final (huge) post!

Ok, so im home now, but I thought I would do a blog update on our last week and a bit, when I didn’t have internet access for long enough to write an update.
So where were we….Robben Island, Friday…

On Saturday we had a pretty chilled out day – went to a Dutch art gallery and the market in the morning, then went to the Irish pub to watch the Lions match.
On Sunday we went to a local Church, then went swimming at the pool by our hostel (there were pigeons on the poolside!). Rang my daddy as it was Father’s day, then Caroline and I managed to find some Grey’s Anatomy on tv! In the evening we went to the Cathedral for evensong, which we thought would be a cool experience. It turned out it was an induction of some choristers, and the choir and orchestra were doing a performance of Vivaldi’s entire Gloria! Really enjoyed it.

On Monday it was raining and the hostel had power cuts. So we went to a diamond place! Haha. Looking like drowned rats we arrived at this posh place and got given drinks and a little tour about different types of diamonds and how they are cut etc. Lots of pretty jewels and jewellery, and some interesting South African history.
We got a tapas lunch, then continued our girly day with a visit to the Turkish Bath! We then went to this super-cute little place next to our hostel called ‘Cake’ and had tea and cake. In the evening we went to Comedy night at a local bar. We weren’t sure whether we would find the humour funny, but there were some pretty funny comedians and it was a fun night. While we were out, Caroline got a text from our airline we were flying with a couple of days later (like a South African Easyjet or something), saying our flight had been cancelled! It was fine though – they just put us on a different flight.

Tuesday was the most ridiculous cold and wet day! Having exhausted pretty much all of Cape Town’s inside activities, we had a day just chilling out at the hostel, going to the internet café and packing our bags for the next day.
A few amusing things from South Africa:
- They have Woolworths! It’s not the same as here. In fact it’s more like M&S.
- In the HIV ABC (abstinence, being faithful, condoms), they use the verb ‘condomize’ and this is a word they actually use!
- A price can be, say, 4.99, but they don’t actually have 1 cent coins, so they have to round it down to 4.95 and give you 5 cents change (the smallest coin). But if you buy 5 items ending in .99, you have to pay those extra few cents! Crazy.

Early set-off on Wednesday to the airport, to fly to Jo’burg. Our flight being changed to a BA one meant we got food on the flight – woohoo! We then got lunch on the flight to Zambia.
In Zambia we got our bags and sorted out visas, then had a bit of a scary time as our pick-up wasn’t there and we didn’t have any local money or anything. Managed to phone the hostel on Caroline’s UK phone eventually and they came and got us. Our hostel was called Fawlty Towers! Haha.
Zambia is much more ‘African’ than South Africa, and hotter too! The currency is ridiculous. 5000 kwacha is 1 USD (currently about 70p!).

On Thursday we went to the bank to cash some traveller’s cheques (yep – we’d got to that point!) but the guy insisted on some stupid rule that you need your receipt to cash them. We tried to explain what a ridiculous rule that is, and I pointed out that I cashed a TC in South Africa totally fine without the receipt, but the guy was pretty rude and unhelpful. So we tried to withdraw USD from our cards, but mine wasn’t accepted! Thank God for Caroline’s Visa card!
We then got the shuttle bus from our hostel to Victoria Falls. So beautiful – totally awesome! Photos totally don’t do it justice, and can’t show the sound of it or the mist that makes it feel like it’s raining! We went down one path (in like rainforest, because it is so wet with the mist) and ended up wading across a section of river to continue along! The trek back up was tough – phew!
We went across a bridge called the Knife-edge which was really near the falls, and got SOAKED. Perhaps the guys hiring ponchos had an idea…! It was really funny though, and we soon dried off!
We went just upstream of the falls, which was really beautiful. This side is all dry and dusty though, because it doesn’t have the mist to make it lush.

Friday was gorge-swinging day!! Very big, beautiful gorge right on the Zimbabwean border. Jack Osbourne and Elijah Wood came to this place for their Adrenaline Junkie show. We started with abseiling, then trekking back up the steep gorge (we did this 6 times by the end of the day…urgh). We then did ‘the flying fox’, which is a zip-wire over the gorge and you are attached by your harness on your back. You then run and leap off the cliff and the harness catches you and you zoom across horizontally. This was really cool because you felt like you were flying, and you just looked down over the gorge. On one time doing the flying fox, I somehow managed to stack it off the cliff – one of Caroline’s absolutely favourite moments of the whole of our travels…but that’s a story for in person!
We then moved on to the actual gorge swing. Here you are attached to a big rope, step off the edge of a cliff, fall 53 metres in 3.5 seconds, then swing across, before being lowered fully down to the ground. Scary as! You can hear my petrified screams, like I’m being tortured, on the video on facebook (watch from about 30 secs in to see me jump). Caroline and I then went on to do a tandem swing (rolling off backwards), then a backwards step each (the scariest) and another forward one, before we had cuts and bruises from the harness and couldn’t face the hike up the gorge any more times!

Man we ached on Saturday! I don’t think our bodies are made for jumping off cliffs (my medical education is evidently money well spent…) We spent the morning wandering through the local craft market, buying a few bits. I bought some Zimbabwean money – 20 billion dollar note, 50 trillion dollars and 100 trillion dollars. I gave these to my dad when I got home. Don’t say I never give you anything dad!
In the evening we went on a sunset river cruise on the Zambezi river. We bumped into the 2 guys from the wine tour, who had made it to Zambia driving up! Had nibbles and dinner and wine and saw hippos. Beautiful sunset.

On Sunday we went to a local church. I think we were the only white people there. The sermon was pretty long, and the rickety bench we were on wasn’t quite comfortable, but it was cool to go. In the afternoon Caroline and I had massages at the hostel salon! I’ve never had a massage before, so it was cool. I was only ticklish on a few bits on my feet and back. We ordered in pizza for dinner, having run out of food and failing to realise that shops are shut on Sundays!
In sad news, my amazing £4 Argos watch is dying a little bit! It seems to decide to have a little rest for about 15minutes now and again. I still maintain it was a great buy though! haha

On Monday we were planning on going to Zimbabwe for the day. We did go in the end, but first had a bit of drama…in the morning Caroline was randomly looking at her passport rather miraculously … ‘err, Lydia…my passport says the 27th June…’ (It was by now the 29th). Checking my passport too, we discovered that the guy at the airport had simply invented a date for our visas to expire…meaning we had by this point been in the country illegally for 2 days! Imagining Zambian prison cells and praying like mad, we sped off to Immigration – a shabby building, with no signs or anything. Down the end of dodgy corridors we came to a little office. Preparing for a fight and thinking we might need to cry our way out, we explained our story….and the guy just sorted it out! God just sorted it out man. We honestly breezed through Immigration, were out within 10minutes, and just couldn’t stop laughing at what had just happened! We even made it back to the hostel in time to get the shuttle bus to the Falls! We went across to Zimbabwe, saw the Falls from that side, and walked into the town. I managed to ask directions from a guy wearing a t-shirt clearly explaining that he is deaf and dumb…smooth. The traders were really really pushy, which got annoying. We actually had to run away from one guy who just wouldn’t leave us alone!

On Tuesday we began our journey home! It didn’t really feel like it – just felt like we were setting off to somewhere else on our travels! We set off to the airport in Zambia at about 10.30am UK time, and didn’t get home til about 10pm on Wednesday! Every single one of our flights was delayed, which didn’t matter too much when we had 5 or 6 hour waits at the next airport, but did make a difference when it was our last flight heading to London! This flight was from Qatar (a VERY hot country) at about midday. We got onto the plane a bit early, but the air con doesn’t work until the plane is moving, so we just had the little air blower things. So it was pretty warm. By pretty warm, I mean it was 41 degrees outside – so hot that the plane’s computer wouldn’t work. So we had to sit for 2 hours, melting on the plane, because it was too hot to work! Not fun, and we learnt not to believe the very occasional announcements, promising we would leave in 10minutes!
Finally in London, it was a further hour until the plane parked, we got through passport control and got our bags! Then a tube journey across London, and then HOME! Crazy. Very strange.
Now to write up the research…