Short Trips Blog

We’re now in Swaziland, most famous for being a small country landlocked within another country somewhere in southern Africa. It’s actually very beautiful, not as poor as Cam’s college geography class made it out to be, and very friendly. We’re staying at the Sondzela Backpackers Camp in the Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary, just outside Mbabane, the capitol city of the kingdom of Swaziland. There are warthogs and ostriches wandering around our front yard right now! And here we’re living for about $22 a day, room and board for both of us. It’s cheaper for us to live here without a job than it is for us to live at home with two. Still, we only plan to be here for another day or so and will continue to pass through Swaziland to the South Africa coast. We originally planned to stay only one night, but the place is so relaxing and conducive to Cam napping that we decided to stay another day.

While Cam naps the day away [editor's note: this was written by Cate. I've only had the chance to nap three times on the entire trip for the record. My wife wants us on the go so that napping has become an endangered activity] Cate will be out wandering the plains looking for more furry critters (she never seems to get enough of them). Later this afternoon we’re going horseback riding through the Swazi hills then we’ll come back and have dinner. The staff at our camp makes wonderful African meals over an open fire. We all eat family style. Tonight there will be a Swazi celebration and we’ll be able to take part in the singing and dancing festivities. Read the rest of this entry »

A few days ago we went to the famous Sodwana Bay for scuba diving. This was important because for some unexplained reason Cate has been nervous about being 40-60 feet underwater and not being able to breathe…but she conquered her fear at Sodwana Bay. After EMDR and a refresher course on diving at the Bay, she was able to dive, breathe, and even feel relaxed (though still a little sea sick). We saw a beautful (but scary) eel, and a Devil Fire Fish, among other colorful specimens. Then onto St. Lucia Wetlands Estuary, a world heritage site and bioreserve, for hiking. We stayed at our least favorite backpackers retreat, called BIB’s. Loud and kind of scummy. But they took us on a great hike and saw wildlife. We went to the Crocadile Centre and saw baby crocs and snakes eating baby chickens. This was very traumatic for Cate, yet shouldn’t stop watching.

We headed down to Durbin, where we went to the Shark Board, an agency dedicated to shark conservation and fencing off the Zululand coast to protect beachgoers from shark attacks, of which there have been many in the past. We saw a shark dissection, including liver, heart, nose, intestines, stomach. We thought of Jamie and Charlie, who would have been fascinated yet grossed out by the entire spectacle. Read the rest of this entry »

We pulled into the bus station in Jaipur and noticed—barely, in our half-conscious, if not half-alive state of being—the local “touts” (local, pushy street vendors) spot us on the bus and start to point and congregate. We headed for the pre-paid cab stand, by now wise to the ways of the street, got in an autorickshaw and headed for the Karni Niwas, our guest house.

Our luck was improving right away. We’d recommend staying at the Karni Niwas to anyone coming to Jaipur. It’s reasonably priced (450 rupees per night during low season, about $10 U.S. during the night). Just about every room has it’s own veranda (made Cam think about his mom, who shares his love for a good porch). The people who run the place are friendly and helpful. Plus, the Karni Niwas is located on a quite side street, to keep hot, tired travelers out of the noisy main thoroughfares.

Throughout our India experience, Cate had felt uncomfortable from people staring at her. At first, we suspected it was because she was a woman not wearing the local garb. Then we thought it was because of her red hair. Whatever it was, it was persistent. We came to learn that staring, unlike in the U.S., is not considered inappropriate. In fact, people in India seem to be genuinely curious about foreigners. Read the rest of this entry »

Now that we’ve had a few days to settle in, we’ll catch you up.

Getting out of Jo-burg proved more challenging than we thought. Wanting to go northeast, we first went south. Two hours later, knew something wasn’t right. Turned around. Went southwest this time. Great news: this time it only took 40 minutes for us to discover something wasn’t right. Turned around yet again. This time got it right if you call driving through one of Africa’s largest cities on a highway during rush hour (and, as in England, on the “wrong side” of the road) right.

Well past dark (which is early here, around 6 pm local time), we were dodging pedestrians walking on the side of the highway and what looked like oncoming trucks. Katelyn got to the point where she used Susan’s tried and true technique of simply covering her head with some kind of garment because she could no longer bear to watch. Read the rest of this entry »