Christmas - Australia - Happy New Year

I had a good one (Christmas) in Jo'burg. Started with a champagne breakfast. Then Christmas lunch, that Stevie made. The Menu: Baked beans on toast with fried eggs and white wine. Followed by a swim and more white wine. BBQ in the evening, more wine and then off to a local pub and on to vodka-red bulls. Stevie was "the star" in the pub. He met all this really nice blokes that just kept buying him drinks.... took him a while to realize that they where all gay and loving him. Had a blast. Very very different to my usual non-alcoholic Christmas back home.

Arrived in Sydney on the 28th and still struggling to get over my jet lag. Had some troubles getting on the plain since I did not have a return ticket and Icelandic passport seemed a bit "suspicious". Or like this security guy said: "We don't get many Icelanders going through South-Africa to Australia" Got pulled aside as well at immigration and my passport was checked extra carefully since it had "visible prints" or something like that. Was getting a little bit worried at that point. But eventually they let me in :)

I am staying with a friend that lives fairly down town in the heart of the gay area. Very interesting place and I think New Years is gonna be good fun. Have been doing a little bit of sight-seeing, but mostly drinking in pubs so far. Will start to organize my trip after the New Year. The plan for now is Australia and New Zealand for the next 2 - 3 months. But we'll see.

Happy New Year !!!

Gledileg jol - Merry Christmas

I wish you all a Merry Cristmas!!
Gledileg jol elskurnar minar !!!

Soweto - Apartheid Museeum

Said goodbye to Kate yesterday !!! It was so difficult!!! So now I am on my own. I decided to go sight-seeing into Soweto, which is the most famous township here. It was very intresting. But it is not really longer the really poor Africa. It is very organized and has alot of nice houses now. But it was very intresting. This morning I went to the Apartheid museeum. It was very good and emotional. This evening some people from my tour are coming in to Jo'burg. So hopefully I will meet up with some of them.

I can't get it into my head that it is Christmas around the corner....uh..tomorrow. It is just so far away from me. My late Christmas-present this year to you all will be to upload pictures as soon as I get to Australia. I know that some people are waiting to see some.

Take care and Merry Christmas.

Jo'burg

The bus-drive down to Jo'burg was funny. Since we could not use a credit card and we did not have alot of US dollars, we had to take the ceapest bus down there. It is a 16 hours drive, no toilet on the bus and you could not lean the seats back.
And we where the only white people on the bus. Our driver and fellow passenger where simply adorable. They where all taking care of us and making sure we where OK, and knew what to do at the boarders etc. Just after we crossed the boarder we made a stop in a small town and the bus drove off to refuel. Since we did not have any money we where eating the rest off our food (nesti ): stail bread, crisps and half rotten bananas. This white couple passed us and asked what we where doing there. And when we answeared that we where on a bus to Jo'burg. They asked back: "Are you sure? Are you sure you have a seat?"

We drove through the biggest scariest thunderstorm that I have ever seen. It was so scary I had to lie down, because I could not look outside. It rained so much. When we arrived at Park Station in Jo'burg we saw the news and there where reports of many fatal accident due to this storm.

All the ladies from the bus where so worried about us when we arrived, because we had no one to pick us up and had not made any reservation anywhere and it was 4:30 in the morning. Down town Jo'burg is known to be NOT SAFE. And those locals made it very clear to us not to go outside. We ended up sitting with them for about 4 hours. They where so lovelly. We got some money, made reservations and got pick up before 9.

The day was lazy day. In the evening we drank cheap Zimbabwe Brandy and had cheese and crackers. Our last night together.....and then we headed to the bar....

Zimbabwe

The tour ended on the 16th of december. The next 2 days people from my trip split up. Some went on on a new trip either down to Cape Town or to Jo'burg. While others flew out from Vic Falls home. Me and Kate, a girl from New Zealand where left behind. And we travelled together down to Jo'burg. Kate is just a cool and lovelly girl, so much fun. And we had a really good time travelling down here.

We started the trip by taking the night train to Buloway. This local lady shared our "first class" cabin ( the ticket was $4 US). And before we left she started talking about how she hated to travel with the train because it was not safe at all. So many accident in the last 6 months. 2 very serious where people got "perished", once because there was an elephant on the track and another one because 2 trains collided. Good to hear at the start of the trip. There was also some serious dodgie driving going on in the night. Slow, and then alot of speed and then breaking hard etc. And we found out that the train kind of stops if there is a group of 10 or so people hangin around the track. No sign of a train station. :)

But we got there safely. Next step was to book a trip to Jo'burg by bus. We had no luck because we did not have South-African Rand's which was the only currency they excepted. No international credit cards and no US dollars and no Zim dollars either. Fine, but after going to 9 banks we found out that there was no rand's to be had off the black market. The money thing is strange here. If you go to a bank you get 250 Zim dollars for 1 us. If you change on the black market you get 2000 Zim dollars for 1 us!!! Since it is illegal to trade money on the black market, and we had no clue how to do it here, we had to try something else. In the end we begged our way to the ticket guy at the bus-station to take our US, whick he did in the end. Since our experience off the place was so shitty we decided to leave for Jo'burg. We where both running out of money and in need for ATM.

Booze cruise, River Rafting, Gorge-swing

The booze cruise was a success. Hillarious outfits that people got on. I think nobody saw the sunset and people where stumbling of the boat in the end. I felt a bit sorry for the other people on the boat, a group of overweight americans over 60. The party continued at the camp-ground. With alot of weird-ness going on. The high-light might have been this Auzzie guy that danced none stopped at the bar for 2 hours wearing nothing but his underwear.

Next morning it was the River Rafting on the Zambesi. Oh my god, it was awsome. I was so afraid I thought I would die. I can't count how many times I was thrown out of the boat, we flipped over a couple of times. Twice I acctually thought I would die. This was nothing like river raftings that I had done before. I bruise easily so I look like a got a good beating, my arms are coverd in bruises.

The day after the rafting I did the adrenaline day. It started with an abseil down a 54 m cliff. I enjoyed that. It was not difficult at all. The next thing, was a flying fox or High Wire. Where you run of a platform and to a superman over the gorge. A little bit more scary. And last but not least was the gorge swing . That was scary as hell. To take that step of the cliff.....f##k. You freefall for 54 m and reach a speed up to 180 km. I did that twice once on my own with a forward stepping of the cliff and then a tandem with my friend Meghan. Where we went backwards of the cliff. It was such a scary but cool experience !!! I loved it.

Livingstone

Well, know I have seen the Victoria Falls from both sides Zambia and Zimbabwe. The water is much lower than last time that I was here more then 1 1/2 year ago. But still amazing.

Tonight we are doing a sunset cruise on the Zambesi river a.k.a. "the booze cruise". You pay 35$ for it and it includes drinks and dinner. And if they run out of booze you get your money back, and they say that has never happened. But many people have missed the sunset :)
The bonus is that we are all gonna dress up for the cruise. Our names where put in a hat and everybody got 5$ to spend on a costume for their person. No one knows who's dressing who. It will all be revealed before we go on the cruise.

Tomorrow almost the whole group is doing River Rafting down the Zambesi. It is supposed to be one of the better once in the world.......and a great hang-over cure.

Saturday, I am doing a Andrenaline-day. Which is a gorge-swing ( rola yfir gili, nokkurs konar bunhji), abseil (klettasig) and Flying-fox on a wire over the gorge. I am still a bit sceptic if I will have the nerves to do all of it. But peer-pressure is a wonderful thing :)

Saturday is the final day on the trip for me. From there I will travel with Kate, a girl from New Zealand, to Johannesburg. We are planing to do it the hard-core public transport way. I will spend Christmas in Johannesburg with an english guy from the trip. Stevie, he is just such a laugh and we are on the same flight over to Sydney on the 27th of December. So I will not be on my own for Christmas !!!

Knus og Kossar

Lake Malawi

Malawi is beautiful and the people so friendly. It is one of the poorest countries in the world. It is acctually at times heartbreaking to see it. And think about how much we take for granted. Just if you give somebody an empty waterbottle makes a difference. We stayed one night at a campside close to the boarders to Tanzania just on the beach. The next 3 nights we stayed in Kande Beach. Lovelly campside just on the beach as well and at the edge of a village. So you could go out and meet a lot of locals. We went for a village walk. It was great there was a wedding taking place and the whole village was there. Visited a school, that has 1500 students and 10 teachers. So they are desperate to get more teachers. Visted a "hospital". That would defenetly not live up to our standards of a hospital. Malaria is a big problem, they don't get the medicine they need. It was very intresting to talk to the doctor. At Kande Beach there was more party-ing and swimming at night time. I dived in the lake. It was pretty cool. Just like beeing in a big aquarium. ( Don't know about the spelling). It was weird to dive in a fresh water. Today we are heading to Zambia.....so I guess I will be in Livingstone next time you hear from me. Thank you all that have sendt me emails. It is so nice to get news from you. I will try to write you back as soon a possible. Don't have more time for now !!! Lots of hugs and kisses.

Tanzania

After Zansibar it was back to the mainland. We stayed an extra day in Dar Es Salaam, because one guy on the trip got really bad news, his brother died. So he and his girlfriend had to sort out stuff to get home. And our tour-leader wanted to make sure that they got out OK. So we stayed an extra day. It was really good to have an extra day just to relax. The campside was at the beach and I upgraded to a beach-hut. Lovelly. The next 2 days after that we had 2 LOOOONG driving days, to get us to Malawi.

Zansibar

Had was just amazing. We were right at the beach and it was postcard perfect. I did a scuba tune-up course, so nice to be back in the water. A lot of good food and party-ing. Highlight of the party side was the Full Moon Party on the beach. A lot of dancing and the most public skinny-dipping that I have seen :)

Zansibar is just amazing place.

Zansibar, Tanzania and Malawi

I am alive and fine in Malawi now. Had a blast in Zansibar and Lake Malawi.
Will tell you all about it later. Just wanted to let you know that I am alive :)
Tomorrow we head into Zambia.