Japan: Post 1

Hello-
I just returned from my time in Japan. Japan was awesome! Seems like that is my response after every country!  Our time in Japan coming to a conclusion though was very bittersweet. Japan is our last international port, and as our ship pulled away from the dock it felt like the end of one chapter. I was very sad to see my trip begin to come to a close, but I am also very anxious to get home and see my family and friends!  Now we have 10 days at sea en route to Hawaii. It is our longest ever stretch at sea and I am nervous about that. We have only gone a maximum of seven days before, and at the end of seven days we were all so anxious to see land and get off the ship, I can’t imagine what we will be like after 10 days. It will be a hard stretch at sea too because we will have tests and final exams in some classes as well as final projects and papers due.  We will also have Thanksgiving during this stretch. On November 28th, we will cross the International Date Line, so we will have November 28th TWICE. Then we will finally go from being hours ahead of home, to suddenly hours behind home!

In Japan, two good friends and myself decided to travel independently. That means that we did not have anything organized through Semester at Sea and decided to tackle Japan on our own! The first day we arrived in Yokohama we got on a train to Tokyo.. We were staying our first night in Tokyo at a hostel in Asakusa, so we took subways and trains to Asakusa. We arrived at our hostel and were pleased to find out that it was a very nice place! We dropped our heavy backpacks off and went to explore Tokyo. We found a really cool temple and shopping market.  We wandered around Tokyo for the evening and ended up finding an inexpensive burger place for dinner. It was delicious!  We decided to go bowling in the evening so we had to figure out how to get to another district of Tokyo. We wanted to walk, but we found out it was a much longer walk than we had expected, and took nearly an hour to find our way to the bowling lane. The bowling was fun (I lost as expected), and then we headed back to our hostel. By the time we arrived at our hostel we were exhausted and went right to bed!

The second day in Tokyo we had LOTS of time to spend before boarding our overnight train. We decided to seep in a little bit, then we headed towards the Shibuya district. Shibuya is one of the areas with all the big lights and tall buildings with lots of shopping and restaurants. We were overwhelmed with the number of people though. It was so packed. We wandered up the road looking for something to eat. It was all very expensive though. We found both a shakeys pizza, and an outback steakhouse, but both were out of our budget. We decided instead to get a crepe at a crepe stand. It was very good, mine was chocolate and banana flavored Yum!  When we were finished in Shibuya we headed back towards Tokyo station. We decided to wander from Tokyo station and came across a very nice park to take a break in. There was a wedding going on near by, so we watched that for a while and relaxed in the park. We wandered around then returned to Tokyo station for dinner. It was very good, and lucky for us, we were able to waste 2.5 hours while getting dinner because we were early for our overnight bus to kyoto. We found a place in the station where we could sit with our backpacks and wait for our bus. I found a pay phone and got to call home, which was great!  Once it was close to boarding time, we headed upstairs and got on our bus! It seemed like it would be kind of comfortable, and by then we were exhausted anyways. We tried to get comfy and we were all asleep within a short time. The bus made stops almost ever hour or two though, so we would wake up a lot during the night.

Hong Kong

China Post 1: Hong Kong


Arrival in Hong Kong!  This morning I pulled into Hong Kong Harbor!  I was surprised to learn that the port exit was literally THROUGH a mall. In order to get off the ship and onto the land we were routed through a mall. 24 hours a day we could exit and entrance the ship, but had to walk past all the stores (only open during business hours).  Once we got out of the mall we found Christmas decorations galore! It was such a treat to see. There were great big purple Christmas trees and lights and wreaths, it was all so pretty. The first day in Hong Kong I had an organized tour arranged to see the most of Hong Kong possible in just one day.  We met up on the buses (after getting terribly lost) and started our day of touring. It was a great warm day so I was wearing shorts and a tank top (which is interesting once I tell you about Beijing!).  We started our day at a lookout point over the harbor, in the distance we could see our ship docked against the skyscrapers of Hong Kong.  We also went to Victoria Peak, which was awesome! It is the highest point in Hong Kong and we had to take a tram in order to get to the peak. The tram went up the hill much steeper than I would have expected, so parts of the ride really felt like a roller coaster. We were leaning so far back on an angle that it felt like we were on a roller coaster climbing to the top of the first peak. It was pretty cool!  The view from the top over the skyscrapers was so cool! I got some great pictures and we tried to get a little shopping done quickly before we left the peak.    After our stop at Victoria Peak we headed to a part of Hong Kong that used to be a fishing village. It has been greatly modernized since its time as a fishing village, but now it is the launching point for fishing trips out to sea. The area is used as a makeshift safe haven for the fishing boats to stay while they are in port. Many of the fishing boats are also houseboats for the fishermen and their families, so they area is also a type of neighborhood and home for those people. 

For our lunch we had Chinese appetizers. We had pork dumplings, fried crab, slimy soup, spring rolls, fried rice, pork, and a really weird ooey-gooey desert. Some of it was pretty good, but a lot of it was such a weird texture that I could barely do it!

In the afternoon we made more tour stops including the beach and a shopping market!  After our shopping we returned to the port area and had dinner at a great place in the mall area.

After dinner we returned to the ship because our ship was docked with front roe seats to the light show!  The light show is a 14-minute show that the skyscrapers put on. It involves lasers and changes in lights up and down the skyscrapers. I set up my tripod on the 7th deck outside on the ship and LOVED the view. I got awesome pictures of the light show. 

I really really enjoyed Hong Kong, but we were only in Hong Kong for one day. I think that it would be great to go back and visit and see a little more of Hong Kong. 




I am going to add a VERY quick version of the rest of my time in China below. Unfortunately, the time at sea went so fast again that I am behind on my blog!!!

During our second day in Hong Kong we went to the airport and flew to Beijing. Our first day in Beijing was not planned out for us, so after we checked into the hotel we wandered around a little bit and ended up getting hot chocolate at a little restaurant not far from our hotel.  The second day we visited a market because it was much colder in Beijing than any of us had prepared for. At the market we all stocked up on souvenirs as well as warm winter jackets, boots, hats, mittens, and snow-pants!  Our plans for Beijing involved quite the Great Wall adventure, and we knew that we had to get warm gear in order to survive the wall. The other sites we visited in Beijing were  the Olympic Stadiums, the Forbidden City, Tianamen Square, the Summer Palace, and more.  For our Great Wall adventure we drove about 2.5 hours to a very remote section of the Great Wall. We had a sunset hike followed by dinner to warm up at a restaurant and then we hiked up the great wall to our place to camp for the night. It was so cold that some people chickened and stayed in a hotel, but my friends and I decided to stick it out. We each were allotted 2 down sleeping bags and we all slept in our winter gear inside the down sleeping bags. The stars were amazing, and it was so cool to sleep under the stars in a watchtower on the Great Wall of China. In the morning the water bottle that had been by my head was entirely frozen solid! When we woke up though we could see where we had hiked to the night before in the pitch black and were pleased to watch the sunrise over the wall.  We had a long hike on the great wall and even that was an adventure. We were hiking in a remote un retouched section of the wall that did not have guardrails so there were parts that were a little dangerous. In addition, the snow and ice on the wall created an interesting mix of hiking, sliding and slipping. Overall it was one of the best experiences of my life!!!!  At the end of the hike we ziplined over a river to the bottom of the wall. How cool!  I wish that I had time to say more, but I have to prepare for Japan tomorrow. Sorry it was so brief!!!

Vietnam

I am sorry, but the blog posts for Vietnam are going to be shortened a bit because once again time has flown by and we arrive in China already tomorrow!  I would love to tell you more, and if you want to know anything, just email (amdryer@semesteratsea.net). My Vietnam trip was much more amazing than it sounds below, but I thought I should at least give you a taste before I move on to the next thing!


Nha Trang:  My trip to Nha Trang was a great adventure!  The first day was a very long day though! We had to be in the dining hall at 3 45 am!!! Our crew is so amazing and they got up early with us in order to make us a hot breakfast at that time of the night!
A tropical storm had just passed through the day before, so we were a little worried that the flights would be overbooked from people who had gotten flights canceled the day before. We were lucky though and were able to board our flight no problem!  The flight was SO quick, it was only 37 minutes of actual flight time! . We were all very tired and we climbed aboard and got comfy and slept for the whole flight. It was the first time in my life that when they announced it was time to descend I felt like saying "just a few more minutes". After we left the airport we met our tour guide Liam.
Our first day in Nha Trang was a cultural tour day. We visited ancient temple ruins, a pagoda, a giant Buddha statue, an old Cambodian temple, an aquarium, and more. We ate lots of seafood! By the end of the time in Nha Trang I was very sick of seafood!  In the afternoon we had time for a little nap since we had gotten up so early, and then we went out to dinner for more seafood!  We got to watch a song and dance performance after dinner.

The second day in Nha Trang was a really fun day. Our group of 24 students went out on a private boat to hang out near the islands all day. We traveled alongside these uninhabited islands (there were 19 total) and we got to jump off the boat and swim.  We could not go up onto land because the rocks near the shore were covered in barnacles and sea urchins that were sharp and dangerous, but we got to swim out in the open. We even got to climb onto the roof of our boat and jump into the ocean from the top platform of the boat. It was very fun!  We spent most of the day swimming and then moving to a new area to explore! We had lunch on one of the islands that recently has opened up for tourism. The island now has a theme park and a big resort on it! Imagine one of the Apostle Islands with roller coasters and waterslides! They even built a gondola to take tourists over to the island.  In the afternoon we did more swimming and jumping! We were hoping to snorkel, but since the tropical storm had came through, the water was not so clear. In the evening we had more seafood!

The third day in Nha Trang was totally open so that we could plan something on our own. Myself and 3 friends talked a tour agent down the road into bringing us into a village. We were so pleased with how it turned out. We ended up more or less renting a car, and a guide/translator to bring us around for the day. He brought us into a very poor village. The people did not know any English, but it was still fun to interact with the children. Our guide helped with translation so we could speak to the families a little bit. One of the families invited us inside to see their home. It was simply a cement floor with brick walls, and that was it!  The government actually had built them the home because they did not have a home previously!  We also got to stop at the village school to see what that looked like. Through our translator we learned that the tropical storm had hit hard in the area we were in and many of the students had not yet returned to school. Some of them simply could not get to school with the amount of flooding, some had to stay home to help with sick or injured members of their family, and there were some that the teacher did not know why they had not returned to school yet.  I really hope that all of the students were safe and would be back to school once it was safe to attend.  I was very glad that I had visited the village, it was a great way to see more of Vietnam. We also went up to some waterfalls with our guide since we had more time before we needed to return to the hotel for our flight. When we got back into Nha Trang we got some lunch and then headed to the airport for our flight back to Ho Chi Minh City. It was fun to run into some other semester at sea community members in Nha Trang waiting for the same flight. A family that is onboard with us had traveled to Nha Trang and was on the same flight back to Ho Chi Minh City. It made me realize how much we take each country by storm that we could even recognize people in the airport that we had not even docked in!!

The last day in Vietnam I went to the Mekong Delta. The Mekong Delta is a region that is along the Mekong River. The people who work in this area depend on the river immensely. They use the river for everything from washing to drinking to cleaning to fishing.  Every day they bring goods to sell to a ‘floating market’ in which they go to an area of the river on their boat full of something to sell and trade with the other people’s goods in order to get a variety of food. I wish that we could have seen the market. We did not get to see the market but we did get to ride by the small boats down the Mekong River. That was pretty cool.


That’s all about Vietnam for now. Sorry I did not get to say more. I need to pack for China tomorrow already!!!

Vietnam Post 1:

Good- Bye to Vietnam!
I am back on the ship from my time in Vietnam. I had such a great time and am once again sad to see the time come to an end.

The first day in Vietnam-
Our arrival to Vietnam was an exciting one. We traveled up the river from the sea to the port. It was a 3 hour drive up a windy and sometimes kind of narrow river! When we arrived in Ho Chi Minh City we were all ready to disembark.  Our plans for the first day consisted of heading into town, shopping, and getting lunch out on the town. We did not have any big plans, but turned our shopping into an all day adventure!  We went into the Ben Thanh Market and had a great time!  You could find ANYTHING at that market. You could shop for anything from winter jackets to toothbrushes to fruit to coffee! I didn’t even know where to start! We wandered around for quite a while and since the prices were so low, we began to get more and more shopping bags! We took a short lunch break to get in some air conditioning and to take a rest. We had Pho (Vietnamese Noodle Soup) and Spring Rolls (Delicious!).  We ended up spending the majority of the day from noon until at least 5 or 6 wandering around the town.  We wanted to return to the ship at an early time because we had a VERY early morning the following day. 

Vietnam Post 1

Vietnam-


Just wanted to update everyone that my first day in Vietnam was a ton of fun! We arrived this morning to the mouth of the river at 8 am. Then we had a 3 hour drive up a windy river to the port! There were small fishing boats and canoes in the river and we are a big cruise ship! I am sure that BIG cruise ships cannot come up to this port, the river is not very big!  I think that it must be more of an inlet than a river, but there were parts that were quite narrow. It was really fun to sit outside and eat my breakfast while watching the little boats and canoes along the sides of the river though.  After we arrived in Ho Chi Minh City we headed into the center of town and went to the Ben Thanh Market! I think the market had EVERYTHING you could ever want in there. There was everything from fresh fish to fresh flowers to souvenirs to t-shirts and traditional clothing! We LOVED walking around the market and spent quite a few hours in the market. We got some appetizers this afternoon and I realized that I need a lot of practice with chopsticks.. good thing that my next three countries will all be using chopsticks, so I should be a pro by the end.   :)

Tomorrow, really early in the morning (at 3 45 in the morning) I am heading to the airport for my trip to Nha Trang. I have heard its going to be awesome, so I am really looking forward to it. 

I will update you more once I return from Nha Trang. 

India Post 2

School Blog:

I am so sorry it has taken so long to post more about India. Here we arrive in Vietnam tomorrow, and I am just finishing my India blog. Things have been really busy and I did not allow myself to do anything fun until after my two exams this morning (and I consider blogging fun).  I will be working to get some stuff up though the rest of today… sorry!  Also, if you have any interest in the package that was sent to the Mrs. Reardon and Mrs. Lesneski, please let my mom know. I do not know if she has the package yet, but when Mrs. Reardon and Mrs. Lesneski finish I believe that my mom will have the package at school for a while if anyone is interested.

One of the first things I did upon my arrival in India was attend a Welcome Reception hosted by a University here in India. It was very fun!  The Indian students who were very interested in chatting with us about Semester at Sea greeted us. We all received a warm Indian welcome and then proceeded into the reception area. It was at a hotel in Chennai but in their outdoor courtyard area, which was really nice. There were tons of Indian students there to interact with us. I had one of them teach me how to tie a Sari and also one of the students offered to draw a Henna tattoo on my hand. I gladly I gladly agreed and chatted with the student while she drew my Henna. I asked her if she does them all the same and she said that to her knowledge she has never even done two the same! Mine had a peacock, but you had to be pretty artsy to see the peacock in the design.  At the welcome reception there was a full traditional Indian meal for us as well. We did not get a whole lot of time to eat it though because they had brought lots of things for us to look at and buy too!  I did not know what to buy because I did not know how expensive things should cost in Dirhams, so I waited until the next day to shop. The last part of our reception was an Indian Dance College had set up a stage to perform dance and teach us about Indian dance. It was really interesting. I took some video that I can make into a movie later!

India Post 1

I have returned from India!

We were prepared for India to be quite a different experience than anywhere else, and it really has been. The highlight of my stay in India was a visit to a rural village.  I will again post some info from India out of order and in shorter posts so that it does not take as long to post.

Pre-India
Before we arrived in India the crew was preparing for our ship to spend 6 days in India. Apparently India has always been very rough on our beauty of a ship, so they are taking great precautions to keep it clean and in good shape.  Starting a few days prior to arrival in India the crew began to lay plastic down through all of the public areas on the floor, they also covered all the steps from the gangway in cardboard and then plastic. The outdoor cafe on the seventh deck looked like it had been entirely saran wrapped in order to protect the kitchen equipment and to keep it sanitary. They closed the seventh floor cafe and instead we could only get cafe meals downstairs (indoors). The pool was drained and covered and even the residential hallways eventually got covered in plastic. Our ship was practically entirely saran wrapped!!!  We were getting a little nervous with all the precautions the crew had taken since we had not seen anything like that in any of the previous ports. It turned out though that much of the precautions were unnecessary and we really didnt dirty the ship too much!


Kancheepuram and Mallarpuram
One of the day trips that I did in India was a cultural cities trip. We visited two cities which were both famous for their temples (both working temples and old temples).  Each temple was unique, but by the end of the day we had visited 6 different sites.  At each temple we would be asked to remove our shoes before entering the temples. Since I am not Hindu, I could not enter the inner sanctum, but could wander freely throughout the rest of the temple. It was very interesting to see the temples. The working temples were cool because there were Hindu people practicing their faith right in front of us. The tour guide was slightly hard to hear, so I did not get as much information as I would have liked, but I loved wandering around the temples and stumbling across unique things. In two of the different temple visits we came across large groups of Indian College Students. We learned they were all education students and part of their training involved visiting these historic sites. They were all dressed beautifully in matching Sari's and they all looked so pretty. They were as interested in us as we were interested in them. Although the language barrier was a little tough, we ended up exchanging some words (and pictures) before leaving the sites. It really was just fun to spend time with them trying to communicate. I am glad that we stumbled across them, it was a really fun experience.  Another part of the trip that I really enjoyed was the lunch!  We stopped at a GORGEOUS resort mid day for lunch. I learned it was actually a Radisson, but it was by far the most fancy Radisson I have ever seen. The pool outside the restaurant had to be at least 3 acres! It was huge! It was all different levels with bridges and palm trees intertwined with the pool. Very cool. The food at the restaurant was awesome too. The buffet was HUGE with a variety of Indian food and desserts. Typically, I do not really like Indian food, but I found quite a few things that I really enjoyed.  One other funny story of the day is how the Indian people were so fascinated by us. We realized partly through one of our temple visits when listening to our tour guide that Indian families were strategically taking photographs so that us (American students) were the background of the photos instead of the temples. We just started laughing. We decided to jump in the photos and pose with the Indian families and they were pleasantly surprised. It was actually really, really, funny!

MauritiusPost 3

As a field trip/field project for my Marine Biology class I had to sign up for a Catamaran and Snorkeling trip. I got the “orange team” catamaran!  We had to get into a tender boat and go out to our Catamaran and Crew. Our Catamaran had three crewmembers and a tour guide on board. On the way to the snorkel site we were supposed to be looking for dolphins, but instead, I SPOTTED WHALES! I was the first one and ran to the side, the crew saw what I had spotted and everyone on the front ducked as they swung the front sail to the other side and we headed towards the whales. I am still not entirely confident, but pretty sure they were Sperm Whales. They were huge! It was probably a pod of about 5-7 whales with at least one young whale! At first they were surfacing a ways out, but we got the opportunity to get pretty close later. After we had watched for a bout 15 minutes some of the other Catamarans came to steal our good view!  We had to move around, but we got to watch the whales for probably about an hour. It was so nice! They turned off the music and the engines and we just sailed along listening to the whales blow all the water and air, and then gently surface and go back down. They were SO big! I don’t even know what to compare it to, but they were huge! 

After our whale sightings, we continued on towards the coral reef. When we arrived at the coral reef  we got ready in our snorkel gear and jumped right in! The water was nice (well, I thought so, others did not) and it was really fun to snorkel! The coral reef was not in very good shape, but surprisingly, there were still TONS of fish to check out!  After we snorkeled for a while we could smell our lunch! They were cooking out fresh marlin right on the grill hanging off the back of our Catamaran!! We hurried out of the water and were treated to fresh marlin, chicken kabobs, rice, garlic bread on the grill, and FRESH pineapple! It was such a treat! You would think they don’t feed us on the ship when the tour companies see how much we pig out for such a good meal!

What a day! It was so much fun to relax in the sun! I got a little sunburnt, but I put on sunscreen a few different times! My sunburn isnt too bad though, I guess I will call it my souvenir from Mauritius!

Mauritius Post 2

We were lucky to visit Mauritius when we did because Saturday began the “festival of lights”. It is a Hindu festival, and over 50 percent of Mauritius is Hindu. The festival, Divali, involved live music, and lots of lights! Although we were not there for Saturday evening when the party really began, we did get to watch a Hindu music festival the night before which kicked off the celebration. The entire waterfront district (including boats in the harbor) all were wrapped in white Christmas lights. The houses had lights strung from the roof to the ground and many of the walkways to houses were light by candles. It was so pretty!


Adventure Park and Beach
Our second day in Mauritius was a blast!! We went to the adventure park. The adventure park is an area in the forest that has been set up as an obstacle course. It is supposed to be very challenging and it definitely was!  We all were harnessed up and began our adventure on a series of bridges to cross, the course got more challenging as we went from everything from swinging logs to tight ropes to ‘leaps’ across gaps in the bridges. It was really a great time. It was right up my alley. The bugs were a little extreme though! Some of my friends came back with over 75 mosquito bites! I did not get it that bad, but I still got a lot of bug bites!  The course took about 2 hours. There was a zip line in the course also that I decided to hang upside down for. It was really fun. After the course we had lunch (rice and curry chicken) and then headed to the beach to cool off. Unfortunately it was kind of drizzly/rainy by the time we got to the beach. Kate, Kelsey, and I still swam so that we could enjoy the Indian Ocean, but we did not swim too long! 

Mauritius Post 1

Mauritius was a blast! I had not really known what to expect of Mauritius, but it was a good time. The first day we spent our day right near the waterfront district.  We did a little shopping and got lunch at a restaurant overlooking the ocean!  It was a nice relaxing morning. Our ship docked very near to the waterfront district, but across from the waterfront within the port. We had to take a water taxi to get to and from the ship and the waterfront district. The water taxis were all old rickety boats that they fit up to 30 of us in before the 5-minute drive across the waterfront. To get onto one of the taxis you had to walk backwards down a medal ladder right towards the water and onto the back of one of the rocky boats. I was afraid I was going to fall right in!  The waterfront area had a gorgeous district along the ocean with hotels, restaurants and shops, so we enjoyed wandering around there. 

In the afternoon we explored one of the local marketplaces. I really enjoyed that. It allowed us to see how the people of Mauritius live instead of just how the tourists of Mauritius live.  We walked through the market and it seemed to be a little taste of India to come!  It was really odd what some of the stands in the markets were selling. Some were selling toothbrushes and Q-tips. Others were selling jeans, some were selling shoes, some had music and movies, it was quite different than super-walmart, but was a similar idea! You could get just about anything there! 

Safari Day 1

South Africa Day 2:

This morning was a very long morning. For starters we had to meet at 5:30am in the dining hall for my trip to Kruger National Park. We all loaded a bus and headed to the airport in Cape Town. Here in South Africa instead of boarding directly onto the plane through a hallway, you have to take a shuttle to the area where your plane is parked and then walk right up the stairs onto the plane. Our flights ran pretty smooth (besides small delays and rushing).  Once we arrived at Kruger airport we all headed out to a bus waiting for us and got on our way towards our resort. This afternoon we had our first game drive!  We were very anxious to get into the Safari portion of our trip.  The safari vehicles are mostly converted pickup trucks. They have a whole portion of the vehicle that sits in the box of the truck and has 9 seats, a top and removable side walls and roll down canvas sides.  When we were driving on the highway to get inside the Kruger gate the canvas sides had to be down in order to avoid any rock chips or anything getting into the car. As soon as we passed the entrance point of Kruger National Park though our tour guide would roll up the sides to make open sided vehicles.  My safari vehicle consisted of only 6 people plus our guide. That was really nice, some of the other vehicles were more filled so they did not all have window seats. We were lucky to all have window seats. Our tour guide, John, was very good. He was born and raised inside the Kruger National Park. Both his parents had worked in the park when he was growing up, so he was incredibly knowledgeable about the park. Inside the National Park there are a few secured gated areas that animals usually cannot get into. He was born and raised in one of those parks.

I guess this is a good time to tell you a little bit about Kruger National Park.  First of all, the park is huge! We spent three days in the park and probably did not even cover a fraction of the park! The park is the same size (or close to) the size of Israel or Wales!!!! Imagine the size of a whole country just in the National Park. Recently the border of the park has been extended into neighboring countries as well. Zimbabwe and Mozambique recently merged the borders of neighboring parks with Kruger to create the Greater Limpopo National Park. Of course, it is the largest game reserve in South Africa. It is 7,331 square miles!  The park from the bottom to the top is 217 miles and the park is 37 miles wide.  From the 2009 attempt to determine the numbers of animals inside Kruger National Park, the estimates are listed below.
27,000 African Buffalo
350 African Hunting Dogs
350 Black Rhinoceros
4,509 White Rhinoceros
17,797 Burchell's Zebras
500 Bushbucks
200 Cheetahs
300 Common Eland
5,114 Giraffes
5,798 Greater Kudus
3,000 Hippopotamus
1,500 Lions
1,000 Leopards
2,000 Spotted Hyenas
11,672 Elephants
5,000 Waterbuck
9,612 Blue Wildebeest
90,000 Impalas
The Kruger National Park also has more different species of animals than any other game reserve with 147 mammals represented. They also have 114 different reptile species represented with 3,000 crocodiles.


My time in Kruger was AMAZING. I am so glad that I chose Kruger to do my Safari. Kruger Park was developed in order to conserve and protect the animals with the smallest impact on the land and on the animals as possible. For example, if a wildfire started in the park the rangers would do nothing but monitor the course of the fire for research purposes and if necessary only fight the fire if it reaches a border of the park nearing a city of village outside of the park.  If an animal is severely injured the rangers will do nothing because in order to maintain the true wilderness they do not feel that any interference on their part will benefit the animals. 

I have heard that some of the other Safari’s wanted to ensure that all people would see the “big 5” so they would stock the animals that tourists wanted to see as well as have the leopards in an enclosure to ensure the tourists could see them.  This is very different than Kruger. There are no fences around Kruger keeping the animals inside the park. The animals are free to come and go, and Kruger is instead just a safe haven for any of the animals that chose to live there. Many of the animals are born in the park and never leave (due to the great expanse of the park).  In order to preserve the minimal impact of humans on the park we were not allowed to leave our vehicles at any time.  Our ranger would try as best as possible to get us an awesome view from the vehicle but we were never allowed out of the vehicle until we had arrived in a rest camp.  Oops, I forgot to explain what the ‘Big 5’ is.  The ‘Big 5’ was a term from the days of big game hunting in Africa. It refers to the 5 most difficult animals to hunt on foot and includes Lion, Elephant, Buffalo, Leopard, and Black Rhinoceros.

This afternoon’s game drive was a great start in our quest for the ‘Big 5’. Shortly into our game drive we came across 6 elephants! There was even one young elephant! I could not believe how close we were to the elephants; they crossed the road about 25 feet from our vehicle! It was so cool. Shortly after we saw Impala’s.  At first we were very excited to see the Impala’s, but we learned very quickly that there are A TON of impala’s in the park and by the second day we did not even stop to see the impalas. Next on our Safari we came across Baboons! There were baby baboons in the group which were so much fun to watch. We could tell they were just learning about jumping from branch to branch because they were not very graceful, and stayed on branches very near to the ground because occasionally they did not make it all the way to the branch and would instead land on the ground. It was really fun to watch! I had learned from our other experience with the baboons though, that they are not as innocent as they look! We continued on our drive and saw more elephants and impalas, and then our guide spotted a lion a ways in the distance. Since lions are not as common as some of the other animals, we were very excited to see one the first day. It was not a great view though, and the female lion was just napping on a rock, she was not very active.  Then, we saw a rhinoceros!  It was very close to our vehicle. He was walking parallel right along the road we were driving on!  Our first day of the Safari was awesome! We had to leave the park before 6 pm, because that is when the park closes to day safaris. We returned to our resort and had a great dinner. We had a cookout for dinner and it was so good. It was nothing quite like I had ever had before. It included vegetables, potatoes, rice, sauces, and meats cooked over the open grill. It was such a treat to eat out under the stars of the southern hemisphere, and it was a full moon too! 

After dinner I was so lucky to be able to use the Internet in the resort and use Skype to call home. My parents were both home, so it was great to get to chat with them for quite a while.
*The estimates for animals in the park were taken from Wikipedia, so not be perfectly accurate, but wikipedia is the only website we have access to for free on the ship*

Cape Town Post 1

Cape Town, South Africa Post 1

First off, let me apologize it has taken so long to get a blog post up.  When we left South Africa we hit the worst seas that we have had for the entire voyage. Around the southernmost part of Africa, around the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point, we hit huge waves! The drawers in my cabin were opening and shutting and things were sliding off the table and desk onto the floor.  The seas have calmed considerably since then and are much more enjoyable now.  But anyways, we are back at sea now. We are en route to Mauritius. We will arrive to Mauritius on the 15th of October.

While in Cape Town I REALLY wanted to go Shark Cage Diving, but due to rough weather, did not get an opportunity. I had booked 2 different days, and unfortunately, both were canceled. Even so, the entire experience in South Africa was awesome, and I cannot wait to return!



Cape Town Day 1:

This morning was the most beautiful arrival into the port. We all woke up early and headed up to the top deck to see the sunrise over the Waterfront and Table Mountain.  It was a gorgeous site!  It was very cold though, so after our hands began to go numb we had to go back inside!  As the ship pulled into the port we realized how lucky we were to be right in the middle of a commercial area in the harbor. So far, some of our other ports were in a very industrial area requiring a shuttle even just to get out of the port area. In Cape Town, we dock right in the middle of the Waterfront Area. There is a five star hotel just feet from the front of the ship and within walking distance we found tons of great restaurants, shops, tour agents, and a mall.  We disembarked the ship and just began to explore the waterfront area. Within a half hour of leaving the ship we chatted with a tour agent to see what they would suggest for us to try while we were in Cape Town.

The tour company suggested that we go for a helicopter ride over Cape Town, instantly we decided that we would go ahead and splurge for a helicopter ride. Some friends and I booked a short helicopter ride over the harbor and 15 minutes later we were being loaded into a go-kart and heading across the waterfront to the helicopter landing area!  We were fitted with lifejackets and then boarded the helicopter. We were all fitted with the headphones and microphones so that we could communicate over the noise of the helicopter.  Before we knew it, our helicopter was rising over the waterfront for our tour! The pilot took us right over our ship, which was really cool and then up the coast from the Waterfront Area.  We flew over beautiful beaches with coral reefs and over the new stadium being built for the 2010 World Cup! Then the helicopter neared the ‘12 apostles’, which is part of the mountain range surrounding Cape Town. He brought us back over the city centre near Table Mountain and the Cable Car to Table Mountain. It was an awesome ride. I took awesome pictures!  We only paid for a 15-minute flight, but were in the helicopter longer than that. It was a great experience, what a cool way to check out the city!!!!

Our next adventure was to take a trip up the coast to Cape Point. We hired a car and driver to take us up the coast.  First we headed up the coast to a little town called Kemps Bay that our driver thought we should check out.   We stopped there and he gave us time to explore and shop and then return to the car to continue on.  The next stop was Boulders Beach. I had really wanted to go to Boulders Beach, so I was glad that we were able to make it. Boulders Beach is a beach that is one of the only mainland breeding areas of African Penguins. They were so cute!  They were everywhere too. Our guide gave us time to go swimming at the beach, but my friends thought it was too cold (they aren’t from Wisconsin!).  We walked the boardwalk to see the whole colony of penguins!  The whole area was just gorgeous. Since the tide was in though, there was barely any beach left so people had laid out their towels on top of these huge boulders that stuck out of the water and were having picnics on top of the huge boulders. It was pretty cool.

After our time at Boulders Beach our Cape Point Tour continued. We drove further along the coast and came across baboons along the side of the road. They were adorable. We had been warned that the baboons could be a problem because they have been known to climb on top of cars or steal food or handbags from unsuspecting walkers. Our taxi driver pulled over next to the baboons and allowed us to get out of the car to take pictures.  That was a big mistake!  Shortly after we got out of the car a baby baboon wandered our way. Since we were less than 10 feet from the baboons to start with, the baby coming closer was not a good thing.  We decided to back up, but then realized that daddy baboon was walking around the other side of the car, we had no choice but to walk between the daddy and baby baboon towards our vehicle and tour guide. As we ran towards the tour guide he was yelling “don’t run, don’t run”. Of course when you are scared you run, even if you are not supposed to! We then realized our tour guide had taken his leather belt off and was holding it at his side in case the baboons got too close to any of us. We wanted him to open the doors so we could get in, but he did not want to risk any of the baboons getting into the vehicle because he knew it would be much more dangerous to have a baboon and a person in an enclosed area, than outside the car. Only when he thought there was time for all 4 of us to get in before the baboon circled the car did he let us quickly get in!  We were not seriously at risk, just scared because we did not know what to expect from the baboons. Even so, it made quite the memory for me!  We came across a few more baboon groups along the drive, but were not silly enough to get out at any of the other groups. From then on we just enjoyed the baboons from the car windows!!

As we approached Cape Point, the tip where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet, we were lucky enough to see whales very close to shore breaching!  On our route back towards Cape Town we passed through some of the Winelands of the surrounding Cape Town area. These Winelands are probably the most famous part of Cape Town. They were as gorgeous as I had imagined.  They were big rolling vineyards overlooking the ocean! How pretty! 

As we got closer to Cape Town we entered into an area where the townships are. The townships surround the cities and they are large areas where shanties and makeshift houses from wood scraps sit. They did not have running water, most did not have electricity, and they certainly did not have beds, toilets, or kitchens. Just seeing these townships made me realize how lucky I am, and each of you as well, to have a home you return to in the evening that is comfortable and safe.  Each and everyone one of us has the opportunity to go to school, which many of the children in the townships never get to do.  Many of the children are horribly malnourished because their families cannot afford food for the family. It was terribly sad to see the townships and their problems from the outside, and feel unable to help. We did see one township that is making huge strides though. Through programs like Habitat for Humanity, small homes are being built of cement instead of scrap.  These homes will not be anything fancy, but most will have electricity and a solid roof.  Some day I hope to return to work with a program like habitat to make a difference in the lives of these families. 

Our last stop on our Cape Point tour was in an adorable beach town that had surfers galore. Our guide explained how some people are employed to stand on the top of the hill overlooking the beach and watch for sharks. When they spot a shark they radio down to the guards at the beach. The guards then raise a black flag and all the surfers and swimmers are expected to exit the water. When the water has been cleared a green flag is raised and the surfers are allowed to re-enter. That sounds pretty dangerous, I sure am glad Lake Superior doesn’t have any sharks!


More soon…

RePost -Neptune Day

Neptune Day

The neptune day ceremony when we crossed the equator was tons of fun. We were all a little unsure of what to expect, but it turned out to be a fun ceremony.  Neptune day is an old sailor's tradition. The ceremony of moving from a 'pollywog' to a 'shellback' occurs when a person crosses the equator by the sea for the first time.  Our day began when the crew all dressed up and paraded up and down all the corridors where our rooms are with drums and instruments to wake us up. It was at 7:30 am, which seemed a little early since we thought we were going to be able to sleep in.  The ceremony started at 9am. We all lined up behind the pool and had no clue what to expect. Once the ceremony began the 'king and queen' entered with their court of 'royals'.  It really was the Captain, the Assistant Dean, and the faculty and staff. They were all dressed up. The captain was even painted lime green from head to toe!!  Before he would allow us to continue into the Southern hemisphere we had
  to perform a ritual he required of all of us.

First, we had to line up by the pool and one by one a goopy- slime was poured over our heads.  After we got covered in slime we had to jump into the pool and swim across. We climed out the other side of the pool and we had to 'pay our respects' to the 'royal court'. First we had to kiss a fish (yes, a real one!), then we were 'knighted' by the royal court. We had to kiss the queens hand and bow to the king and then we were allowed to enter the Southern Hemisphere.  Then the royal court began shaving peoples heads. We did not HAVE to shave our heads, but I think about 65 people chose to!!! Some girls even shaved their heads!

The whole ceremony was fun and it was nice to have the whole shipboard community involved. Of course the whole thing was just created for fun, but it was a good time. The cleanup after the ceremony looked rather intense though because the whole pool deck was pink and green and slimy and the water in the pool was dark gray!

Neptune Day

The neptune day ceremony when we crossed the equator was tons of fun. We were all a little unsure of what to expect, but it turned out to be a fun ceremony.  Neptune day is an old sailor's tradition. The ceremony of moving from a 'pollywog' to a 'shellback' occurs when a person crosses the equator by the sea for the first time.  Our day began when the crew all dressed up and paraded up and down all the corridors where our rooms are with drums and instruments to wake us up. It was at 7:30 am, which seemed a little early since we thought we were going to be able to sleep in.  The ceremony started at 9am. We all lined up behind the pool and had no clue what to expect. Once the ceremony began the 'king and queen' entered with their court of 'royals'.  It really was the Captain, the Assistant Dean, and the faculty and staff. They were all dressed up. The captain was even painted lime green from head to toe!!  Before he would allow us to continue into the Southern hemisphere we had to perform a ritual he required of all of us.

 

First, we had to line up by the pool and one by one a goopy- slime was poured over our heads.  After we got covered in slime we had to jump into the pool and swim across. We climed out the other side of the pool and we had to 'pay our respects' to the 'royal court'. First we had to kiss a fish (yes, a real one!), then we were 'knighted' by the royal court. We had to kiss the queens hand and bow to the king and then we were allowed to enter the Southern Hemisphere.  Then the royal court began shaving peoples heads. We did not HAVE to shave our heads, but I think about 65 people chose to!!! Some girls even shaved their heads! 

 

The whole ceremony was fun and it was nice to have the whole shipboard community involved. Of course the whole thing was just created for fun, but it was a good time. The cleanup after the ceremony looked rather intense though because the whole pool deck was pink and green and slimy and the water in the pool was dark gray! 

Photos

This photo is from the Torgorme Village during one of the drumming and dancing demonstrations.

Photos

This is a photo from one of the villages with the bubbles!

Ghana Post 3 - Villages

While in Ghana I had the opportunity to witness a few villages. The first village was an entirely unplanned occurence. During my trip to the volta region I rode on the short bus. We had  two busses (one with about 45 students, and one with about 10. My bus had to wait for the big bus, so we had just pulled over on the side of a road. We got out of the bus to stretch while waiting for the other bus and were taking pictures of a village near the road. While we were taking pictures, one of the people of the village came by and asked us if we would like to come in, of course we did not pass up the chance and walked with the man down into the village. The man we had met first spoke English, but we sooned learned that he was one of the few in the village that spoke English.  As we walked into the village kids began to poke their heads out of their huts and smile and wave, soon enough we were being followed into the village center by a whole swarm of kids!  They were super cute. One of the young girls (probably about 3 years old) just walked up to one of the students and jumped into her arms. She had no choice but to pick her up and just hold her. Soon a women of the village walked by and said to the student "that is my child". I was worried that the women would be upset, but as soon as the student began to apoligize and set the child down, the women said "no, no, sweet child".  The women just smiled and continued on with her business. I was so surprised.  I could not imagine anything like that happening in the United States and a mother being so trusting as to let a stranger hold her young child. This women though was just so kind and trusting that she knew that we were not going to harm her child, and was happy to let the student continue to hold her child.  Showing her trust even more was when the women continued walking to attend to her business even though she knew her child was in the hands of this stranger.  It was a very sincere moment, and one that I will not soon forget.  The other children in the village were a little more apprehensive of us.  SInce this village was a small village that probably had never seen tourists before, they were probably a little weirded out by how different the group of white tourists were from their family.  The kids did not speak english, but loved to giggle.  We took tons of pictures of the kids, and then showed them the pictures on our cameras. They loved to see the pictures of themselves, so it turned into quite an event of taking pictures and sharing them with the kids.  Some of us had little toys in our bags which were HUGE hits!  I had some little squishy balls in my backpack that were red white and blue, and the kids loved them!  Some other people had some stickers which also were well liked.  Before we knew it we had to return to the bus. The short look into the village though was an experience I wont forget.

Another village I got to experience was a very short stop. WHile we were waiting to load our bus we had the chance to hang out with some kids who had congregated around our bus while we were hiking. We played soccer (futbol) with them for a little bit and then a few students on the bus pulled out little gifts for the kids. I had remembered my bubbles, which were a huge hit. THey loved the bubbles!  I will attach a picture of the kids and the bubbles.

The last village that we visited was a planned visit. The Torgorme village had been contacted by a travel agent through Semester at Sea and was hosting a few different groups to come into their village. They prepared a traditional African naming ceremony along with drumming and dancing to show us. The entire village attended the event with us. All of the kids were released from school for the morning so that they could take part in the ceremony. SOme of the kids were just there to watch, but many took part in the ceremony either by one of the dancing groups, or by being a part of the drum core.  It was so cool to see. Most of the village dressed in their traditional ceremony wear which was cool to see. The chief of the village was even present for the event.  During our time at Torgorme we were each given a traditional African name.  I was given the name Arzo Venunye, which represents the name of the weekday I was born on, and a traditional African name.  We also were expected to try some of the African dances along with the village people. We tried many times, but I am sure we just looked silly. Even very young children were a part of the dancing, and we could not figure it out!!


I will post more soon!

Mount Afadjato and Wli Waterfalls

I climbed the HIGHEST MOUNTAIN in Ghana!  It was a very strenuous hike. Much more strenuous than I had imagined it would be. They did not tell us ahead of time that we were hiking a mountain, just that we were going for a hike.  The mountain is 880 m high. That is the same height as two empire state buildings stacked on top of each other!!!  I was so impressed that I was able to make it. A lot of students did not make it to the top.  It was very hot and I was very dizzy during the hardest parts of the hike. During portions of the hike, it was so steep that we had to use our hands and feet to get up certain areas. Instead of hiking like at home, the path went directly up one side of the mountain instead of zig-zagging back and forth to make the grade less steep. Once we got to the top we could see the neighboring country of Togo.  The panoramic view from the top was fantastic. The descent back down the mountain was nearly as strenuous as the way up! It was difficult because some of the rocks were slippery, and with the grade being so steep we had to be careful not to slip and slide.  I only wiped out once, and it wasn’t too bad.  I had drank my whole Nalgene bottle on the way up, so when we got back down to the bottom I had to buy some more water. In Ghana the water is not safe to drink, so we had to purchase water. In order to cut down on some of the trash/waste associated with bottled water (all the bottles), Ghana has changed to a system of bagged water.  It is similar to those pouches of milk that some elementary schools have, but you have to just bite off one of the corners and drink it out of the bag instead of with a straw. The water did not taste great, but after the hike I was so thirsty that I was willing to drink it. 

After our hike, our guide took us to some waterfalls to cool off. The waterfall was AWESOME! It is the highest waterfall in Ghana. The water begins its descent in Togo and lands in Ghana. Since it falls from such a great height, when it hits the water at the bottom it creates such a force that there is a constant wind generated. The wind picks up all the splashed water so even from a great distance away from the falls there is a mist, and as you get closer to the water it turns into a solid sideways rain. We were able to swim in the pool created at the bottom of the waterfall! We wanted to get close to the waterfall, but you could not walk facing it because of the water flying around. We had to walk backwards towards the falls and our backs were getting pelted with all the water from the falls.  It was really interesting because it was SUCH a strong force from the water falls that the wind and water flying from the bottom were strong enough to tip us right over!  I walked back as far as I could towards the waterfall until I was not strong enough to walk any further because of the wind.  I tried to get some pictures of the waterfall, but since there was no ‘dry spot’ even within view of the waterfalls, I was not able to get great pictures because I did not want to wreck my camera.

Ghana Post 2 - Tafi Atome

Tafi Atome and the Sacred Monkeys-

One of the villages on our itinerary was the village of Tafi Atome. This was a planned stop because Tafi Atome is unique in their relationship with the monkeys surronding their area. The village views the monkeys as sacred, and has created a monkey reserve around the village so that no one can harm the monkeys.  The village made the decision to protect the monkeys because of their ancient history and the monkeys that surrounded their lands ever since the began their immigration through Africa. The people of the village believe that the monkeys followed them all the way to their location.. The monkeys now are so used to the people, that twice a day they come into the village. Once in the morning to get fed breakfast, and once in the evening to get fed dinner.  During the day they retreat into the jungle. We got to venture into the jungle in search of the monkeys.   Luckily, we spotted a whole group of the monkeys.  The monkeys are the Mona Monkeys. They came right onto the branches over our heads to grab bananas. Our tour guide prepared us and brought bananas for all of us to give to the monkeys.  We would just hold the bananas over our heads and the monkeys would hang down from the branch and peel the banana right in our hand!! They are particular about their monkeys though, and the monkeys will only eat them if they are not overripe. They peel the banana before they eat it because they can tell the scent of the human on the peel, and see it as 'dirty' and wont eat it. If you take the banana out of the peel and then toss the banana to the monkey, they will catch it out of thin air, and then clean the banana since your hand touched the banana instead of the peel. Once they are done cleaning they will eat the banana.

In addition to our monkey expedition, while in Tafi Atome we got a tour of their village. The village people live in huts with thatched roofs. THey have a seperate hut for their kitchen so that if the kitchen burns down it does not burn the whole house down. Their kitchen only consists of an area to cook food over an open fire.  The village that runs through Tafi Atome is where the community bathes. The women also do their laundry and washing in the river as well. The river runs near the village and is also used as 'fresh water'.  The women fetch the water from the river and carry it on their heads. The big bowls of water looked so heavy, they had to be at least 10 gallons of water! The young children learn the act of balancing the water on their head as young as 3 years old. They start with just a dinner bowl full of water, and our guide said that the first few weeks they almost never return to the village with water still in the dinner bowl. As they get older they get better though. By the age of 7, they are expected to be able to fetch water (in much smaller amounts than the adults) for their mothers. We saw a child probably about 6 years old carrying a 2 gallon bucket of water on his head. There is one well in the city that has water that is considered better than the river water, this water is drawn directly from the water source below the river.  Their is a school in Tafi Atome for all the children.  The town 'supermarket' is an area where each of the different crops of the village is sold. They sell fresh fruits and vegetables as well as fish. There were goats and chickens roaming freely throughout the village as well. The chickens I assume are for eggs, and the goats are for meat. We thought that the goats would also be for milk, but our guide told us that they do not milk these goats.

Prior to our arrival in Tafi Atome, our tour guide taught us a song in Eve, the language of this region. WHen we arrived we walked over to the school and began singing the song, the children came outside and joined in our song. It was so much fun to sing along with them. They started clapping and even dancing a bit. I was so glad that Sam had taught us the song!

Ghana Post 1

Hello-??I am back on the ship from my stay in Ghana. It was AWESOME. The people here are what made the whole adventure above and beyond my expecations. They people are probably the friendliest people I have met. When we would drive through a village, people would stop what they were doing and wave to the bus as we drove by!! We got the opportunity to stop near a village while waiting for another bus and the people of the village (although not expecting us) came up to the road and wanted to show us their village, we walked through the village with them and all the kids came out onto the walking path to smile and wave to us.  It was a great experience!  The tour company that we used also exceeded my expectations, they were great. The tour guide that I went with for the overnight was the best! ??My posts from Ghana are going to be out of order and just postings on each topic/ experience I had. You can email me at amdryer@semesteratsea.net with any questions or comments.

The picture is of one of the Mona Monkeys eating a banana out of someones hand. This monkey is a very small monkey. It was not this years baby, but probably about a year old. It also looks much smaller because the bananas here are only about 5 inches long instead of the ones we usually eat at home that are much larger.


Look for more posts soon!

Back to Land

Tomorrow we arrive in Ghana!  We have been preparing for this next port of call in our global studies class as well as in cultural and logistical pre-port information sessions. Yesterday we had a cultural pre-port regarding music in Ghana and West Africa. It was very cool. The world music professor teamed up with our interport professor (a professor from our next port of call who sails with us just for the duration of the voyage directly before the port, so this professor has sailed with us since Morocco) to present both typical music and instruments in Ghana as well as traditional drumming and dancing. It was pretty cool.  Before the professor had finished there were probably 30 students who had jumped up on the stage to dance along with the professors. It was very fun.

During our stay in Ghana, I have a few trips planned during the day. I am actually quite booked full for the duration of our time in Ghana, but will be spending most nights here on the ship. Tomorrow I will be visiting a school near Accra. This trip is organized as a field trip from my psychology of learning and memory class. We will be traveling with the professor of the class and visiting this school. Although the professor would have preferred to get us a taste of a more rural school, our visit tomorrow will be to one of the more affluent schools in Ghana.  The teachers of the school are going to meet with us and discuss how education varies throughout different districts of Ghana. We have heard that there are some schools who cannot even afford pens for all the students, so instead pens are shared (and highly valued) amongst the classroom. After our visit tomorrow to the school, I will have a better judgment of the education system and the access to education by students in Ghana.  I believe the school is a K-12 school.

In the evening tomorrow I am going to a 'welcome reception' hosted by university students here in Ghana. This will give us an opportunity to meet students in Ghana and compare their experiences with ours.  I think this will be a very good opportunity. I hear there is also traditional food, so that should be fun too. 

The following day I depart for an overnight trip to the Volta region.  Although I do not know much about this trip right now, I know that we will be hiking and climbing quite a bit. It will be a very nature filled adventure. We will even make our way to the base of huge waterfalls, and I hear that we even get to swim there!  DUring the evening we will be staying in a hotel and the following day  (our 3rd day in Ghana) I will be visiting a village which has practiced conservation as a culture by keeping the monkeys sacred. We will have an opportunity to see the monkeys as they are in the wild!  This evening I will return to the ship.

The last day in Ghana I am doing a village experience. I will have the opportunity to take place in an African naming ceremony, to observe traditional drumming and dance, and to learn (and maybe even try!) traditional pottery making or kente-cloth weaving.  I will also visit a game reserve and hopefully see some of West Africa's wild game including: antelope, bushbucks, kobs, birds, baboons, and monkeys!  En route back to the ship we will also visit the Obonu Tem and Se Yo caves to observe the traditions of some of the traditional African Krobo people.

So, my time in Ghana is packed full! I am really hoping to get to do a little shopping while I am in Ghana too, but its pretty busy!!  I will have access to my semester at sea email on and off while I am in Ghana as I will be returning to the ship for most nights. 

Ship life -WEEKEND

Today was our first NO CLASS DAY while at sea. It was almost like our first weekend, but only one day long.  Everyone seemed really excited to sleep in, but of course around 9 am the crew decided to have a practice drill. That meant all the ships alarms and the loudspeaker were almost constant.  It seemed so unfair to practice on the only day without class, but I guess they really could not have practiced if we did have class, and I would prefer them practiced and prepared if we came across any troubles.


 It seemed like everyone took advantage of the 'weekend' by laying out and getting some sun on the seventh deck. I even laid out in the sun and jumped in the pool. It was my first time in the pool. I was really surprised how much the pool water moved around. It seemed like you could not stay in the same spot. We were in the deep part because the pool was so full, so where we were standing was beyond where I could even touch my tippie-toes!  It seemed with every big wave that we were pushed across the pool.  It was really fun. The pool though was just about full to capacity. It was almost shoulder to shoulder!  I have seen the whole student body in one place, but it looked like there were even more than the entire student body by the pool (even though that is not possible).

Last night in honor of our 'weekend night' we had a ship talent show.  It was tons of fun. It went from 9 until almost midnight. There were some students who were very talented, and some that really had no talent, but were fun to watch.  The events that bring the whole ship community together are really fun. 

Moroccan Food

I know these posts are going to be all out of order.. sorry.


The food in Morocco-

The food was very good. Prior to arriving in Morocco though, Dr. Dave gave us some rules to keep us healthy. He told us not to eat any fruit that we did not peel ourselves, and not to eat anything raw (including vegetables). We were also to be careful with milk and milk products because for the most part this milk is unpasteurized and our bodies would not tolerate it as easily.  Of course, as soon as we arrived the food we were served almost always did not follow Dr. Dave's rules. This photo is from one of our first meals. The meals are always served family style (placed in the middle to share amongst all at table).  Of course the bread was always safe, but the majority of the first course usually was not. In this photo we were served a carrot dish, a tomato and onion dish, beets, a bean stew thing and a tomato dish thing. Although there was very little we were supposed to try, I tried all of it!  After a course like this we were always served a second dish involving a tangine of some type of meat. Those were always what Dr. Dave considered to be safe to eat. 

The dessert in Morocco was usually fruit of some sort. Although this also was not usually Dr. Dave's suggestion, most of it was very good. We also were given pastries for dessert some times. 

After a meal we would be served mint tea. Mint tea is a tea that tastes just like wintergreen gum! I think it is the only type of tea that I have liked so far. Its very very sweet, but its also quite good.

Morocco Post 2

Sorry, these are a little out of order, just been adding them when I have time.

Hello-
I am back on the ship from our stay in Morocco!  It was awesome. The food was very good, and my trips were awesome.  First I did a trip to Marrakech, Zagora, and a camel trek.  This was awesome. We left the morning that we arrived in Casablanca and immediately headed towards Marrakech. We stopped at the big market upon arrival in Marrakech and it was crazy. There were so many people walking every direction, and cars and mopeds, and donkeys and mules with carts, and stands with snake charmers, it was just a mess!  We almost felt like we had to hold hands!  Unfortunately our first day in the market was cut very short by a torrential downpour. It does not rain very frequently in Morocco, but while we were there the skies opened up!  Of course the market is an outdoor market, so we ended up getting drenched. At first we were able to avoid the downpour by ducking into a little passageway that was dry, as more and more people discovered our dry spot though it got really full in there.  We were getting a little nervous when the shop owners surrounding our little area decided to turn off all the lights, but we realized this was because the flooded streets were a hazard to the electrical supplies that ran along the floor of the markets.  We ended up dashing back to where the bus was supposed to pick us up because we felt a little uneasy being the only women, and the only tourists in the area.  Unfortunately, just because of the downpour the bus did not decide to come early and we ended up waiting in the pouring rain (really heavy rain) for nearly 45 minutes for the bus to come. There was nowhere to hide waiting for the bus either! 

We slept in Marrakech that evening at a hotel and then continued the eight hour drive to Zagora the next day. The bus ride was crazy! It was through the High Atlas Mountains. The mountain passes were VERY windy and the bus seemed to take them way too fast. We were like falling out of our seats many times! Water bottles and backpacks were sliding across the bus!  Once we arrived in Zagora we left the busses and got on camelback! There were 85 camels, but 170 students so we had to share a camel. We decided one would walk and one would ride and we would switch off.  The camel riding was fun. It was pretty bouncy, and VERY tall.  We traveled about 45 minutes into the Sahara where a nomad camp was waiting for us. This camp had been set up just for our arrival. It was set up with an entrance with an area of Moroccan rugs all laid out perfectly with an area in the middle for a campfire. Off the middle section were the 3 large dining tents and about 30 small tents for sleeping.  We had nearly 2.5 hours to waste before dinner (until after the sun went down for Ramadan), so we just hung out and explored near the camp and watched the sun set. Dinner was very good, we had a beef stew tangine and vegetables. The Berber women also made fresh pita-style bread over the campfire for us that was hot and fresh and delicious!  After dinner we had melon for dessert. After the dessert there were some demonstrations by the nomads in singing and dancing, and everyone got involved. Once those were done people hung out and chatted. We explored outside the camp and found a huge sand dune with a great view of the stars. There were about 20 SAS kids laying out there watching shooting stars. I learned the following day that some of them ended up sleeping there!  We returned to our tents to go to bed but Kate’s bed had bugs in it. They were beetles that were like 2 inches long. It was gross, so we all decided to stay together near one of the dining tents. This was better anyways because the dining tents were not entirely enclosed so we were able to half sleep under the stars in the Moroccan dessert. It got really cold that night, and we froze over night, but it was still worth it.


The next day we boarded our camels and trekked back through the Sahara to where we had left our busses. It was about an hour and a half this time because we took a longer route.  The camels were pretty bouncy, but it was a lot of fun. The camels were tied together in strips of about 5 camels each led in the front by a nomad. After we got back to the bus unfortunately it was time for that 8-hour trek back through the mountains. It’s a beautiful drive, probably one of the prettiest I have ever been on, but it’s just not as fun in a 40-passenger bus!  Good thing we were all so tired, we got an extra nap on the bus!  We stopped for lunch and had tomatoes and potatoes for the first course (chopped of course) and then we had a tangine of chicken with dates, and then for dessert we had melons. It was pretty good. Then we reloaded the bus for some more drive. When we finally arrived back in Marrakech we were sick of the bus!  We went to a market and I did a little Christmas shopping!  Then we had dinner on our own (Pizza Hut!) then returned to the hotel in Marrakech.


More Soon...

Morocco Post 1

These posts from Morocco are going to be out of order, but I just have a little bit of time to hit on some important points right now.

I spent one of the evenings here in Morocco with a family. It was really cool. It was a highlight of my time in Morocco. The family consisted of a mom and a dad with three kids. The kids were Charouk (12 years), Iness (8 years) and Adam (3 years).  The two girls and the parents all spoke three languages! They speak English, Arabic, and French. The little boy (Adam) currently only speaks Arabic, but will be learning French and English soon in school. All three of the kids currently attend George Washington Academy. GWA is an expensive private school that is an American Academy abroad.  From the age of 3, when the first year of kindergarten begins (they have 3 years of kindergarten), they begin their trilingual education!  What I found incredibly interesting when I was talking with the kids is how similar they are in many ways to American students. For one, the go to school from 8 to 3:30 five days a week just like the students in America. They watch American movies (in English) and can carry on a conversation about many new releases. The little boy Adam was even watching ‘The Jungle Book’ when we arrived to his house. Charaouk hopes to study abroad on Semester at Sea one day (we gave her a tour of the ship), and plans to go to college to become a doctor!  She loves the twilight books and has read all of them and has seen the movies!  She likes roller coasters and theme parks. She works really hard in school and gets good grades.

I think meeting with the family and spending time understanding their daily life was such a unique experience. It was great to get a better picture of the similarities and differences in the families close to home, and far away!

Camels

Tomorrow our Moroccan Adventure begins! I will first be spending tomorrow morning on a bus to Marrakech. In Marrakech there are amazing markets and side streets to explore. It is slightly more dangerous than Spain, but I will be sure to stay in a group.  The following day we are going to take a bus to the Sahara desert. We will be spending the night in a desert camp with nomads. We will have campfire dinner with the nomads as well. The following day we will start to explore the Sahara by camelback!  It will be awesome. After our camel ride is complete we will return to Zagora, then to Marrakech, then finally to Casablanca.  It will be a 4 day trip in all. I found some information online about camels I thought was interesting. Did you know that the dromedary camel is known for its healthy low fat milk? Or that the average life expectancy of a camel is 40 to 50 years!!  Or did you know that at the top of the hump of the camel they are on average 7 ft 1 inches tall!!  How about that camels can run at a peak speed of 40 mph!  Wow.. I learned a lot about camels today. I sure hope my camel doesn't decide to run at that speed though, that could be quite a ride!

After the camel ride I will be spending the evening with a Moroccan family. I think this will be a really cool experience, and totally unique to SAS. I am excited for that too!


Just thought I would let you know all I learned about camels.  Also, I will probably not have email for the next 4 days, and I do not plan to bring my computer with me. I would love to hear from you, but I will not return it until the 14th or 15th.


Talk to you later
Al

SPAIN!

Hope everyones first week of school (and first long weekend) went really well.  I am in Spain! Today is my last day in Spain and then we are headed to Morocco. I already boarded the ship for our next segment at sea. While in Spain I visited 2 cities: Cadiz and Seville.  In Cadiz I explored the city by wandering through the side streets and getting really lost.  I started to learn the city this way though, and by the end could kind of find my way around.  I spent a day at the beach in Cadiz as well.  It was nice to swim in the atlantic ocean and spend some time relaxing.  In Seville I visited an ancient royal palace. Part of the palace is still in use today. It was awesome, some parts of the old palace were still functional, although not used (including a bath house powered by rain water).  This palace is the location of where Christopher Columbus's voyage was planned and put in action.  I also visited the Cathedral in Seville. The cathedral is the largest gothic cathedral in the world!  It was very cool, and was also the location of Christopher Columbus's tomb!  The last thing I did in Seville was attend a bullfight.

The food- Something that I really enjoy about traveling is experiencing the food in different cultures. In Spain they really love their ham. Their ham is different than ours though. It is sliced very thin (like bacon) but not crunchy.  It is very different than anything we have in the U.S.. It is very common though and is considered quite a treat.  Also, the time scale of a typical Spanish day is very different than ours.  They have breakfast a little later than us and then start work/school a little later than us also.  They have lunch around 1-2pm and then return home for a Siesta (nap). Most of the city closes down during the siesta time (including stores and restaurants).  After siesta the restaurants open for 'Tapas' which are small plates of food. They are sometimes the same meals you can get during meals, but are smaller versions, and sometimes are different than other meals. These tapas are relatively inexpensive and are usually served from about 4-6 pm.  At this point many people return to work for the evening. Dinner is not served until about 10 pm!  It took a little while to get used to the new schedule, but once we did, it was pretty nice.  Other meals that I ate while in Spain include : Calamari (fried squid), potato and egg sandwich, marinated bulls tails, and helado (ice cream!).

I will update more later, but I would love to hear from you in the mean time. It would be especially nice to know which teachers are using the blog, and how you are incorporating this into your classroom. Please email me at amdryer@semesteratsea.net.

Spain Tomorrow!

Tomorrow morning we will be arriving in Spain!  I will be really glad to see land!!!  I am planning on traveling to Seville with some friends for a few days, then spending the rest of our time in Spain in Cadiz, Spain.  We are planning on visiting the Alcazar, the Cathedral of Seville, a BullRing, and more historic sites in Seville.  I will be out exploring and eating Spanish Food and practicing my spanish skills.  Do any of the classrooms learn or use any Spanish?  If so, I would love to hear what you know!  Once again, you can email me at amdryer@semesteratsea.net with any questions or comments, and I would even just love to know what is going on in your classrooms. There is a possibility that I will not have access to this email until I return to the ship after our stay in Spain, but I will try.



Thanks so much!

At Sea!

Hello-
Hope everyone is having a really good start to the school year! I am more than half way to Spain. We have traveled more than 2,000 nautical miles since August 28th!

Our current coordinates are:
38 degrees 47.8N
017 degrees 22.9W

I am preparing for our time in Spain!  We will port in Cadiz, Spain on Saturday morning. I will be leaving by bus or train to Sevilla, Spain on Saturday. I will be spending 2 nights in Sevilla and then returning for 2 days to Cadiz, Spain.  Following Spain we will only have 1 day at Sea before we arrive in our first African Port, Morocco. 

If you or your students has any questions, or you would like me to check anything out while I am in Spain for your classroom, please email me at amdryer@semesteratsea.net.

Thanks, hope to hear from you soon!

Allie

En Route to Spain

Hello-

I hear we are almost halfway to Spain!  Our current coordinates are (42 degrees 19.97N   037 degrees 43.6W).  My Semester at Sea email that you can reach me at is amdryer@semesteratsea.net.  This will be the easiest way to communicate with me, and its free for me to use.  Please let me know when you are interested in more correspondence than the blog reports.  I would love to hear of the interests of your students or the questions that they have. If you want any information just let me know!
Thanks
Allie

Off to Sea

The first day of school in Ashland is just around the corner, and I am boarding for my semester today!

We were able to avoid Hurricane Bill, and he left no damage in Halifax either.  We will be able to board the MV EXPLORER this morning just like as planned.  

The whale watching tours were awesome!  We saw pilot whales, mink whales, and a seal!  We actually were out on two whale watching tours, one in a passenger boat, and the other in an inflatable zodiac boat. The zodiac was pretty cool because we were out in high waves and in this little 16 foot inflatable boat in 10-12 feet waves. The adrenaline rush was more extreme than most roller coasters!

This morning I will board the MV Explorer and set sail for our first port of call which is Spain.

Hope the first day of school goes great!

Canada!

I am currently making my way through Canada. Since my ship leaves out of Halifax, NS, my family has decided to drive our way through Canada in route to Halifax.  Tonight we are up in Cape Breton Highlands National Park.  Its gorgeous!  Tomorrow we are doing a whale watching tour.  On Friday I will board the MV Explorer for my trip around the world!

I am lucky that Hurricane Bill has passed beyond Nova Scotia and did not do any major damage. For a while we were worried that Hurricane Bill would delay or alter our embarkation, but luckily he passed through Halifax without creating too many problems.

Itinerary/Calendar

Calendar:

Depart Halifax, Nova Scotia --> Friday, August 28th.

Cadiz, Spain --> Saturday, September 5th to Tuesday, September 8th

Casablanca, Morocco --> Thursday, September 10th to Monday, September 14th

Accra, Ghana --> Tuesday, September 22 to Friday, September 25th

Cape Town, South Africa --> Saturday, October 3rd to Thursday, October 8th

Port Louis, Mauritius --> Thursday, October 15th to Saturday, October 17th

Chennai, India --> Friday, October 23rd to Tuesday, October 27th

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam --> Tuesday, November 3rd to Sunday, November 8th

China --> Wednesday, November 11th to Monday, November 16th

Japan --> Friday, November 20th to Tuesday, November 24th

Hawaii --> Friday, December 4th to Monday, December 7th

San Diego to Minneapolis to Ashland --> Monday, December 14th