. the car, not so much, but its getting sorted out tomorrow. i knew all our good luck was bound to blow up in our faces in a big way sooner or later´... suppose we actually still are lucky that the accident wasnt way worse and that everybody is in one piece.

next few days will probably be full of more beachy things. we checked kayaking and snorkelling off our list.. saw some fish, most of which i identified through watching finding nemo. highlight was seeing the guy who constantly led the escapes from the fish tank.. i wish i didnt base all of my animal knowledge of disney movies.

"enjoy being the only tourist in burundi..."

We’ve been using the lonely planet’s guide to east Africa as our bible for this trip… in it, it has the highlights for each of the countries. For Burundi, one of the four highlights is: “enjoy being one of the only tourists in the country.” Its true. Seriously off the tourist radar, and for no good reason. Gorgeous country. Probably my favourite so far… you just have to get past a serious military presence and a slightly less efficient transportation system than rwanda’s.

Bujumbura was random. We got stuck for accommodation and ended up in quite literally, a beach house. Slightly out of the budget but, considering what we got, totally worth it. Met a Burundian guy at a bakeshop – yeah, apparently Burundi is known for its baked goods – who took us to his friend’s coffee factory.. it was more 2 hours of him telling a slew of random stories from his past. he was nice enough to point us around the town though and help us barter for some burundian/congolese crafts.

we took a hellish bus trip from bujumbura down, eventually, to kigoma, tanzania. this route is not well travelled and involved a lot of clown car transportation. 14 people vehicles were more of a suggestion than a rule, as they were in rwanda. had it not been for that though, we certainly would not have made it to kigoma in one day... there were a lot of close calls where they just shoved the white people into the car.. actually they shoved us, and then stopped for a family of 10 that i was certain would not fit. they did. sort of.

the train accross tanzania didn't pan out at all and so now we're flying. not as rugged but its bought us some extra time and maybe a bit of sanity. we snorkelled in lake tanganyika, ate its very fresh fish and gawked at a bunch of spectacular views of the lake instead.

its been a nice break to be in a land less travelled... now we're off to the mecca of east african toursim for more fish and sunburns.

jagerbombs, break dancers, and military escorted mountain trips

in rwanda now, about to head over to the DRC for a day trip... never thought i would write that sentance. there is a town, goma, near the 'rwandan muskoka' that is apparently like an african pompeii/massive refugee site. i know a few people that have been over recently and have said its something worth seeing... maybe a bit of a wake up from the nice sides of africa that we've been lucky enough to see so far.

we left uganda with a bang after meeting up with some ugandan break dancers at our hostel. they took us to their church to show us some moves... best part was them trying to teach eric and this british guy we met how to dance. again, couldn't have been more white. we went out to a bar with them after for one final round of nile specials.. oh and we also finally found jager at some strange irish pub in the suburbs of kampala. go figure.

after that, down to kigali. did the genocide memorial and went out to visit a church. tough to describe... all very haunting, obviously. i don't think i'd ever seen a human skull, let alone hundreds/thousands just sitting in one room before.

after failed attempts at organizing gorillas in kigali, eric and i decided we would go climb a mountan (karasimbi, 4507m) in western rwanda. dev has a bad knee so she checked into a hotel in a near by city and took 2 days to relax a bit.

the mountain trip was cold. we didn't plan for this at all and im just starting to thaw now (came down yesterday). we camped on the side of the mountain 2 nights ago and apparently a sleeping bag liner is more than insufficient. cheese and altitude is also apparently a bad combination for me so, along with being frozen, i kept throwing up and counting down the minutes to 530, when we had to get up.

we hiked to the second portion of the mountain that morning... i felt like a walking corpse. once i made it to the treeline, about 500m (1 hour worth of walking) from the top, i figured that was good enough. we'd had stunning views of the surrounding mountains to that point so i figured i got the idea. i also wasnt convinced i could actaully walk up any further. the entire morning had literally been straight up hill.

all in all, the hike was pretty cool. certainly different than any experience i had in western canada... i did make sure to sing the sound of music (in my head..) for my mom. we were also being escorted by the rwandan military (literally 10 guys with excessive guns in front and behnd us). it was apparently to defend us from buffalo.. but why a buffalo would need to be shot with a rocket launcher is beyond me. maybe we were a bit to close for comfort to areas of the DRC.