Costa Rica in 3 weeks, Part 1: Border Hopping and Tamarindo

I’m finished most of my internship at the butterfly gardens and just had 3 weeks to travel before a two week volunteer stint at Cano p
Palma research station. I started by going to San Juan del Sur in Nicaragua, then spent a week in Tamarindo surfing, climbed in Cachi, snorkelled in Uvita and spent a week at The Yoga Farm in Punta Banco. I’ve been a terrible blogger and haven’t been keeping up at all, so I’m going to write this in three parts, breaking it into:
1. Nicaragua and Tamarindo
2. Cachi
3.Punta Banco

Nicaragua and Tamarindo

San Juan del Sur is a very touristy town in Nicaragua so I probably shouldn’t have been surprised to learn I was sharing a room with 11 frat guys, or that one of them had shat on the floor the night before. The area surrounding the town is quite gorgeous though! I spent a bit of time on the beach my first day, then hiked around more on my second day, got a little bit lost, but figured it out and had a pretty great time overall.

So this is what was taped to the bunk next to me when I arrived

A nice beach, with a very large Jesus statue looking out over the town

About a 45 minute walk from town, or a 2 hour walk if you’re me and accept a ride from someone who has no idea what you’re talking about when you say petroglyph and takes you to a suburb..but either way you can find a beautiful river with a large petroglyph.

I don’t know very much about it, but it is amazing to look at!

Hiked back to town then up to the Jesus statue where the view is amazing!

Me and Jesus watching over the bay

A few of the guys in my dorm went on a booze cruise, came back and promptly passed out after drawing on each other drew, then puked and peed their beds. Nice work gentlemen. My bunkmate let his friend who peed in his bed join him in his bed as long as he promised to “respect my bunkie, you’ve gotta be nice to my bunkie because she’s a marine biologist and I love her”. So that was funny.

After an early morning border crossing, which was mad hectic and involved a 2 hour line up in the dusty heat, I was en route to Tamarindo.

Tamarindo

I spent a week in Tamarindo at Witches Rock Surf Camp. When i arrived I barely had time to put my things in my room and throw my swimsuit on before my first lesson. The waves were pretty big on my first day, and i may have overstated my surfing experience en espanol, so my instructor kept chucking me on big waves. It was pretty sweet, I dropped in on a few pretty good ones and intimidated most of the guys in the camp. We had a 90 minute surf session everyday plus some type of tutorial like surf safety, surf etiquette, history of surf, science of waves, and a couple video analysis where we essentially watched the best bails and rides of the day from where we were secretly filmed in the bushes.

So ready to surf

An afternoon tide pool exploration turned into putting sea stars on our heads

Check out the cute nudibranch!

Surfing in the river mouth, the waves were kind of small after the first couple days but we still had a great time

Coconut on the beach

My roommate was into crossfit so we did WODs (workout of the days) in between surf sessions

Barnacles!!! Yes I am 3 exclamation marks excited about barnacles. I got to show people tide pools and explain the joys of barnacles to them. Most people don’t realize that there is an animal in that little cone structure. Well, usually, unless a sea star or something has eaten them.

A visitor at breakfast

We had an infinity pool which was actually pretty nice to relax in. I’m normally against pools next to beaches, but I came to accept it as something pretty wonderful

We were able to watch Robert August shape a custom surf board, he has done over 35,000 of them!

Shaping that board

Last day with my two favourite instructors, Axel and Maria

Our surfer stances. My favourite lesson from Maria was how girls need to pop up slightly differently because we have “the boobies” and the booties.

Some of the crew on our last night

And i now have a surf diploma, pretty much going to frame it next to my BSc.

So surf camp was a pretty killer time. Worth it for sure, if anyone wants to go if I recommend you you get $50 off or something. I tried out my new surfing skills in Punta Banco and got smashed by the huge waves, but to be totally honest, I deserved that. The waves were really big.

Next up, Cachi Crags and Uvita!

Monteverde: the first 2 weeks

Costa Rica has been such an adventure so far and I’ve only been here for 11 days. I’ve been giving tours of the butterfly gardens during the day, reading a lot, hiking and have even gone out dancing a couple times. On a scale of one to terrible, I’m pretty much the worst at dancing but I’ve managed to get by, mostly by finding guys who are half decent at leading and then just smiling and laughing a lot when I screw up.

Climbing on a big fig tree I found on a hike near the butterfly gardens

The tours at the butterfly garden are so much fun, I basically take groups through an arthropod room tell them all about tarantulas, scorpions, beetles, cockroaches and a few other neat things then we go through 4 butterfly gardens. People come in from all different backgrounds so sometimes it’s a little difficult to communicate and I end up doing a lot of weird interpretive dances mimicking scorpion mating…but I think I get the message across! We try to kind of make it funny, but the language barrier kind of annihilates some of my jokes. That and there are definitely some major cultural differences when it comes to humor. So far, I’ve found that German people either think I’m the funniest thing ever, or they just stare at me like an idiot whenever I try to be funny. There is no middle ground.

Some Owl butterflies at the bar. They eat fermented fruit all day, they are the alcoholics of the butterfly world. And they suffer the consequences, only living for a few weeks!

I had my first day off on Friday, hiked for a solid 8 hours, got kind of lost on a trail, which ended up being really nice because I found a big fig tree! Then I hiked Cerro Amigos, which is this pretty big elevation gain, but it’s worth it because the view is supposed to be aaamazing, except for when it’s cloudy, which it was. So I got a wonderful photo of the inside of a cloud…

Check out that view! Top of Cerro Amigo. I wasn’t willing to wait around long enough for the weather to clear up. It was a great hike though, 1842m!

I then went to the bat jungle. It was amazing, I learned so much and am pretty much going to be the hugest entomology/bat nerd after this trip! It was great because one of the guys who works there let me and the other volunteer join him mist netting the night before, so I’d seen a few bats in the wild and learned a bit before actually going for a tour. The mist netting was so much fun! We went out two nights in a row, set up very fine nylon nets along trails and then checked them for bats every 15 minutes or so for a couple hours. We saw a striped palm viper, which I walked right past in shorts so thankfully it didn’t bite me! An orange kneed tarantula, an orange mouthed arboreal tarantula, and 3 silky short-tailed bats. The animals in this country are amazing!

Check out how cute this bat is!

So in summary, everything is amazing and here are a bunch of photos:

The beautiful Julia butterfly.

Some owl butterflies getting it on.

The Asthma beetle. Thought to cure asthma when eaten it turns out they actually cause asthma by chewing detritus up and making fine dust!

When a caterpillar turns into a butterfly, it makes a chrysalis out of it’s exoskeleton and turns into goo inside, then completely reforms into a butterfly and emerges!

You can read all about how inside the chrysalis it is just a pile of goo, but we had one that wasn’t emerging, so we cut it open to see for ourselves! Yup. Pile of goopy wet brown stuff.

Coffee and a sunset before bat research assistanting time!

The striped palm viper that we walked right past!

“Fishing” for an orange mouthed arboreal tarantula with a katydid on a leash

Hello beautiful day! Cerro Amigos.

No hike would be complete without some impromptu trail yoga!

Totally biffed it on the way down Cerro Amigos (super steep), then I had to walk through town with a questionable looking brown mud stain on my shorts/legs. Good times!

Congratulations on making it all the way through my hiking/arthropod photos, here is a cute little mammal as a reward. It’s a Coati!

So, Costa Rica is great. Public education is a blast. Seriously considering doing a masters in science education (apparently Laurentian University has a good program). I’m hoping to organize an event for the young naturalist club here in the next couple months. They are a group aged 6-13 and I’m thinking I’ll probably go for an ethnobotany lesson or something, but I’m not entirely sure yet. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

With love from Costa Rica, see you all back in Canada (or wherever) soon!
Christina

To Monteverde!

I arrived safely at The Monteverde Butterfly Gardens and have started to settle in and learn my way around a little. It was a bit of an adventure getting here though! To preface this post, I was not very prepared for this trip. I forgot to get a typhoid fever vaccination, I didn’t learn nearly enough Spanish, and I bought the guide book at the airport.

I flew out of Vancouver and had a brief stop over in Los Angeles before my overnight flight to San Jose. Once out of the airport in San Jose I completely disregarded my friend’s advice about only taking the orange cabs from the airport and hopped in a Honda Accord with a taxi driver who spoke English quite well. We went through probably the sketchiest area I have ever been through (that being said, I am not that well travelled) and I was dropped off at a Spanish speaking bus station, near the Coca Cola bus area.

Waiting at the bus station forever

Once I’d successfully purchased a ticket, in Spanish (I was pretty proud of myself), I had 5 hours until the bus arrived. I figured I’d have lunch and use the internet at the little cafe near the bus terminal. The good news is, it was $3 USD for a latte and a lunch thing, the bad news is I’m a vegetarian and I think I ate chicken. I just pointed at something behind the counter as I was failing epically at reading the menu. Turns out it had chicken in it, or pork, I’m not entirely sure to be honest. But on the bright side, I now know how to ask if there is meat in things. I then proceeded to hang out at the bus station for 5 hours while diligently guarding my bags. I had to pee, a couple times. You have to pay 200 colones to use the washroom, someone had peed all over the floor, there was no seat on the toilet, and there was a man fixing the sink. So I essentially did weighted squats with my 65L backpack, while trying not to laugh. And I thought I wouldn’t get in any exercise while traveling!

A kitty friend I made at the bus station.

The bus ride up was all Spanish speaking people, lucky for me there was one German girl with broken English and she translated a few things for me. Including “there might be thieves, watch your bag” which the bus driver had tried to get across by pointing at my bag and making a sad face with a pretend tear drop after I confidently told him “No hablo Espanol moy bien”, which is probably spelled worse than I pronounced it. Once on the bus with my bags safely stowed I fell asleep for about an hour, then I woke up and we were driving through these gorgeous forests with huge green trees. We went through a few small towns and then drove up a winding dirt road for about an hour to get to Monteverde. I took a taxi up to the “Jardin de Mariposas” and met everyone. It’s me, another volunteer, the owners, and their 11 year old son all living at the gardens. I have my own room for now, but will be sharing with another female volunteer who is arriving in a couple weeks.

The volunteer quarters, well kind of. This is the kitchen/other volunteers room.

I had my first day, followed a tour, walked through the gardens, memorized some butterfly names and facts, learned how to do a few maintenance type things and attempted to make empanadas.

Just to be clear, I’m not a totally ignorant tourist…I didn’t really think I’d need much Spanish to get to the butterfly gardens and thought I’d just kind of wing it, but for the rest of my trip when I am traveling I’m planning to actually learn to speak enough to get by.

Not a bad view from the balcony

Only the coolest beetle ever: the elephant beetle. It feels soft like velvet.

An owl butterfly in the low altitude garden

Silver crysalids from which glass butterflies will one day emerge.

A stingless bee colony

Turns out I have curly hair! Me in my room.

I’m excited to be doing tours and working here for the next 2.5 months! I’ll probably be blogging about neat insects and stuff for the rest of my time here, there is a lot to learn!

Love to Canada from Costa Rica, hope you’re all enjoying winter!

P.S. I saw a tucan and a white faced monkey today! I didn’t get pictures though.

Back to Canada

I left South Africa and the game reserve on July 18. The last week, and my entire time there, was amazing and I miss it already. During our last week we did a lot of road repair, enjoyed another breakfast at the lodge, and had a massage in town before and a few fantastic braais. Eda gave me a lot of her photos, but the USB I put them on isn’t working so hopefully I can convince her to email them to me…there are a lot of them and they are large files though, so we’ll see.

Kim, who is one of the people running the volunteer program, wanted me to go on a game drive before I wrote my final exam for my field guiding course. We’d been driving around every morning and seeing all of the animals but it was interesting to get a different perspective on it by having a field guide. It helped quite a bit actually. I wrote my exam the night after the game drive, and it had lots of theory questions which we learned in class but there were quite a few practical questions as well. I recieved my results a few days later, they are quick markers, and passed with 83%. So I just have to register with DEAT and I can be a South Africa field guide.

We also did a night game drive, so we were able to see the animals at night which was really interesting. We saw lots of rabbits and were hoping to spot some porcupines, but they were all hiding. We did a rifle handing course. We shot a .22, 308 and a 410. It was a lot of fun. I still have bad aim, but my grouping is good so hooray for small victories.

My favourite animals were the cheetahs. I have pretty much decided that my masters or PhD project will involve conservation genetics, but I would love to work with cheetahs as well. They are very interesting genetically as they went through a population bottleneck, meaning at one point there were very few left so they are all very similar genetically. This poses a problem as low genetic diversity can lead to many problems in a population. For example, if a disease were to enter the population it would likely affect all individuals.

I loved all of the animals though, and although Canada is beautiful and I’m happy to see my family and friends I am really missing South Africa!

My plan as of now is to finish my biology degree, I graduate in December, and then head back to South Africa. If I can find a job I would really like to work as a field guide for about a year before beginning my masters or PhD.

I’m in Princeton until Tuesday when I leave for Bamfield then I will be back in Kelowna in September, so see everybody then!

Much love,

Christina

Khaki fever, puff adders and graduation

My time at the nature college was so wonderful. It was a lot of lectures, a lot of field work, and a lot of studying. But I appreciate this area so much more now.

The other people in my course were all so fantastic. There were seven of us; Rose is a birder and reminded me of mom, Lorna called me ‘pet’ and always had a hug or something nice to say, Landi is studying nature conservation in school and has the perfect personality for tour guiding, Jaunita works on expedition ships and is very well travelled, Paul is a hunter and has done anti poaching work in Tanzania, Richard just sold his B&B and wanted to get into guiding, and Wendy is hilarious and is definitely going to have entertaining tours, I wish I could see her in action. Our instructor John was so knowledgable, I get the feeling he could survive quite nicely for a long time if someone were to dump him out in the woods. And Jaques is this hilarious Afrikaans guide who gets soooo excited about everything. He has this amazing ‘african hillbilly’ accent and I will never forget the way he yelled ‘ETHICS’ when talking about a guide driving over a quartz field.

I have had some of the best running of my life here . First the ostrich incident I mentioned in my last post, then a few days ago I found a dead snake. I flipped it over and took a picture. John identified it as a puff adder and told me about thanatosis. Sometimes snakes play dead….luckily mine was actually dead or I could
have gotten a nice dose of cytotoxin! I was really enjoying a nice short run one day when this spribgbok darted out across the road.
So I stood there thinking “oh no…why is this thing running? There must be
something chasing it…” there had been leopard tracks the other day, and they were far away, but i patched myself out and decided
to turn back. I ran a few minutes back towards the college and I saw some
ostriches running then they stopped on the road ahead. Again:
what were they running from? I sat down and waited until they moved and then a snake darted into the bush beside me. I jumped and just ran at full speed for about
5 minutes completely missing the turnoff I should have taken. So I went all the
way to the paved road, which is a ways away, and in the end I accidently ran for about an hour and a half.
Short run day indeed.

For my assessment this morning I had to give an hour long tour to Landi and Lorna while John followed and assessed me. He was watching for client handling, general knowledge, interpretations, awareness and just generally how I was doing. I talked about spiders, lichen and sybiotic relationships, mistletoe, the poverty bush and num num tree, ostriches, porcupine dung, aardvark burrows, mima (termite) mounds, the San people, how to tell direction, adiobatic cooling and rain shadows, bird identification, quartz vein formation….you can discuss a lot in an hour! I lost a couple points because I was discussing a midden (a pile of dung to mark territory) and apparently there were some baboon calls that I didn’t hear or acknowledge. I also apparently sounded a little uncertain about some tracks I identified as “probably steenbok”, so I got docked a couple points but managed to score 90%. Which I feel pretty good about considering I have been here for two weeks and have never seen these plants/animals before.

But it’s over! I have a written test, which I am not worried about, then i am a CATHSSETA certified field guide. Everyone left happy, and we all piled into our respective vehicles and said our goodbyes this afternoon. Jaques and his wife nadia drove me into town. During the drive we had a talk about HIV and ‘khaki fever’ (when “foreign girls make it a mission to hop into bed with anything wearing khaki” and get HIV). I knew the rate of HIV was high here but it is ridiculous! One of the bigger universities has a 1/3 rate of infected people. Also, the president apparently proposes that if you have sex with an HIV positive person you can just have a hot shower. He did it with an HIV postive prostitute so it obviously works. Jaque, his wife Nadia and I had lunch before I went back to the Garden Route Game Lodge. Jaque’s last words to me; “keep in touch, and don’t forget; khaki fever is real!’ I got back to the game lodge, had the best shower of my life, a glass of wine to celebrate and the fire was just started for a braai.

Paul, Wendy, rose, Richard and landi on the bakkie

A blackback jackel. You can tell its a blackback jackel and not an aardwolf because of the way its claws are away from the toes and point straight ahead, also because there are two lobes on the pad and the back two toes are more or less parallel. Fun facts.

Checking out some tracks

My friend the puff adder – definitely dead

Landi and Jauni watching some birds

The little brown ones are South African shelducks. I used them in my assessment, thankfully they were on this lake because they are one of a few I can identify.

Cave painting in ochre by the San people. The speculated meaning of this one is a woman died giving birth here

Me and Jauni cooking up a storm, ochre face stripes and mealie pap to make it a very African experience

A mould fossil of a glossopteris leaf

Jauni braaing. Everyone here braais everything. Also, fish with apricot jam, try it sometime.

The best shower in the world. Outdoors, wooden slats, overlooking the game reserve and I brought a glass of wine.

Loving life. Glad to be back at the game lodge, as much as I loved the college I am happy to be surrounded by elephants, baby cheetahs and lions again. Tomorrow I get to do snake handling and elephant darting! So excited.

See everyone in two weeks!

Christina goes to college

I am now at the nature college, there are two campuses and I’m at the smaller one. It is two buildings located in the middle of the aardvark nature reserve.  There are 7 other students, all from South Africa and everyone has decided to educate the Canadian girl. We made ‘mealie pap’, an African maize dish, and I had to eat it in the traditional way with my hands. We’ve had a few braais and everyone is attempting to teach me to speak afrikaans. I know how to say ‘thank you’, ‘hangover’, ‘good meal’, ‘slippers’, ‘surfer’, some swear words and a few plants. All of the important things. We also had a dung spitting competition. Yes, that is exactly what it sounds like.

We have lecture in the mornings, then a break until 3 when we do our practical field work. So far we’ve learned about ecology, astronomy, botany, insects, tracking, geology, climate and weather annd a bit of marine biology (which I ended up teaching the lecture on because our instructor has “no desire to ever go to the beach”). So basically I can find my way around South Africa, tell you uses for most plants, and track animals….but we haven’t done mammals or birds yet so although I can tell who the tracks belong to I couldn’t tell you what the animal looks like…

On my run the other day i came across a herd of ostriches. They were blocking my path, so I basically just had to wait for them to move. Turns out its a good idea to learn about local wildlife before going out trail running in the middle of a nature reserve…but i just pretended they were deer and it all worked out. We also saw baboons on the drive into town! It’s funny being around people who grew up here because when I get sooo excited about the ostrich outside or the baboon on the road they all laugh at me. I now understand how people feel about deer in Canada.

Basically what ill end up with after my assessment is my nqf2, also called fgasa 1. It gives me the ability to legally work anywhere in South Africa as a field guide. So taking people on walking or driving tours in national parks or private game reserves and telling them about south African plants, wildlife, history etc…
I’m heading back to the garden route game lodge after my assessment and will volunteer there and, as long as I pass everything, start giving driving tours to guests in the “bakkies”, aka trucks. Oh, and I can drive! Apparently epilepsy driving laws are a bit different here. Very excited for more hands on work with animals back at the game lodge, but really having a great time and enjoying the company of 8 wonderful people for these couple of weeks at the college.

Missing everyone, but having an amazing time. Three more weeks in this wonderful place.

The nature college, surrounded by the succulent karoo of the aardvark reserve

Learning about plants with Jaques and John. (rose, jaques, Wendy, richard, juanita and john). I really need to lay off the plants and get some better pictures of my class…

A beautiful sunset as seen from the kitchen stoop

Out for some field work in the back of the bakkie. Me and landi in front, lorna, then Paul and Richard in the back

A quartz field, one of the most delicate ecosystems. Some plants only grow here because of the temperature in the white rocks. There is one species of plant that is only found in this specific quartz field.

I’m really liking this red lichen

Ostriches are really intimidating, okay?

The Acacia karoo, my favourite thorny tree. Also called the sweet thorn. You can make excellent rope from its bark.

Crickey, its an aardvark track!

Gorgeous drive

This one time, I put hartebeest poo in my mouth and spat it out. I spat it farther than anyone else. Dung spitting champion right here. I think I’m done with school, I’ve found my calling.

Babys bottom, a quartz field specific plant.

This is how cold it is in the morning. In class, with tea and a hot water bottle and a blanket. Buildings are not heated here…to be fair it isn’t this cold all the time. There was a cold front for a day or two.

Babooooonnn!!!!! It’s so cute, there was a baby too.

But really, if you ever feel like your degree is useless let’s.talk about how I am a South African field guide living in Canada…

I can’t rotate photos on my tablet. Hence all the sideways pictures. Sorry necks.

Au revoir!

Cape town and the game reserve

I arrived late Tuesday in cape town and had 3 days to explore. Wednesday I woke up and went for a walk, I found the ocean and explored tide pools. Within about 5 minutes I slipped and fell in…it was a wet 20 minute walk back to the hostel. I then went to the nelson mandela museum and went out to robben island. We had a guided tour of the island including the prison. It was quite amazing.

On Thursday me and a friend from the hostel went up table mountain. I was supposed to do an abseil, but the wind was too strong. We had a great hike around the top and a gorgeous view of the city off the back of the mountain. I wandered downtown, went to the market then my roommate izzy and i went out to mama Africa to try some traditional South African food for dinner. I ate a bit of her bobotie, which is a ground beef type thing with egg on it. I ordered a veggie dish though, it was a squash stuffed with a bunch of spinach and things. There was a live band as well which was very cool.

Friday was my wine tour day. We visited 4 different vineyards, all of which were so unique with very interesting histories. South Africans sure know how to make wine! A very hungover christina left he next morning for the bus ride to the garden route game lodge. I pretty much slept all the way there then I got to this beautiful nature reserve, made a sanwhich and had a nap. Sooo hungover. But once i woke up we had a braai, fed the elephants and played with baby cheetahs!!!! There are 3 of us volunteers, a family and a couple employees who live here as well.

I leave for the nature college this afternoon but will be back here at the garden route game lodge in 2 weeks. At the nature college I will do a field guiding course where I learn plants, animals, weapon handling, snake handling, darting, and a ton of other cool stuff. My practicum is then guiding tours here at the garden route game lodge.

This morning we had a tour of the reserve. We saw all kinds of animals; cheetahs, springbok, snakes, antelope, zebras, elephants… It’s been an amazing time so far. Time to do homework, pack, and find out how many bottles of wine I can take back to Canada…

The ocean

A little sea star I found in a tide pool

Anemone!!! I love the ocean.

The view of table mountain from the boat ride to robben island

The penguins of robben island

The prison

Table mountain. It was a rainy day with most of the view looking like this.

After 2 hours of hiking we found a clear area where we could see the city

The first vineyard, fairview. I fell in love with their pinotage.

Vrede en lust, where the wine is great, the girls are gorgeous and the chocolate is amazing. They co own lindt chocolate.

Solms delta, my personal favourite. With very unique wines and a tasting in the museum. We also had an amazing lunch here in their glass floored resteraunt.

Solms delta outside

Villiera, they have an amazing selection of champagne here.

The tented camp we stay in at the garden route game lodge. Gorgeous view, we are in the middle of the reserve.

At a braai with a baby cheetah, I love Africa! These cheetahs will be around humans their whole lives. They plan to use them for commercial purposes including carrying rings down the aisle at weddings.

A wilder cheetah, he just had surgery after breaking his leg.

Baby giraffe, he is 1 month old.

Out on the reserve

This is the actual lodge, where the tourists stay

Departure

I have arrived safely in South Africa, and am loving it so far!

Mom and I left for Seattle on the 11th. On the way down we stopped in chilliwack for lunch with aunty Lauretta. We also stopped at a mall, where in true Christina fashion, I lost my wallet. Luckily a store found it, but not before I got on my plane and cancelled all my cards. Mom and i figured out a way for me to get by in the meantime, but hopefully my new cards are sent soon. Lucky I prepaid for my hostels and bus tickets!

After losing my wallet 12 hours before my flight I found out great news. My cousin Bob and his wife Jess had their baby! I can’t wait to meet him. And my other cousin Justine got engaged! Everyone is going through big life changes while I am away. So between all the good news and sushi with mom I was in a good mood despite the missing wallet.

My flight from Seattle to Amsterdam was 8.5 hours, my first international flight! I had an hour layover in Amsterdam then a 10.5 hour flight to Jo’berg, where I spent 8 hours. Jo’berg to George was about 1.5 hours so in total, including a delay in Amsterdam, I spent about 22 hours on planes.

I met some interesting people, watched about 7 movies (including the fox and the hound) and discovered the joys of plane food. I really need to explain vegan better. I got through half a yogurt in a box labelled ‘vegetarian-vegan’ before realizing what it was. Then I recieved a cheese and mayo sandwhich with a ‘dairy snack’ and granola for breakfast. I’m also fairly certain I ate warmed dog food at one point.

Anyways, I arrived safely in George and made it to my hostel thanks to a lovely couple, Denny and Stella, who I met on the plane. My hostel forgot to send someone to pick me up. But Denny and Stella have a daughter my age and are used to ‘international orphans’ so they offered me a ride. They gave me their contact info and invited me to stay with them or call if I needed anything.

It was quite rainy in George so i went to the local climbing gym, broke in my new climbing shoes and then went for a swim at the pool down the street. I also had to run out to get a plug adapter, turns out the ones I bought in Canada, which say ‘south africa’ on them, don’t work here.

All is well, and it is absolutely gorgeous here! I am preparing to take a bus to cape town this afternoon, but in the meantime I’m going to go for a jog and grab some breakfast.

The drive into seattle

Packed and ready to go!

A cloudy plane ride

I thought these giraffe-unicorn-pegasuses in the Amsterdam airport were hilarious

Yogurt isn’t vegan?

Sunrock inn, pretty much all i saw of Johannesburg

Outeniqua lodge in George, where I’m currently staying.

My new friend, the lodges dog check

Preparing to go climbing on a rainy day.

The walk to the pool/grocery/town