Rule: Don't Drink the Water

Status: Broken
It's totally fine, I don't know what all the fuss was about. Plus do you know how much money I'd waste if I bought water bottles...a whole freaking lot.

Oh the weather outside is frightful

so I went to the mall today.

Chirstmas decorations are already up.
As in a giant christmas tree when you first walk in

It's not even Halloween!

It's not even Thanksgiving!

Which granted, they don't celebrate, but still.
It's really freaking early for Christmas.

also. It's starting to get hot out.
Which is a total Christmas contradiction.
But whatever.

Oops, I did it again

This cooking thing.
Oh man.
Did you know if you leave onions and potatoes long enough they start to grow like sprouts or something on them?

At least they are not green this time. I think I'm improving. :)

Ryan Secrest is EVERYWHERE

No seriously.

I know that American pop culture has spread everywhere. People here watch the same tv shows and movies and listen to the same music I do. I'm used to that. What I didn't expect was to turn on the radio and hear- on Joburg's No. 1 hit music station- was Ryan Secreast hosting and talking away. Apparently one of his numerous jobs is hosting a South African radio station 7-10pm mon-fri. I almost fell off my bed I was so surprised. You should have seen my face.

Yeah America is everywhere.

The lion park

 On Saturday we went to the lion park! It was awesome. We got to go into this baby cub enclosure and pet the baby lion! Although shockingly they weren't all that cooperative and kept running around. They did however, stay put when chewing on someones sneakers and pulling the laces so they untied.

In that area they also had an enclosure of meerkats aka Timone from The Lion King.

trying to dig his way out of there

 Then we went on the safari part. We were in this giant van that had a gate all around it. The group of eight of us were pretty much the only people going at that time so we could each get a "window" seat. The first area we went to was the herbivore area. They let them all roam together so there were giraffes, zebras, ostriches, springboks, and more.

If you can see the red on his legs, it is because he is looking for a mate

for some reason, they all eat facing the same in direction

 Then we went into the carnivore section. First we passed by a family of lions.

The dad was yawning not roaring.

Then we went into a section of albino lions.

And then the coolest thing ever happened, these two male lions and some other male lion started having like, a conversation. They weren't roaring but they were going back in forth with like semi roar sounding noises. It was so cool.

All the work was clearly tiring to this guy.

Don't you just want to rub his belly?

And then we saw a cheetah. It was started to run and then stopped and just chilled for his photo op.

And that was our trip to the lion park!

Mozambique

It was awesome. We slept, we sprawled on the beach, we splashed in the Indian ocean (which is warm water btw) The water was beautiful shades of blue.

That's me, in the Indian Ocean

We go there on a tiny plane that we just walked right onto. They flight was pretty short, only three hours. The airport in Mozambique was tiny! You walked in, walked through the two people at customs, then baggage claim was there, turned a corner and you were where flight check in and security ( a sole metal detector) was. There was a tiny food place called "airport restaurant" The visa was easy too. We didn't get it before we left (we kinda forgot until it was too late) but we just showed up and they let us in.

This was where we stayed.

                                                                                                            

 We got food stuffs here a lot. On the left was a bakery filled with deliciousness and on the right was fresh bread and rolls. Most of the roads were not paved like this one, they were sand.

One day we sailed out to one of the islands near by and did some snorkeling. I had forgotten how much I enjoy sailing and the fish were awesome and had some amazing colors.

One day we went horseback riding in the morning. It was a lot of fun. My horse had these horse type sunglasses over her eyes because the pigmentation was poor or something. Her name was Evita. She enjoyed stopping to eat grass and occasionally going fast while we were on the beach. It was super fun.

Most of the time we spent lounging around on the beach or in the water or on this little deck thing enjoying the view.

This is what we saw when you opened the room door.

We tried to see the sunrise. One morning it was red!

The tide was crazy. High tide the water would start splashing up on the steps where we walked on to the beach. during low tide it was super low and sandbars would appear way out into the ocean. One morning we walked out to the sandbars. This dog that lived next door apparently came to the conclusion that we had no idea what we were doing and when it saw us swimming out there (or walking as it was pretty shallow) it came and swam with us to the sandbar. We walked across it to the ocean on the other side and when we stuck our feet in it yelped like oh hell no don't go in. Then it swam us back to shore, glancing back when the water got deep enough that we couldn't walk to make sure we'd be okay. It was adorable.

 

Can you see those little specks on the sandbar? That's us!

Local animal wise, there were chickens, a few goats, a whole lot of stray dogs that had a tendency to follow us. And then these lil critters.

Here are just some photos of local Vilanculos things

Housing

working on a boat

Playtime!

I am so glad I went! We had an awesome time.

The best part of this being spring semester

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SPRING BREAK





I'M OFF TO MOZAMBIQUE.



see you in a week