Monday, March 14, 2011

Surf and Turf

Life has been hectic and crazy and fun since my last update.

Since then- I have gone on a yacht, gone to a birthday party for my friend's two year old niece, gone to a professional rugby player's house, taken a test, finished the majority of a 1,500 piece jigsaw puzzle, read almost an entire novel, traveled to a different country, boated with dolphins, and went on a safari.

OH! Annnd finally got my new computer charger!

Africa is just full of events. Ha.

On Friday afternoon Interstudy embarked for a weekend excursion to the very northern coast of South Africa, an area called Kosibay. We went with the Interstudy students from two other campuses and bused for an extremely long time to a lodging area where we stayed in little cabanas. We got there late on Friday evening, had dinner, then settled in and went to bed. Saturday morning we woke up early, had breakfast, and then headed to Mozambique. The roads on this entire journey can best be described as sand dunes, and therefore we had to break up into smaller groups to go in a variety of 4 by 4 vehicles.



We trudged through the terrain and crossed over the boarder, continuing on sand roads for a while until we reached our destination- a beautiful beach front. (Mozambique is known for their beautiful beaches.) Here we boarded on... I suppose you could call them boats .... here's a picture:


as you can see, there are no seats in this boat. What you do is sit on the inflatable sides, stick your feat into a few straps on the bottom and hold on for dear life as you crash through waves and ocean obstacles. This experience resulted in both an exciting and really cool experience because the aim was to find dolphins. Which we found a great deal of, however, the buggers are hard to capture on camera. This was the best I was able to get:


After the boat ride was over we had some time to hang out on the beach front which was absolutely stunning. The water was crystal clear and it was surrounded by gorgeous green mountains. (Big hills? -not sure...)





After our beach time, we headed to a restaurant in town. I, for the first time in my entire lifetime, ordered a meal consisting of only seafood. I have been warming up to fish lately and figured that the best place to try a meal of it would be right by where it was caught. It was good and I felt like my dad would be soooo happy. 


After lunch we had some time to look around at craft booths. Patty and I did this while the majority of others hit up a local bar for a special Mozambique drink called R & R, it consisted of Rum and Raspberry something. Mostly rum though. All I know is that I took one sip and it tasted terrible. I left it to the others to drink, which, they did. I have never been so happy to have skipped out on a drink seeing the way it resulted for many of the others.

When we got back we had dinner (those of us who could make it to dinner.) Annnd I went to bed early. 
Sunday, we again woke up bright and early, packed our bags and had breakfast. We then drove again on the 4-by-4's to retrieve our bus. From here we went to Tembe Elephant Park, a game reserve where we went on a safari of sorts. It was SOOOO amazing and I got to see Water Buffalo, some deer like creatures, ELEPHANTS, and GIRAFFES (!!!!!!) For those of you who know me well, the latter was a very very big deal. I think I have spent the majority of my life wishing to go on an African safari to see giraffes. Definitely a fun thing to cross off my bucket list.








After the game reserve we boarded the bus to return back to school. It was a jam packed and amazing weekend. I had a wonderful time.

Today was back to business as normal. The only exception being it was raining all day and it was the first day I could wear jeans and a cardigan. 

Africa was fun this past week. :)