Although i do enjoy flickr, it seems that i have too many photos now to be sustained on a normal account. Paying for internet services is never my thing, as there is always a free one somwhere....

Facebook offers "unlimited photos". Wel;, we'll see I suppose, i do like how smooth it is for uploading photos. Here is an album dedicated to my stay in Northern Drakensburg, a really awesome place for hiking and rock climbing.

for those who are listening...

I'm coming back now.  see you in 24hrs.

i wonder what consequences await me.

still, just an AWESOME trip.

=P

Haven't had much fun these past few days fretting over my APA scholarship. I had to secure certain documentation that because of purely beureacratic reasons could not be produced. I've been cooking a lot to fill the time and staying up till 2 and waking up at 7, just so I can during office hours.

 

But, the short of it is, I have go the scholarship. I have to graduate with 1st Class Honours, which i will. I can finally breath easily a little and start enjoying myself again. Only problem is, I'm stuck in a stupid city infested with indian people. It's not a bad thing, just I feel like i'm in Sydney again. No fun. On the other hand, the city of Durban sits on a beach front.. so *mmmmmmmh*.

 

St. Lucia is meant to be beautiful, the bits i went to were awesome, but i barely got around. I did do Deep Sea fishing while i was out there, which is an experience. We went through all this rough sea, got totally drenched, turned back to shallower waters. I upchucked twice, equal first with another man on the boat and i could barely feel the bites on the line while i concentrated on not upchucking the third time. I was quite glad once we hit land, through a complicated 3 try landing procedure.

 

Definitely a nasty experience, i'm sticking to land fishing from now on, until i get good at it anyway. The skipper gave me a fish, which made an interesting night of cooking, fish vegetable soup as starters and grilled <something> fillets with roast potatoes and rice as main.

 

yum =)

Spending a few days in Swaziland was a great decision. I only intended one or two days but somehow it became four. The place I stayed in was in a natural game reserve and is almost completely surronded by a mountain range. The second your in the country your forced to slow down and just watch the landscape in front of you. Fortunately, I arrived during one of two great celebrations in Swazi culture, the Incawala ceremony.

It was amazing, all these swazi men in cow belts, holding a stick and a shield walking around as if this was perfectly normal everyday behaviour. Thousands and thousands of swazi come on this day to pay tribute to the king and sing songs or praise, as the King allows the people to take part in the first harvests of the year. As we arrived to area of celebration the swazi men were lining up and squaring off to enter the kings sanctuary which is fenced off with dead branches about 2 metres talk. Each group of men were a regiment and they would march around and gather speed the closer and closer they got to the entrance, until all the men were at full bolt.

From where i was standing it, I was behind the regiments and i really didnt get that many good snaps. Watching cow-hided rear ends for 2 hrs didnt really interest me. I split from the group and went around to the front to just see how it was there. It was a little better but the spot was further off, but oh well it was a better spot to take in the swazi culture.

"Press? Press?" said a cow hided person i believed to be a guard of sorts.

I see a few people with big heavy cameras and monster zoom lens head towards the guard. I think back on Khao san road wehre it was possible to get a journalist pass faked for a price. That would definitely have been handy at a time like this.

A uniformed crowd controller that I had been conversing with says to me "Are you a journalist?". "Nope, just a tourist" "Oh? well go take advantage of being journalist."

*stunned* OKAY for sure. I lined up behind all the people with big huge lens and filed through metal detectors. One of the guards gave me a look. Crap, my cover is blown what happens now?. "Stand over here please"

The next half hour the "press" got prime position to take photos of the ceremony. Although most of it was boring from there on it was still a great position to be in. The king's royal guard clothed in red like the british armies of old came in as an marching band and armed regiment. Not very cultural. Then the king showed up in traditional garb and inspected his troops and proceeded into his royal sanctuary. I snuck around as much as i could and got some good snaps of his royal highness. Being press is awesome!

I ended the day by entering his royal sanctuary and joined in the dances and celebration. We received some very funny looks, but the swazi men were very happy we were trying and gave us some pointers as well. They are a very proud and cultural people who have somehow maintained they're individuality despite the surrounding wars in the country of South Africa.

So here is the tail end of the trip. I'm in St. Lucia, a beach town of sorts with a few tourist activities. I envision getting back on the 12th or so. I'm gonna chill out for a few days here and then make my way to J'Burg. I'd like to be able to check out the Apartied Meseum before i leave as well. Time is such a constraint. Sucks.

For 7 days i somehow managed to hire a car without a valid licence and proceeded to tour through Kruger National Park. It's kind of like our National Parks except with actual wildlife. I mean there is the odd blue-tongue lizard here and there in Australia but you could drive your way through them all and see near nothing. Not in Kruger.

 

Here there are the big 5 among other fantastic wildlife that you normally see in the zoo. The Big 5 is giraffe, elephant, lion, leopard and rhino. The last three are quite rare and seldom seen, fortunately i was able to spot all 5 among other rare finds, like african wild cat, wild dogs and a chamelon crossing the road. The great thing about Kruger is, you set your own tour. Hop in your car, pick a road and drive away. As you watch the tree and grass go past you spot something roundish, adrenalin kicks in and you slow down to see what it is, rhino? elephant? or the dreaded impala? After that there is the mad scramble of trying to frame the picture before it gets spooked and moves away.

 

I have to say the highlight was coming face to face with a lion. My mind froze and i was like, this is not right i'm within 2 metres of a lion with the window down. I thought it was about to jump me for a moment as there was a car to its left and right and I was in the middle and it was looking right at me. So i did all i could do and that was poke a camera in its face and snap as many photos as i could. At least it could be evidence for what killed me...It moved to the right, and i sharply wound up the window.

 

There was a lot of funny moments as i survived the 7 days by living out of a car. It's quite hard with no fridge, no electricity and just in general no "stuff" e.g. detergent. It's not that i couldn't have bought them, but then i would have to carry them. So i used soap instead of detergent, the oil from cooking chicken and beer instead of wine. In my desparation, I invented Beer Chicken Rice. This South African women thought i was quite the crazy chinaman meanwhile she was making some kind of white gooey thing called "Pop". There was the night it was so hot i decided, "hey this car is newer then mine, surely it can last a night with the fans on". This is sadly not the case for a Kia car, it was a great night sleep though. Just not so fun running around asking if anyone had a jumper cable.

 

Hmmm there was a lot of things that i will surely forget...oh like this one, a baboon snuck up behind a group of south africans and jumped around the table and stole all the food they were intending to bbq. It didnt succeed because the bag was too heavy carry. In turn it got very upset about that and yelled and screamed at us. After it was almost over, I whipped out my camera and snagged a very poor shot =( Oh wells...  

 

Oh and happy new years to all the people who read this blog. I slept through new years so i've decided to postpone ny celebrations until i return... Celebrating alone, just doesn't work.