Fascinating South Africa

“He who goes to bed with itchy butt, wakes up with stinky hand” – Zach telling one of our safari guides his version of a proverb. The safari guides had better ones…

Note: I have been receiving all your feedback about my blog through my parents or email, and I appreciate all the wonderful comments. Many of you said my entries were quite long, so I will try to make them a little shorter from now on. I just don’t want to leave out all the good details! Also, I am just about out of internet minutes, so please do not expect me to respond quickly to emails. Keep sending them though, because I will be going to internet cafes in port. Also don’t forget to email me any interesting things that are going on in the news, world, or US. I am so far removed from everything, and I don’t know what is going on anywhere. I would love to hear stories from home or wherever too. Thank you, and let us move on to South Africa…

I could move here, live here, die here, and be the happiest person alive. South Africa, and Cape Town to be more specific, has now taken the top spot as my favorite place I have ever visited. This country is absolutely amazing. Besides its beautiful scenery and awesome nightlife, the people who live here are the most easy going and nicest people I have encountered in my travels. The weather didn’t get much above 80 degrees, but it did get a little chilly at night. It beats Syracuse any day. That being said, here’s my story:

We arrived off the coast of Cape Town last Tuesday at about 6:15am. I had decided to get up and watch the sunrise with several other people. We watched the sunrise at about 6:25, and it was beautiful. The sun rose up from behind the mountains and peeked out from behind the most famous mountain; table mountain. It was very foggy outside, but it started to clear up, or so I thought. After the great sunrise, we headed in to have some breakfast. While eating breakfast, an announcement came over the loudspeaker. “This is an important announcement. Due to the heavy fog, the port of Cape Town is currently closed. We will notify you with any updates.” It doesn’t sound all that bad, right? Just hang out for a few hours on the ship while the fog clears, and then we pull in. Wrong. You have no idea how much the anticipation hurts when you look out at the city of Cape Town with a backdrop of African mountains, and can’t get off to see it. Well we waited around until about 11am until we were finally able to dock. The ship pulled into the port, and all the South Africans were waving to us as we docked. Immigration boarded, and we were told it would not take as long to clear the ship as it did in Brazil. Wrong again. We were not cleared until 1:30pm. Unfortunately, I could not go right out and explore. I only signed up for one trip through SAS for the 6 days we were there, and it was the first day at 2:00. Ryan was on it with me, and we went to go meet with the trip group. I had signed up to go visit a township. A township is basically the slums of South Africa. It is where the poorest people live.

We boarded the buses and first headed to a museum. I won’t get into the details about the museum because it was pretty boring. Lots of people liked it, but I’m not a museum person I guess. After that we visited the township. At the Langa township, we got off the buses and were led on a walking tour by the guide. I am going to try and put this experience into the best summary that I can, but let me tell you that this experience was so emotionally effective, I believe I view human life in a new way now. Sounds corny, I know, but just listen. We began walking around the township. Langa is very poor, but it is one of the less poor townships that exist in South Africa. We walked down the streets, which were full of trash, and people sitting or laying on the sidewalk. Accompanying all of this were many stray dogs that looked disheveled and hungry. Several of the people came and talked to us, excited to meet an American. They showed us the ‘African handshake’, and let us take pictures of them and their surroundings. The deeper we got into the township, the poorer and more populated it became. Everywhere we went, we were bombarded by children. I have found that no matter where you travel, children will always come up to you and want their picture taken. Cameras were like candy to these kids. They posed over and over so we could take pictures of them. Afterwards we would show them the picture on the camera and they would get excited and want to take more. The kids were absolutely adorable, and hundreds of them followed us wherever we went. Aside from their wonderful personalities, their fondness of Americans, and the language barrier, there were some disturbing things. Almost all of them were poorly dressed, barely wearing the proper amount of clothing. I only saw a few wearing a pair of shoes. This was especially an eye opener because most of them were showing off for us and doing back flips and cartwheels. The ground is all sand and dirt, and absolutely covered with broken glass. It was very sad to see these children playing in these conditions. We visited the inside of a home, if you can even call it that. These are the people’s homes, but if you saw this, you might not even consider it anything that comes close to a home. Everything was cement with a tin roof, and there was very little of anything inside. The beds were made of concrete, and there was one bed per family. The mother and father sleep in the bed, and the children sleep on the floor. Homes are rented per bed, and a family will pay approximately 20 Rand per month, which is about $3.00 US. As we walked around the township and interacted with the people, I was shocked at especially one thing. They were some of the happiest and nicest people I have ever met, and they live in a shithole. It really puts a perspective on things when you see someone living in the worst conditions imaginable, and they love life and where they live. Every person I talked to was so happy to be living where they were. They know that they are the lowest class, but they don’t care. They take life as it is, they love it, and they live it. This to me was a new and important aspect to my view on human life. The gap between not only the wealthy and poor in South Africa, but the way we live in the states compared to what they live here, is just too great to fathom. It is so impossible to comprehend the gap in the social status, that it leaves me with this new understanding. I don’t view these people as poor now. My definition of poor has changed. The people I view as poor are us as Americans. We are poor in a way because do not seem to have the luxury of loving life as much as these people do. They are so caring and generous in a way that makes you realize that life has nothing to do with wealth or social class, but with the way you make the best out of it.

I saw some things I will choose not to write about, as I am going to try and keep this blog as clean and enjoyable as possible. I would like you to know though, that some of the things I encountered were the real deal, and it will stay with me the rest of my life. As we were leaving the township, I wandered over to where some cooking was taking place over an open fire with some pots. The meat I observed was dirty and old. There were bugs on it and it was out in the hot sun. I noticed that one of the women was taking something large out of a pot and placing it with a number of other large items on a table. I went over to see, and I realized what she was cooking. One by one, she was removing full cooked sheep heads from a pot.

Like I said before, it is impossible for me to convey what I experienced through a blog entry on the internet. It really is something that needs to be experienced in order to fully understand it, but I hope I gave you as much of a perspective on it as I could.

I know I am not the only one who came away from this experience with a new view and understanding of things. We boarded the bus for our return to the ship. The ride home was very quiet, no one said a word.

When we arrived back at the ship, Ryan and I met up with Mark, Quinn, Leah, Jess, Caroline, and Morgan, and we all headed out to a restaurant. We ate on the waterfront just a little ways from the ship, and we decided to stay there for the rest of the night. There was a live band playing and they had great drinks. One of them was called, “Call Me a Taxi.” I don’t remember what was in it, but it was amazing. After our night, and Jess almost getting arrested by South African police (long story not worth telling, believe me), I headed back to the ship around midnight. It was pretty early, but I had to pack and leave for a safari at 4:45am, so I wanted to get a few hours of sleep in. Well of course I talked to a few people when I returned, so I didn’t get to sleep until about 2. I woke up at 4, packed my bag, and headed to meet my group outside the ship. We had organized a safari by ourselves, because the SAS one was not only full, but ridiculously expensive. All together, we ended up spending $1000 less by doing it ourselves than through SAS. We went to Cape Town airport where we caught our flight to Johannesburg. Once again, flying here is so different than in the U.S. They played music on the plane as we were getting on and off. I heard Ludacris, Coldplay, and other American artists. It was pretty funny. When we arrived in Johannesburg, we met a representative from the safari company. There were 22 of us, and we loaded into the vans and began the drive to Kruger National Park. Kruger is world famous for its animals and beauty. It is a big 5 park, which means you can see the 5 main animals of Africa. They are the lion, buffalo, elephant, leopard, and rhino. The drive to Kruger took 5 hours, but the scenery was unbelievable. Time for another sentimental section… While we were driving, I had slept most of the way due to my very long 2 hours of sleep the night before. I woke up about an hour before we got to Kruger. This was the second day we were in South Africa, and it still had not hit me yet that I was actually here. While I was watching the beautiful rolling, green, huge, abundant mountains go by, I turned on my iPod. I began listening to songs by Jimmy Buffett about traveling, and that is when it hit me. I was in South Africa. I literally almost cried, but I didn’t! I wish I could explain the beauty of the landscape, but you will just have to see my pictures. They don’t do it justice, but you can get an idea.

When we reached Kruger, we were met by our safari guides. There were about 10 of them. We loaded into 4X4 Land Rovers, and drove to our campsite. On the way we saw many impala, which our guides said we will be sick of after a while because they are all over the park. Impala are a deer like animal if you don’t know. We reached the campsite, and I was heavily impressed. The company, Siyabona Africa, was so professional. They had the nicest camping gear I have ever seen, and there was a huge table under a tent with a white table cloth, candles, wine glasses, and neatly folded napkins. They mixed elegance with ruggedness, and it was so cool. We then departed for a game drive that lasted about 2 hours. On the drive I saw elephants, rhinos, buffalo, more impalas, and my favorite animal, the giraffe. We then came back and boarded a different jeep and took a night drive. It was awesome. We saw 3 lions, and they were just laying in the road. We watched them for a while, and they eventually got up, walked right past our vehicles, and walked down the dirt road. We followed them for about 10 minutes, and then they went up into the bushes. It was amazing being that close to a lion in the wild. I could have stuck my hand out and pet one of them, that’s how close I was. Of course, I valued not only my hand, but my life, so I opted not to do that. We came back to the campsite, and ate an amazing dinner. They had chefs there who cooked all the food, and it felt like we where in a restaurant. After dinner, all the guides and staff, about 30 of them, sang African songs and danced for us around the fire. I truly felt like I was experiencing Africa, and it was awesome. We stayed up until about 1am talking and having fun, and then we went to sleep in our tents.

We were woken up at 5am to go on a morning drive. This was the best drive of the 3 days. My van saw a leopard that day, and it was amazing. It wandered around our vehicle for about 2 or 3 minutes, then took off into the brush. Our guide said it was very rare to see one, and he hadn’t seen one since November. Sometimes people go six months without seeing one. So me and everyone in my vehicle were proud to say that we were the only ones who had seen the big 5. It was pretty cool, everyone was jealous of our leopard story. We came back, ate breakfast then lunch, and took an afternoon drive. We saw all the usual animals again, and I took tons of pictures of the giraffes because I love them. They are the most unique animal, and I find them so cool. We then stopped at the store after our drive, and I picked up a cool Kruger Park polo shirt, a wood carved giraffe, and a shot glass, all for about 300 Rand, or $50 US. After that we hung around the camp for the night. We tried to find bush babies, a small furry animal, in the trees with one of the guides, but had no luck. We went to bed late, around 2, and then woke up at 5am again. We took another 3 hour morning drive, and once again saw all the cool animals we had seen before. We got back, ate breakfast, then the vans picked us back up and headed back to Johannesburg airport. We had a while before our flight, so we watched a rugby game in a bar with some crazy South Africans, and did some shopping in the stores. Apparently, the athletic manufacturer for a lot of rugby gear is a company named Gilbert. So, I bought a rugby ball that says Gilbert in big letters. After our waiting, we got on our 9pm flight, and headed back to Cape Town. Remember when I wrote about the airlines in Brazil that sat the random person in the jump seat in the cockpit? Well they did it again! The flight was overbooked, and they sat a girl in the jump seat in the cockpit. The cockpit door was open the whole time and she chatted with the pilots. You would never see that in the U.S.! My friend Greg couldn’t believe it, and I told him it’s not the first time it has happened. We arrived back in Cape Town around 11, took a cab back to the ship, and I once again got caught up chatting with people until early in the morning.

That night I had made plans with some people to visit Cape Point, the southernmost point in not only South Africa, but the continent of Africa as well. We got up at 9am, and Mallory, Heath, and Michelle wanted to visit the stupid museum that I had been to the first day. They said they heard from everyone that it was great, so I bit my tongue and visited it for the second time. After the exhilarating museum, we grabbed a driver and got a price of 650 Rand to take us to cape point. Split up between the 4 of us, it was 150 Rand each. That is about $25 US per person. It was an hour drive there, and an hour drive back. It was an awesome price. Our driver’s name was Angus, and he was a great cab driver/tour guide. He first took us to a section of Cape Point, in Simons Town, next to Boulder’s Beach where you can see penguins. I had been talking about this all week, saying that I wanted to go there, and I was dying to visit the penguins that I heard about. We got there, and there were tons of penguins hanging around the rocks and the ocean. There were no fences, or glass enclosures, we just hung right out with the penguins. It was the coolest thing ever. If you got too close, they would waddle away or start opening their beak to tell you, “Back off or I am going to bite you”, but we were able to get up to within 2 feet of them. Here is a picture of me and the penguins:



The water at Boulder’s beach was gorgeous. I had never seen the color of the water like it before, but some of my friends thought it reminded them of Mediterranean waters. After hanging out with the penguins, taking tons of pictures, and enjoying the gorgeous views of the ocean, we headed back to the taxi and Angus. On the way back to the taxi, we saw a sign that read, “Please look under your vehicle for penguins”. So, we made sure Angus checked, and then we were on our way.

Our next stop was Cape Point, the southern most tip of Africa. We hiked to the top of a small mountain, where the tip was. It was actually a little difficult hike. There is a tram that runs to the top, but there is no fun in that. After our slightly tiring hike, we reached the tip, which was very high. There was a lighthouse and a sign. The sign was marked with arrows indicating the directions of certain cities. It had cities like, New York, Paris, and Amsterdam on it. It then told how far away they were, and they were very far. We spent some time on the tip, and then we hiked back and grabbed some ice cream at the entrance. I almost forgot to tell you about the baboons! Probably the one thing we heard most was, “do not feed the baboons, they can be aggressive”. I did not understand the seriousness of this until I was hanging around outside the entrance. I saw tons of baboons, and they are really evil! They are also very big too, about the size of a golden retriever. There was a couple sitting on a ledge, and there were some bushes behind them. Baboons are notorious for stealing food out of people’s hands and laps, and I saw this coming. The baboon was creeping through the bushes behind the lady eating her sandwich. She did not realize it was behind her, and I saw the baboon begin to reach for the sandwich. I began to yell to them to get up and out of the way, there was a baboon right behind them. Unfortunately they did not speak English, so they gave me a bunch of weird looks. I was motioning frantically with my hand and yelling for them to move as I saw the baboon’s hand behind the woman get closer to the sandwich. After they looked at me weirdly some more, one of the members of their family noticed it, and got them out of the way just in time. The baboon lunged for the sandwich but missed. It was very amusing. It was even more amusing when I was in another area, and there was an adorable kid about 6 or 7 years old who was sitting on a ledge. His parents had just bought a sandwich for him, and he set it down on the ledge. Bad idea! A baboon literally jumped up out of nowhere onto the ledge and snatched the sandwich away. The look on the kids face was priceless. The baboon, to my amazement, opened the plastic package faster than I would have been able to, and downed the sandwich in less than 2 seconds. Me and Heath were wide eyed in amazement. The kid wandered up to his parents with the empty sandwich package, and tried to tell them what happened. They weren’t speaking English, but I could tell it was a funny conversation.

So after our crazy baboon experience, Angus drove us back to the waterfront. We then grabbed some dinner at a seafood restaurant. I had a fish called kingclip, and it was delicious. There was a live band below us in the square, and we listened to them while we ate. We then headed back to the ship. I met up with some more people on the ship and we then went to a bar and had a few drinks. After that we grabbed a cab and went down to Long Street, which is where all the bars and clubs were. We hopped around for a while, and Heath and I took off a little early, around 1:30am, because I was exhausted. As I was leaving, the power went out all over Cape Town. It was insane. Before I left I made some plans with people to hike Table Mountain in the morning.

I woke up at 8am, got some breakfast then met my friends at 9. We set out for Table Mountain, and began our hike. The clouds rolled over the mountain and down onto us, and it became chilly at some points, but the view was awesome. About a quarter of the way up, we realized that we had taken the hardest hiking trail on the mountain. It was literally a vertical climb. Since we were so tired after our quarter of the way hike, we decided to head back down and take the cable car up. When we reached the bottom, we found that the power had not been restored to this section yet, and the cable cars were not running. Therefore, we did not get to see the top of Table Mountain, so we decided to head to the local street markets. We grabbed a cab, and the driver sang Neil Sedaka songs to us as he drove us to the huge Sunday street market. We shopped around for a few hours. It was really awesome. It was all these people that were selling stuff they had made. There were cool masks, paintings, figurines, and everything. I bought a small drum. I’m not sure if I mentioned it but I am collecting a drum in each country. The only port I did not get one in was Puerto Rico. So after the market, we walked a long ways back to the ship and ate some lunch on board. After lunch I headed out with my roommate Matt, Tony, Alex, Mallory, and Megan. We went and walked around the mall at the waterfront. Everything is just as expensive or more than in the U.S. An iPod costs about $480 U.S. here, as opposed to $300 back home. Ryan’s broke so he bought a new one here. The only thing I have found to have been cheaper than the states is food, drinks, and anything you barter for in the street markets. Anyways, after that we went to a Mexican restaurant. It was early, so we didn’t order any food. This restaurant is famous because if you want, for 90 Rand ($15 US), you can get a fishbowl full of a mixed drink (Margarita, etc). These aren’t the size of a fishbowl though; it is the size of a large mixing bowl. It is huge. I did not order one, so the other guys all shared one. Between the 5 of them, it took them about an hour to finish it. So after the incredible fishbowl experience, I came back to the ship and met up with some people who were getting back from safaris that left on Friday. I found out that one of the safaris missed their plane, so they weren’t going to get back until late. I didn’t know anyone on that one though. On the other safari where a lot of my friends were, a lot of them got sick on the last night from the food. My friend Mark, the one who I grew up with, was put in quarantine in his room on the ship when they got back. He had severe TD and vomiting. My friend’s Ryan and Quinn came back alright though, and we went to dinner along with Jess and Leah. We went to Ocean Basket again, the seafood place, and had great seafood. We then went back to the ship, hung out for a while watching Anchorman, and then passed out around midnight.

I woke up at 9am to Ryan banging on my door. It was the day I had been nervous about the entire week. Skydiving. We had booked skydiving the first day we were there, and we booked it for the last day in port. I had heard some stories all week from people who had been going. Some of them good, some of them a little scary, but they all said that they had the best time. I will admit it, for the adrenaline junkie I am, I was nervous. Ryan was a little nervous I could tell, but he didn’t show it much. Quinn was a wreck. We kind of joked around the whole time, and made videos on our digital cameras of our last wills. It was pretty funny. I left all my Jimmy Buffett memorabilia to my friends and family to divide amongst themselves. I thought it was sweet. Anyways, Quinn was freaking out but she was very brave, and I will get there in a second. So Ryan woke me up, then me, him, Quinn, Jess, Leah, Grant, and Tammy all went to the markets. This was a different street market, and it was still pretty cool. Ryan bought a ton of stuff, as he always does, including a 5 foot mask. I don’t know how he is going to get it back to Pittsburgh, but whatever. I bought a mask of a giraffe, and some souvenirs for people. Oh yeah, we have all become excellent price negotiators on the streets. I have always gotten the people at the markets down to almost half their original price they say. I am pretty good at it. Ryan is better, he always makes up stories about how he only has X amount of dollars on him, and he will now have to walk back to the ship because he doesn’t have any more money. They always fall for it and go down to his price. It may take like 15 minutes, but it works out good. We then made our way back to the ship to drop off our stuff then go skydiving.

After dropping off our things, we realized we were running really late. It was 12:45 and we had to meet the vans outside the aquarium at 1. We high tailed it to the aquarium, and made it just in time. We crammed the vans with people because most of the people who made reservations to go the day before got cancelled because of the weather. It was about a half an hour drive there, and the whole time we were talking and making jokes about how we were living our last few minutes of life before we die. It didn’t help when we had to sign our lives away on the waiver. It was pretty funny, and Quinn was getting mad at us. We finally reached the airfield, and we had to drive down this dirt road in the middle of nowhere until we reached a wooden sign that was handwritten that said, “airfield”. It was so sketchy and hilarious. Once there, we paid our money (1200 Rand, $200 US) and got harnessed up. For some reason I wasn’t nervous anymore. I watched the first few people before me get into the plane, and then come down about 15 minutes later and land. I got really excited to go. When it was our turn, I met my guide, Hugo, and we walked to the plane along with Ryan and his guide. We jump tandem obviously, with the guide who has the chute strapped to the back of me. We climbed into the plane, which barely fit 4 people. It was seriously the size of us. Ryan and I had to sit between our guides legs it was so small. It was a Cessna 182 if you know what that is. The planes were just coming down, picking people up, and taking right off again. There were so many of us it was just a rolling operation, it went so fast. The engines didn’t even shut off, the plane would take off, let the people jump, then come down and pick the next group up and go again. So we got in the plane, or should I say shoebox on wheels, and it took us about 10 minutes to reach 9,000 feet. The views were unbelievable. It was clear, and I could see Table Mountain, the ocean, and the beautiful landscape of South Africa. On the way up we got a crash course in what we were supposed to do. All I was instructed to do was when the door opened; Ryan and his guide would go first. Then after that, we would move over to the door (which was about 3 inches from me since the plane was so small), and I would put my left leg on the step outside. I would then put my right leg out. I would then grab my harness with both hands and we would fall out. I next had to keep my legs back, and my instructor would tap me to put my arms out. It would be a 35 second free fall, then he would pull the chute and it would be a 5 minute glide to the ground. When we were to reach the ground, I would pull my legs up and Hugo would land us.

So when we reached the 9,000 feet, they swung the door open. I put on my goggles, and I watched Ryan put his left foot out, and I looked away to turn my camera on. When I looked back, he and his guide were already gone and I saw him shoot past the window. We then moved over to the door. My left foot went out, then my right. I grabbed onto my harness with both my hands, and my camera recording video. Hugo then leaned a little forward and WOOOSH! We were gone. It happened so fast. I was in the middle of the sky. It was the most intense thing I have ever experienced. There was nothing around me but the sky, and I was falling in it. I was having the greatest time of my life. I put my arms out and it felt like I was flying. I forgot about everything and anything. I had no worries. I just enjoyed the fall. Besides the loud noise of the wind and me yelling, “WOOHOO!” the whole time, it was so peaceful. There is no way to describe it. If any of you get the chance to do this, please do it. Here is a shot of me during the free fall from my video:



After 35 seconds, Hugo yelled that he was opening the chute, and there was a big jerk. The chute flew open, and it was all of a sudden so quiet and we were gliding. Hugo and I talked the whole time, and he let me steer left and right. It was so cool, when you pull the chute left or right, you pick up speed and can spin. Hugo was really cool, and he told me that if we were birds, this is what it would feel like to be one. It must be awesome to be a bird; fly around and poop on people below all day. Sounds like a life I would be interested in living. I saw Ryan below me, and he glided down then landed on the green marker in the field outside the hangar. We then came in for our landing. Hugo told me that since there was no wind, we might fall once we hit the ground, but no big deal. As we got closer, Hugo told me that someone was waving to me from the airstrip. I looked over and it was Quinn and Jess, and I waved back to them. They were just about to get into their plane. It came time to land and I lifted my legs up, and we came in and he touched the ground. As Hugo touched and I put my legs down, our chute caught a little bit of wind and we toppled over on top of each other. It was pretty funny. We laughed, we got up, and I shook his hand, thanked him, and told him I had an AWESOME time. Ryan got my embarrassing landing on video on his camera, and my video of the whole dive on my camera is pretty cool too. After the amazing rush, we had a beer and watched our friends glide in after us. Quinn ended up loving it, which I knew she would. We all then got back into the vans and headed back to the ship. We got back on, changed clothes, and then headed to the Mexican place again. We ate a good dinner, then did some last minute shopping at the grocery store (mostly for candy), and headed back to the ship. It was the last day in port. We got back on the ship around 8pm, and on ship time (time we had to be on the ship before we leave) was 9pm. We pulled out of port a little late, around 1am. That is it for South Africa.

FYI - I am not putting up every one of my pictures on Webshots like I did for Brazil. I will select the best ones I have taken and put them up, but I can not load 200 or 300 pictures anymore, it just kills my internet minutes. So I will still be adding a ton of cool pictures, just not as much as before. Also, let me apologize, because I said in the beginning that this was going to be a short entry, and I just looked back and realized it is the longest one I have written. So, sorry it is long again, but it is hard to fit 6 days of South Africa into a short summary without leaving out all the good stuff.

So in conclusion, South Africa was incredible. I really don’t have any more words to describe it.

Some random things about South Africa:
-You are not in line anywhere; you are in “queue”.
-Shopping carts are called trolleys.
-They drive on the left side of the road here, and it is KM/hr instead of MPH.
-The nicest people in the world live here.
-South Africa is my favorite place I have ever visited.
-Food and candy is very different than in the U.S. A lot of the companies are the same, like Nestle, Kellogs, etc, but the stuff they make is very different.
-Lemonade is not lemonade; it is made by Schwepps and tastes like Sprite
-Diet coke does not exist, it is called Coca-Cola Lite.
-There are 11 languages in South Africa including English, and most people speak 8 of them.
-The terms “I give you good price”, “Special price just for you my friend”, and “Special price for you my first customer”, will always be a reminder of the street markets.
-South Africa is famous for its wine and coffee
-All the tugboats are named after wine
-Seals hung out on the docks next to our ship. They are very lazy.
-6 South African Rand is equal to $1 US.
-I have seen things here that have changed my outlook on various aspects of life and the world itself.
-I am in love with South Africa.
-I WILL BE BACK!

Some shoutouts:
Katie – I hope you feel better after your skiing injury. Maybe I can sign your cast if it is still on you when I get home. Take care of Louie for me.

Monka – Take care of Louis for me. Haha, just kidding. I will be coming down to Florida this summer for some Jimmy Buffett concerts. It will most likely be in May, I will let you know when I find out the concert dates.

Louis – The painters in these countries are so talented. You would love viewing the paintings in the markets of Brazil and South Africa. If I find one that reminds me of your paintings, I will be sure to pick it up for you.

Mom, Dad, and Katie – I talked to you on the phone a few days ago, but I hope you are enjoying your vacation in Texas. Take lots of pictures for me.

Liz – Villanova called, they said you were short 1 point on your SAT’s to meet their standards, and they won’t let you in. Just kidding, good luck, and you should have gone to Texas.

Erik Z. – Your right. Awesome.

Everyone at UNH – Hope the semester is going well. Someone send me an email and let me know who your Spring concert bands are. Miss all of you, but I will see you soon. Tivo Dog for me :-)

Syracuse – I don’t miss your cold, and get your basketball act together.

Roberta – You know I miss you so much my love! Our times at the diner, our movie nights, and our Cheeseburger in Paradise trip were the best times ever. I hope this semester is going OK for you. I will see you in May, can’t wait!

Jared – I have met some SUNY people on this trip, no one from Cobleskill though. They are all named Rowena for some reason, and they are all from concourse A… Hope your semester is going well too. Get on that SU basketball stuff for me and fix it. Matisyahu is performing in California 2 days after I get in, and my roommate is going. I am thinking about it but probably not. When I get back we are building our plane, like one we can fly.

Eric – Be ready to scuba dive this summer. We will leave Delux and Jess on the beach. Ha. Good luck in your class dude.

BuffettNewsers – I miss our discussion board, but I will be posting again soon and tailgating with all of you this Spring and Fall. I wish you all well over the next 3 months. See you in the parking lot. Fins Up!

Chris – Hold down the fort at Target for me. I am missing our Wegmans outings. Stay safe buddy, see you in a few months.

I was going to write more shoutouts, but I have to go to up to the pool deck with some people to get a smoothie. I miss you all, I am still having the time of my life here, and I will talk to you later. Mauritius in 6 days.

P.S. – I still can’t believe I jumped out of a plane.

P.P.S - Now you many finally stop reading.

A Ship Is My Home

An excerpt from my personal journal…


Well, we are 25% through the voyage. Where did it go? If you count the Bahamas, we arrive in our fourth port of call tomorrow. I figured I would write an entry in here on a more personal note than what I have been writing about beforehand. Since the beginning of day 1 we have been told how this will be a changing experience, a benchmark if you will, in our lives. As I sit here and write this, I am beginning to see the reality of this statement. While at dinner last night, a group of friends and I were discussing whether we have accepted and realized what we are actually doing. I remember Tony saying, “Has this really set in to you guys yet? I mean, we are on a ship, in the middle of the ocean, and we go to Africa tomorrow.” He’s right. The past few weeks I have been taking that statement and many other similar ones so literally. Think about it. I live on a ship. There is nothing around me but the beautiful blue sky and ocean. Nothing. That aspect really begins to set in to me when I sit out on the deck and look out. It is just me and the ocean. So peaceful, so right, and so damn cool. The past few ports I have thought to myself, “Hey we get to Brazil tomorrow, cool. Hey we get to Africa tomorrow, should be fun.” I don’t believe this. I am hitting 2 continents in 3 weeks that I have never been to, and most people don’t ever get the chance to see. Once I think about it and take away the literal aspect of it, this boggles my mind. Maybe I still can’t believe I am living this amazing journey in my life. Whether I take this experience too routine at times, or I think about how crazy this actually is, I still remind myself how lucky I am. I don’t want it to ever end. There are 75 days left in this voyage, and it doesn’t seem like enough. I know it will come fast, and that is why I am going to live every minute of it like it was the last. I have made lifelong friends here. I am sailing with 680 of the most intelligent and outgoing students of our country, and it is fascinating. Of course, there are some people who make me wonder how they got here, but I still am amazed at the amount of great people I have met so far. I not only live in a confined environment with them, I experience the world with them. I travel the world with some of the greatest and most amazing people I have ever met, and I don’t think life can get any better than this.

I have had the opportunity to meet an amazing man this past week. During our sailings from port to port, we have special guests join our voyage. Sailing with us from Brazil to South Africa is a man by the name of Dennis Brutus. Dennis is famous for being a political activist, and a major fighter against apartheid. He was arrested many years ago in South Africa during a protest about racial inequality, and was imprisoned on Robben Island. Those of you who know your history know that Robben Island is famous for one of its prisoners, Nelson Mandela. Dennis was imprisoned with Mandela, and they ‘broke rocks together’, as he described it. When Dennis was let out of prison and exiled from South Africa, Mandela invited him back in 1994 after his own release from prison. I had the pleasure of talking with Dennis Brutus extensively about his time in prison and his fight against apartheid. His book, Poetry and Protest, will be released February 16, and I was lucky enough to listen to him read a few excerpts. I hope to obtain an autographed copy when we arrive in Cape Town and I can buy one. Dennis Brutus really is a unique and fascinating individual, and he shows through his life stories how one person really can make a difference in this world.

For those of you wondering about the logistics of the families of professors and staff on this voyage, most of the families are sailing with us. Most professors have brought their wives or husbands, and those who have younger children have brought them as well. There are 8 kids on this voyage who are the sons and/or daughters of professors. They range in ages from about 8-16, and they are called, “The 8 wonders of the world”. They are pretty cool kids, and have surprisingly adapted themselves well to a college type environment. They eat dinner in the dining hall with us, swim in the pool with us, and just hang around with us. They receive schooling on board by one of the teachers. I am sure these kids are getting one hell of an experience.

The past week has been routine and monotonous, but fun. We had one day off from classes, and it was a great day. The night before that was an 80’s dance party, and the costumes people wore were hilarious, and sometimes a bit scary. The day after, when we had no classes, we just hung around and played games. In the evening they held an enormous barbecue on the pool deck, and the food was great. There was so much of it, and the displays were impressive. I think I even saw a pig head. Other than classes, homework, pub nights, watching DVD’s, and laying out in the sun and enjoying the wide open sea, it has been a pretty straight forward week. We have been preparing for South Africa, and we arrive tomorrow. I will be up very early to watch the sunrise and the ship pull into port. I hear this is the most beautiful port we pull in to, and I want to be up for it. I may even sleep on the deck tonight with a bunch of people, who knows. We are 7 hours ahead of you East coast people now. I am about to head to lunch, and you aren’t even awake yet. I will be out and about in South Africa the next 7 days, so expect to see an update around Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. Give me a little bit because I have a lot of field work I need to write up when I get back and we set sail. Goodbye for now, Africa tomorrow, and I still can’t believe it…


P.s. - I will not be staying on the West coast as I originally thought I may. Jimmy’s tour dates don’t work out for me, and he stops playing California the week before we dock. I plan to make many east coast shows this year, including the Florida and New England shows. If you went with me last year and want to go again, or didn’t get the chance to go and would like to, email me. It is difficult for me to keep on top of the tour, but I am doing the best I can, and will let whoever wants to go know which shows I will be going to. The East coast dates should be released soon. Fins up.

P.p.s – Random comments:
-This 70/30 girl to guy ratio is still pretty cool :-)
-My hair is growing back pretty quick, and I am quite happy about it.
-I love all my classes but History of Africa. Everyone agrees it pretty much sucks.
-I am glad I am missing the massacre of the SU basketball team.
-I saw a preview of the voyage DVD, and I am in it a few times. It is very nicely done.
-I am not homesick, but I of course miss everyone a little bit back home.
-We had taco day yesterday for lunch, and it was amazing. Taco day is very rare.
-Turning the clocks ahead and losing sleep almost every night is getting routine.
-There is a really large, really mean Russian security lady who pats you down ‘very thoroughly’ in port when you get back on the ship.
-The crew on this ship are some of the nicest, jubilant, and most hard working people I have ever met in my life. You really get to know them and become friends with them.
-The red hats are still going strong:

Neptune Day and Brazil!

Neptune Day

The day of 1/30/06 was Neptune Day!! Neptune Day is celebrated during the crossing of the equator. Well, we crossed the equator at about 3am, but we celebrated it with a wake-up call from our cabin stewards at 7:30am. But these weren’t our normal stewards. My cabin steward Joel (the best cabin steward ever), showed up banging on my door dressed in a native costume. When I opened it I was met with Joel pointing a spear at me and saying with his Pilipino accent, “Michael and Matthew! It’s Neptune Day! Time to get up!”

With that, Matt and I got showered, dressed, and headed up for some breakfast. It was the most gorgeous day I have ever seen. It by far beat any other day at sea that we have had. The weather was perfect, 82 degrees and sunny. The water was BRIGHT blue, and the temperature of it was 80 degrees. I love South America. When the rest of the red beanie crew and I showed up on deck 7, we posed for about 25 photos. Let me explain this…

Matt (my roommate), Tony, and Alex are all really good friends. They wear red beanies to symbolize their not only fondness for the movie, “The Life Aquatic”, but also their connection with sailing the world like Steve Zissou. Well Ryan (Alex’s roommate), Grant (Tony’s roommate), and me (Matt’s roommate), were all inducted into this group and given a red beanie as well. That makes six of us that wear a red beanie around the ship all day. The red beanie crew has become the talk of the ship, if you will. Since many people don’t really know why we wear them, there have been many many rumors that have floated around as to why this group of six guys wear these red beanies. One of these many rumors was that it was to show that we all had taken a vow of celibacy. We even heard this rumor from a teacher! Well, we made sure to kill that rumor, but all the other ones we kind of just rolled with the fun of it. Every day, everyone on the ship receives a sheet of the “Dean’s Memo”, which is a list of announcements and messages that need to be announced to the shipboard community. There is always a section called “Rumor Control”. This section always tells whether the current rumors going around the ship are true or not. For example, it said last week that it is true we will be stopping in Hawaii and Singapore for fuel, but we will not be getting off. So that is what the rumor control section is. Well, yesterday, the rumor control section had us rolling on the ground laughing. I picked up the Dean’s Memo yesterday to read this sentence under the rumor control section, “The Red Beanie Crew was not wakeboarding behind the ship while we were sailing from Puerto Rico. The ship was out of wakeboards during that time, so this would not have been possible.”

That was hilarious. I love our Red Beanie Crew. We are the best.

Anyways, back to Neptune Day. After breakfast and the Red Beanie Crew posing for tons of pictures on the 7th deck by the pool, we waited for King Neptune to arrive. King Neptune is the King of the seas, and we have to transform from pollywogs to shellbacks. This ship goes all out for these events, and I love it. Before King Neptune came out, several of the crew members dressed in foil made Viking hats and colorful costumes with flags came out with drums and started playing a cadence. Everyone was taking pictures and cheering. After that, King Neptune and his wife were introduced. This was the two academic deans, and they were dressed like you wouldn’t believe. Please check my pictures to see it, I can’t even describe it. After they were introduced and seated poolside, we had to prove our faithfulness to King Neptune by taking an oath. Next was the fun part. This is where everyone transforms from “pollywogs” to “shellbacks”. First, you must step up beside the pool, and two crew members will take a pitcher, dump it in a bin full of fish guts and slime, scoop it out, and dump it over your head. Next, you jump in the pool then get out and kiss a fish on the lips. After that you kiss King Neptune’s ring and his trident. Did I take part in this silliness? Hell yes. Matt and Alex went in front of me, then Ryan and I stepped up. The fish guts and slime were poured over our heads, and we jumped in the pool. If your wondering how it smelled, it smelled just as bad as it tasted. It was so much fun though. It isn’t real fish guts. It is a slime substance with junk in it that I have no idea what it is. Maybe it is fish guts…

After that we got out, kissed the ‘oh so good looking’ fish, ring, and trident, then proceeded to complete our transformation. Head shaving. You bet I was going to do it. There was a raffle the day before to have the Captain of the ship shave your head. Matt and I didn’t win, but we watched as the ones who did got their heads shaved. The Captain shaved all 5 winning kids’ heads, including 2 girls. A good amount of girls surprisingly shaved their heads. After the captain was finished, they started shaving everyone’s head who wanted it shaved. Unfortunately, they had one pair of clippers, and it was taking FOREVER. The Red Beanie Crew said forget this, and we went back to Alex’s room and used Grant’s clippers. Ryan, then Alex, then me, and then Matt all had our heads shaved by Grant. We were now officially shellbacks! We all looked so different with no hair. It was hilarious. Grant already had a shaved head, so he didn’t do it. Tony was too chicken, and he won’t do it, so we are going to shave his head in the middle of the night sometime.

After that we ate lunch, then everyone who had their head shaved gathered on deck 4 for a group picture. We all looked up at the photographer on deck 5 and he took the picture of all the shaved heads. I am sure it will be in the yearbook, along with several of our Red Beanie Crew poses. To top it all off, on the most beautiful day of the trip, dolphins began jumping off the starboard aft of the ship. The best day ever.

The rest of the day was pretty lazy. I took a nap, seeing as I got 5 hours of sleep the night before. The night before, at 11pm, about 10 of us had a crazy idea to have a swing dancing party, and we cleared all the chairs out of one of the classrooms for some amazing swing dancing. That lasted until about 2am, and then we had to turn our clocks ahead one hour for changing time zones, again. With the wonderful wake-up call from Joel, that left me with little sleep. That is where my nap comes in. I slept from about 1-4, then I got up and hung out with Mallary on the back of the ship and enjoyed the most gorgeous day ever. We then went to dinner, ate outside of course, and talked until the sun set behind the horizon. The moon was amazing that night. It is only about a quarter moon, but for some reason on the equator, you can see the entire outline of it. It seems much larger and sits lower in the sky. It really was something to see. 3 days later, we landed in Brazil.

Brazil

Wow, I have so much to write, but I don’t want to write a novel here. I will try to sum up my experience in Brazil as best I can, but it will do it no justice for sure. It is hard to read something on a computer screen and take the experience in fully. I know this because I read many journals online from students of the fall voyage last semester. It was a fascinating read, but I have realized that experiencing it is so much more fascinating, and it kills me that I can’t convey to you the same experience I have had. So that being said, enjoy what I write, but bear in mind…. it was so much damn cooler than it sounds!

“Brazil is dangerous. You will get mugged. Keep your hands in your pockets. Wear a money belt. Walk in large groups. Walk with large men. Don’t go out at night. Don’t drink the water. Don’t wear jewelry. Don’t eat food from street vendors. Don’t talk to sketchy locals on the street. Don’t walk, use taxis. Females – don’t wear revealing clothing. Take malaria medication. Beware of people on the street who will offer to exchange your currency. Beware of bag slashing with razors. There is a 100% chance you will be pick pocketed.”

With phrases like these, would you want to visit the country of discussion? I wouldn’t. This is what SAS drilled into our heads in the days before our Brazil arrival. At the pre-port lecture, it was basically an hour of nothing but “all the bad things that not only COULD happen to you in Brazil, but WILL happen to you.” Thanks for making us paranoid SAS, it was not worth it. Because of all these warnings I did not bring a credit card to Rio, nor did I bring enough cash. I got by, but I wish I wasn’t thrown into a scared straight program the night before I were to set foot on a country I had been waiting to visit for as long as I could remember.

Yes, Brazil has its problems, but so does every other country or city in this world. Are Brazil’s problems with crime, prostitution, and drugs a little more serious then let’s say… our country? Yes, of course, but that doesn’t mean that Brazil isn’t one hell of a country, because it is. So here is my consensus of the largest country in South America…

I LOVE IT! Brazil was everything I expected it to be and more. I was a little apprehensive my first time stepping foot into the city of Salvador. This was my real first time being immersed in a culture so radically different than my own. I have traveled outside the country to Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean, but everything there is very Americanized and similar to our culture. Brazil is nothing of the sort. The scenery, people, culture, music, food, and shopping is out of this world. How do I know all this? Here is my story from the beginning…

We were scheduled to dock in the port of Salvador at 0800. I set my alarm for 0630 so I could get up and watch us pull in past the city. I woke up and got to deck 7 around 0700. It was perfect timing. I watched as we pulled past towns and cities, and I got my first look at Brazil. The buildings and homes were built into a terrain like I had never seen before. It was crazy to see all these structures built in with the forest and all the hills. I immediately got very excited to get off the ship and see this country. I had to wait though. We anchored first in the waterway while immigration came on board and checked us all through. At about 0830 we were docked. Immigration took absolutely forever, and we didn’t get off the ship until almost 1100. When we got off, several people and I went to walk around the city of Salvador for a while. When I stepped out of the building at the end of the pier, we were immediately hassled and grabbed at by street vendors and kids trying to sell us crap. I thought to myself, “it’s only going to get worse, but this culture is fascinating.” Salvador is set up kind of cool. There is a lower city and an upper city. The lower city does not offer much stuff other than a few markets in a certain area. There is a huge elevator that we had to take to get to the upper city. Of course, it is our luck the elevator broke when it was our turn, but we eventually got up there. The upper city was really cool. The views of All Saints Bay and the ocean were spectacular. There are many shops, restaurants, and creative architecture that makes walking around fun. Besides telling hundreds if people trying to sell me stuff, “No Obrigado(no thank you in Portuguese)”, I had a great time getting my first taste of Brazil. Most of the side streets are all brick and lined with vendors and shops with everything from musical instruments to paintings. After about an hour and a half of walking around, we headed back to the ship because most of us had signed up for some trips for our class work. I had signed up to go to an Afro-Brazilian museum and Candomble house.

The Afro-Brazilian museum was informative and a bit interesting, but it’s a museum. Salvador is the second most African influenced city in the world outside of Africa. This was good because it gave me a lot of information for my history of Africa class. I have to turn in a field report when classes start again about my experiences with the African influence in Brazil. The candomble house was amazing. Candomble is a spiritual ritual that is most like a religion to the people who practice it. The ceremonies include dancing, drumming, and being put into a trance. The Brazilians dance for hours until they enter the trance where they believe the spirits will enter them. At the house we were able to see the rooms they performed this in, and the decorations that applied. What was even cooler was we were able to talk to two women who were devotees to candomble. This was apparently very rare to be able to speak to these women, and my world music teacher I think almost had an aneurism when he got to speak to them.

After that we came back to the ship, ate a quick dinner, and then everyone was getting ready to go out to the welcome reception they had signed up for. I did not sign up for it before SAS started, and it turns out a lot of my friends did. I decided to get in the waiting list line to get on the trip if people didn’t show up. It turns out they had enough room, and off I was to the reception. The welcome reception is hosted by certain universities in the country, and they have local music, food, and dancing all fused together for one heck of a party. For some reason, there weren’t any other university students there from Brazil, it was just us. There was a youth percussion ensemble there that was unbelievable. They pounded away on their drums for a good couple hours while dancers in amazing costumes danced traditional dances. After that they turned up the dance music, switched on some crazy lights, and the party was on. Oh yeah, this was all in a big church, and they were serving us beer from Antarctica. Talk about confusion. It was one of the most fun nights of this trip I have had so far. We danced and partied until about midnight, then came back to the ship. I had to be up at 3am to go to Rio.

The alarm went off at 0300, and I was running on about 2 hours of sleep. I had signed up to go on a 3 day, 2 night trip called, “The Best of Rio de Janeiro”. We were to meet by 0400 on the 5th deck. Like I said, I woke up at 0300 and got there at about 0330. The crew on this ship is unbelievable. They cooked a huge breakfast for all the trips leaving early that day. It really was a nice surprise. So anyways, we left the ship at about 0400, and went to Salvador airport. We flew from Salvador to Brasilia, then from Brasilia to Rio. Why we did this I have no idea. Brasilia was WAY out of the way, and it took about 2 hours longer than a direct flight would have. Also, when we flew to Brasilia, we flew west to get there, and we jumped ahead an hour. I am still trying to figure out how this is possible. Normally when you fly west you go back time. This time we were ahead an hour when we flew west. No one could really figure it out, and the best thing I could come up with was that there is a weird jump in the timetable map. Anyways, when we reached Rio we boarded nice big air conditioned tour buses and were greeted by our tour guide Marcelo. He was awesome. We first set out for a restaurant so we could eat. We ate at a place on Copacabana beach called Marius. It was the craziest restaurant I have ever been to. I have never seen so much food in my life. There was a buffet that was as long as I could see, with foods I could only figure out what a few of them were. The food was excellent though. What was really cool was that when they served all the meat, they came around with the whole piece of meat on a skewer, and they would put the skewer on your plate, cut you some pieces, and keep doing it over again until you told them you were going to explode. By the way, the bathrooms in this place deserved a picture. When you first walk in, you get knocked over by the smell of flowers, which was kind of weird. When you go to use the urinal, well there really isn’t one. It’s a tub, set in granite, filled with colored stones and ice. The sinks as well. So I opted not to pee on the stones and ice, and instead took a picture.

After lunch we went to go visit sugar loaf. Sugar loaf is a huge set of mountains that are accessible by cable cars and give you a bird’s eye view of Rio. It was a bit cloudy out, but we took the cable cars to the top and the views were amazing. I’m not so sure my camera captured it well, but you will get the idea. There were some pretty smelly foreigners in the cable cars, but we survived. We hung out for a while at the top of sugar loaf and had some drinks while overlooking the city of Rio and much of the forests of Brazil. After that we got back in the buses and checked into the Plaza Copacabana Hotel. We were literally one block from the infamous Copacabana beach. It was gorgeous. When we checked in, the hotel threw us a little get together on the pool deck, which was the top deck of the hotel. The view was incredible. I could see a large section of the beach, and nothing but hilly forests on the other side. They served us what looked to be lemonade with limes, but when I took a big sip I became aware it was straight vodka, yuk. So following our little pool get together I took a much needed nap. I slept a bit on the plane ride down, but the announcements from the flight attendants in Portuguese kept waking me up, then made me angry because I never understood any of it. Flying outside of the USA is so different. They won’t scold you to death if you have a bag in the aisle, or you are listening to an mp3 player during takeoff. They don’t even check the names of the ticket with the person who is using it. On the flight down and the flight back, 2 girls had the same boarding pass with the same name on it. This was after we went through all checkpoints and were at the gate. There isn’t even really security. It’s a wimpy little metal detector and that’s it. Oh yeah, on the way back, for some reason one of the passengers didn’t have a seat, SO THEY SAT HIM IN THE JUMPSEAT IN THE COCKPIT. That’s right, there was a random guy in the cockpit during the whole flight. I give the airlines in Brazil an A+ for security concerns. Other than that stuff, everything was great. They serve meals, unlike in the U.S. Don’t worry, I flew on the most popular airline in Brazil if you are wondering. It is called Varig Brasil. Anyways I am getting off topic.

After my nap at the hotel, Mark realized he did not have any jeans to go out in that night. A lot of clubs or bars will require you to wear long pants to get in. So Mark and I took off for a massive mall down the street. It was a skyscraper and there was just floor after floor of stores. Mark bought some jeans in a store called Taco after I laughed at him, and we grabbed a cab back to the hotel. Speaking of cabs, let me describe the driving in Brazil. It isn’t driving. It is, “let me see how close I can get to you while cutting you off so I can drive as fast as I can without hitting you with no regard to pedestrians while I blast Brazilian samba music and pay no attention to traffic rules at all.” Traffic is crazy. They really don’t drive in any set way, it is all over the place, and I am surprised I am still alive. Anyways, after we got back from the mall, we all decided to head out to dinner. About 30 of us walked down Copacabana beach to eat. We found a restaurant which wasn’t hard. Every restaurant down there has waiters standing out front that basically beg and usher you in there. I went up to one of the guys and he asked me how many and I told him 30, and he said it would be no problem. Surprisingly he was right and we were led into a big restaurant that was very lively. I ordered gnocchis with meat sauce, which I couldn’t believe they had. There was so much of it but it was so good. The name of the restaurant was Sandicotto Do Chopp. I have no idea what it means, but the food was awesome and we had a great time. After that we walked down the beach and found an American pub. Don’t ask me why we went to an American bar in Rio, but we started talking to the guy who owns it, and he is from Chicago and said we would have a good time because there was live music inside. He was right, and we had a great time listening to the guys playing American music and chatting it up all night. I ordered a margarita, but it was the worst margarita I have ever had so I didn’t bother to spend any more of my money on drinks. We left the bar around 1, and then headed back to the hotel. They are setting up a huge stage on Copacabana beach because apparently the Rolling Stones are doing a huge free concert there next week. It looked like it would be pretty cool, even though I don’t like the stones. We could see the stage every time we walked back to the hotel. We eventually got back to the hotel, and I went to bed because we had to be up at 8 for a full day of touring.


Day 2 in Rio was awesome. I woke up at 8, went down for some breakfast, and had some great Brazilian fruit juice that I have never heard of. After that we met up with our tour guides again and split up into 4 different vans. I was with the amazing Marcelo again, and he told us all about Brazil as we took the drive up to Corcovado. Corcovado is where the Christ the redeemer state is located. This mountain the statue is built on is over 2000 feet high, and you can see the statue from pretty much anywhere in Rio. The drive up to Corcovado was amazing. We drove through the Tijuca rainforest on cobblestone streets past little villages and home. When we finally reached the top of the mountain, we walked the 200 steps up to the monument, and it was really impressive. It was higher than sugar loaf and the views were just as amazing. The statue itself was huge and we all took pictures in front of it. There were a lot of people there and it was really crowded, but it was worth it to see it. After that we boarded 4X4 jeeps at the base of the statue and drove down through the jungle in them. It was so much fun riding in the open air jeeps really fast down the mountain. We then drove through the Santa Theresa district where we stopped, shopped, and had lunch. We ate at a restaurant called Sobrenatural, which was ok, but not great. This is the only bad part about SAS trips, when you are doing tours and are not doing stuff on your free time like at night, you go the restaurant they set up and eat the food they pay for. So they only served fish and rice to everyone at the restaurant, and I guess a lot of people either don’t like fish or were allergic so they were mad they couldn’t get anything else. Anyways, after lunch we watched a samba band play in the street while several SAS’ers danced to the music. We then boarded our cars again and were taken to a favela. Favelas are what slums are in Brazil. About 1/3 of the population of Brazil live in favelas. When we got there, we went to a community center that had been set up by volunteers and donations to give children something to do, and keep them off of streets and the life of crime. At the center there was a team of young kids playing soccer. They were amazing at the game. A couple of the SAS kids on our trip who think they are the coolest people on the face of the earth got a pickup game going against the kids. SAS lost, 3-1. You don’t mess with the Brazilian kids in soccer. After that we walked around the community center and saw a dance team of young girls. We then boarded our vans once again and headed to another famous tourist attraction, the cathedral. The cathedral was HUGE. From the outside it looks like a business building, but on the inside it has huge stained glass windows, and the ceiling is unbelievably high. After the cathedral we were dropped back off at the hotel around 4, and the rest of the day was our own. I went to the internet café next door for about an hour and caught up with some people from home on things. Sounds like the social life at UNH is heating up pretty well, and Syracuse now apparently has a problem with playing good basketball. I also got a flood of emails about a ship sinking in the Red Sea. I kind of got the story from some people, and heard that a lot of people were killed on it. I really don’t know what is going on. We don’t receive any sort of news coverage here on the ship, unless I go online and use my extremely expensive internet minutes, which I only do to update this blog, if the internet even works at the time. So basically I will be out of the loop until April. I do hear that Jimmy Buffett will be taking the summer off and touring only in the spring and fall, which works for me because I can work during the summer and save up for some fall shows. Rumors are also pouring in that he will be starting his tour on the west coast in April, so it looks like I may not be coming home as soon as I thought I would. If there is a set of shows out there when we dock, I am going. Look at me, I have rambled again, where was I?

Oh yes, after the internet café I went up to the pool deck with a few people to catch some rays in the beautiful South American sun, surrounded by tropical rainforests and the Copacabana beach. Up on the pool deck we met a man in an unfortunately very tight speedo(as all of the men that aren’t from the U.S. wear), who was from Paris. He spoke enough English for us to have a nice conversation with him, and I learned he was a fireman in Paris, which was cool. He told us some cool things to do at night in Rio, and we then went back down to our rooms to change. A bunch of us then went out to dinner again on Copacabana beach. We walked within the markets first, and several of my friends bought some awesome paintings from local artists. After that we chose one of the restaurants that again were dying for us to come and eat there, and we chose one hell of a restaurant. We heard over and over again how Copacabana is not a place to go at night. We knew that, but we knew how to handle ourselves and were with a big group of people and had no problems. On the other hand, when we were told there were prostitutes and all kinds of stuff down there at night, we didn’t realize the extent of the truth to this until we got to that restaurant. After we got our drinks and ordered our food, we realized that we were at ground zero for hookers. There was maybe one other older American couple in the restaurant, and at all the tables surrounding us were nothing but hundreds of prostitutes and pimps. Within our group that we went to dinner with, there were about 4 guys including me, and about 10 girls. The girls didn’t realize this at first until I nicknamed the restaurant, “Hooker Heaven”. After that we all were laughing at some of the unbelievable sights we were taking in, and we all agreed it was an experience we will never forget. Both outside restaurants on either side of us had maybe one or two people in it. We somehow managed to land in the hooker capital of Rio. It was obvious the restaurant owners allowed this, and I’m sure they got a cut from the big time pimps or whatever. I am laughing as I am writing this because you just had to have been there because it really was a site to see. THEY WERE EVERYWHERE. Besides that, I had some of the best pizza I had ever had. So after dinner, I was too drained to go out. Some people did, but most stayed in. I just went back to the hotel, found one of the American channels on the TV, watched Seinfeld with Portuguese subtitles, and went to sleep.

Day 3 was free for us to do whatever we wanted to do. We all met up around 11, checked out of our rooms, and went to Ipanema. In Rio there are two major tourist areas and beaches. Copacabana and Ipanema. Ipanema in my opinion is incredibly nicer than Copacabana. I think the stores are nicer, it is cleaner, and there are more restaurants. Both have incredible beaches. We shopped for a little while. I did not buy anything because I was short on cash. Like I said before, I did not bring all that much to Rio because we were unnecessarily scared straight. We then ate lunch at a place called Dolce Delicia. The food was great. I had bruschetta. After that we went back to the hotel and hung out for a little while until we had to meet in the lobby to leave. The whole trip group met around 5:45 and we then got on the buses and headed to the airport. We checked in at the airport and went to our gate, but we barely made our flight because there was a gate change and for some reason there is no notification of that anywhere. No screens say it, and everything announced is in Portuguese. So basically we figured out that when it came time to board, there was no plane at our gate and we eventually found the right one. This time we had a direct flight from Rio to Salvador, and we got in to Salvador at around 10pm. We got back to the ship around 11. I went up to the pool bar on the 7th deck with Ryan, and we got some food and I called my parents on my international cell phone. It sounds like the ‘cuse is faring well without me, which is surprising seeing as I hold up that town. Ha, I crack myself up.

Anyways, Sunday was our last day in Brazil, and no, we did not get to watch the Super Bowl. I woke up at 8, and Ryan and I went to go get some breakfast, then we met up with about 5 other people and headed down to the markets in the lower city of Salvador. I bought an awesome drum for 60 reals(about $30 US), a capoeira bow for 3 reals(about $1.50 US), and a Brazilian soccer jersey for 25 reals(about $12 US) that the lady told me was real Nike. Yeah, right. So basically I spent 100 reals that day, and about 100 reals in Rio. That is 200 reals. The exchange rate is around 2.1-2.4% depending on the day. That means I spent a total of approximately $100 American dollars in Brazil. That is awesome. That does not include what I paid for the Rio trip or the soccer game later that day, but that is on my main shipboard account. So later that day after shopping, we came back and exchanged stories with the people who were returning from the Amazon, including the rest of the red beanie crew.

At 1530 we went on an SAS trip to a Brazilian soccer game. Can you say INSANE?? It was one of the most fun nights I have had at a sporting event. We got to the soccer stadium, and were ushered in from the buses as quickly as possible. The reason for this was that there were a lot of women on this trip, and the men that were around were definitely a potential hazard. There were several times during the game when me and a few friends had to either escort a girl to the beer stand, or break up a confrontation where a man would not leave her alone and kept harassing her. It sometimes got difficult to tell them she was not interested and they needed to leave her alone. Some of the behavior of the Brazilian men really disappointed me, because I know that the Brazilians are warm and gentle people, but there are always those who choose to not be. Anyways, the soccer game was intense. It eventually ended with a tied score of 1-1, but when the team we were rooting for, Bahia, scored a goal, the stadium went absolutely nuts. People were lighting off fireworks, hugging each other, screaming at the top of their lungs, chanting, and throwing balloons and towels everywhere. The Brazilians love their soccer. My favorite part was that the referees were always escorted off the field by riot police. When the game was over, we waited about 20 minutes before we left for the same reason as before. When it came time for us to leave, there were about 300 SAS kids on this trip, and we were all escorted out by Military Police. It was awesome. There were riots in the street and stampedes, and the police were surrounding us as people were trying to get in our group and yelling things to us. It was full blown craziness. It was actually a little frightening, but it was so awesome to see. We finally made it to the buses while the MP’s held all the rioting Brazilians at bay.


I then came back and got some dinner with some people, and then we got some smoothies on the pool deck of course. We then set up some chairs on the top of the 7th deck by the edge. I called my parents for a few minutes and talked to them. Alex broke out his mandolin, and we set sail around 11. We left Brazil in the darkness, all lit up and free of SAS. I will be back though. I absolutely loved Brazil, and I can’t justify living the rest of my life without returning.

Now it is time for work. I have several field reports to write up, and we have 8 days of classes. I believe we get one day off for our Sea Olympics. I’m not sure. We dock in Cape Town, South Africa on February 14, Valentines Day. You can bet I will be up fro the sunrise that day. We get 7 days in South Africa, and I can’t wait.

That is all for now. My hair is starting to grow back. I’m not sure if I like this shaved head thing. It definitely is easier to have, but I don’t think I like the look of it much. I may keep it shaved for the rest of the trip because we are going to hit some really really hot places, and it will keep my head cooler. We will see. On a good note, I have yet to get sun burnt, surprisingly. I’m not even that much tanner. It must be the wonderful lack of sun in Syracuse that my skin is used to. Oh well.

I hope you all are enjoying my writings, and stay tunes for more. Goodbye!

P.S. – No, sadly I did not see the girl from Ipanema :-)