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INDIA!

Some of you may know of my obsession with Slumdog Million, rupees, and basically anything to do with India.  Well it turned out India was even more amazing and I loved it even more than I imagined!  Seriously though… hands down my favorite place I’ve been on this trip and in my life.  But because I’m so behind in my blog I’m going to try to give you a condensed, abbreviated version of my adventures in my 2^nd favorite country on earth (God bless America).  The reason I haven’t updated my blog in so long is because out of all the blog posts I’ve had to just skip over India because I knew I would have too much to write about it, but didn’t want to put up the rest of my blog out of order.  Sooooo it took me long enough but finally here it is…

Day 1:

The first day I didn’t have any particular plans.  So my friend Michelle and I decided just to explore Cochin, the city where the ship docked.  When we got off the ship were immediately swarmed by an army of auto-rickshaw drivers.  Completely overwhelmed, we just hopped in the first rickshaw we saw.  When we asked the driver just to drop us off in the center of town, he said he could do that but he would also be happy to drive us around all day and take us to all the major tourist attractions in Cochin for the hefty price of one US dollar… Deal!  He literally drove us around the entire city, for the entire day for only one dollar.  We saw some a few temples, a school, the first church in India, a fishing village, a market where I nearly spent all my money, and a ton more.  We made friends at a tea shop, sipped on a fresh coconut after eating a fresh mango, explored an herb market, and watched a snake charmer from what was probably an excessive distance.  When we said we were hungry for lunch, our driver brought us to this awesome waterfront restaurant that looked out over the harbor.  We popped some tums and blindly ordered about 5 things off Hindi menu.  I’ve never really eaten a lot of Indian food so I had no idea what to expect.  I LOVED it!  We ordered one spicy dish that literally felt like it was burning my stomach, but it was so delicious that even though I was basically crying I couldn’t stop eating it.  Before heading back to the ship we got henna all over our arms.  All in all, it was probably one of the best days of my life.  I actually couldn’t stop smiling the entire day. 

Day 2:

The second day I woke up early to catch a flight to New Dehli.  The drive to the airport was cool because we had to drive down dirt roads through a bunch of little villages.  The night before getting to India there was a showing of a Bollywood movie called Om Shanti Om on the ship (which of course I attended).  Obviously we had never heard of the film or any of the actors, but the main character Om was on just about every billboard we passed on the way to the airport.  When we got to Dehli late that afternoon they took us on a mini bus tour of the city.  All of the government buildings were made of pink sandstone.  There were monkeys EVERYWHERE.  Monkeys in India are like pigeons back in the US.  Dehli, which looked just like any other big city, was surprising developed and well kept.

Day 3:

We woke up at 4:30 to catch a train to Agra.  Although I love India, it is by far the dirtiest place we’ve been too.  On the train we passed a few different slums.  I didn’t think it could be possible but these slums were so much worse than the fevellas of Rio or the townships in Cape Town.  It really was impossible to imagine that people actually live there.  In the rural parts of the train ride we passed villages where people lived in straw huts the size of my bathroom at home.  Despite the size, I would rather live in those huts than in the slums that we passed.  There were animals everywhere.  From cows to pigs to chickens to vultures… we saw it all.  When we got to the train station in Agra, we had our first encounter with those affected by the absolute poverty that can be found all over India.  Small children came up to us begging not for our money, but for our water bottles.  And not to sell, they actually opened them up and chugged them the second we handed over our purified water.  There was a man without legs, dragging himself across the ground on his stomach, a teenager in a wheelchair whose elevated foot was swollen to at least 3 times bigger than his head, tiny children asking for water in English when they didn’t even look old enough to speak their own language yet, men and cows digging through the same trash pile for food, and men peeing EVERYWHERE.  Our guide told us that when the kids begging at the train station are given money they don’t go out and use it to buy food.  This is because they know that they can scrap up food from travelers at the train station.  Instead, he said that the boys take their money and go to “night shows.”  However not for entertainment.  They go so that they can escape the train station for a night and get a good, full, inexpensive night sleep indoors…  He also said that most of these people around the train station live to be 20-25 years old.  I’m almost 22.

            In the morning we went to an old fort that was part of one of the ancient cities outside of Agra.  We had to drive 2 hours through the countryside to get there.  Our guide said that the kids in the rural areas that we were passing don’t really go to school.  Not because they don’t want to, but rather because there are no teachers in the area because no one wants to live in the countryside.  He said that instead most of the children either beg, work in the factories or work in the fields.  This became apparent when we got to the fort around noon on a Wednesday, where swarms of children were waiting outside to try to sell us souvenirs.  I didn’t bring any money with me, but one little boy named Lahit would not stop following me around trying to sell me a set of bangles.  Eventually he realized I was telling him the truth when I said I didn’t have any money but we kept talking anyways.  He said that he just turned 10 years old that that he was the oldest of 3 boys in his family.  He spoke very good English so I asked him where he learned it.  He said he learned English mostly by speaking with tourists and foreigners trying to sell them things.  He said he was best at English but he also spoke Spanish, Italian, and a little German.  At first I wasn’t sure if I believed him but then he went on rambling in Spanish and enven though I don’t know Spanish very well I know enough to understand that he certainly knew more than I do.  Oh yeah and he also talked about how he loves Michael Jackson.  My 3 colorful target bracelets from back home caught his eye and he asked if he could have one of them (ps these are probably the cheapest thing I own).  Considering I have about 50 more on the ship I gave him all three and in return he gave me one of the bangles that he was trying to sell to me earlier.  The fort was cool but personally I had more fun hanging out with my new Michael Jackson loving friend.  When it was time to go he shook my hand, said it was very nice to meet me, called me his friend, and out of the blue promised that he would never sell his 3 new bracelets.

“What is this some hotel or something?” –Slumdog Millionaire

The rest of the afternoon we visted a few more markets, shops, and monuments, but honestly none of that really sticks out in my mind compared to our last activity of the day… the Taj Mahal!  I’m not trying to be dramatic or anything but literally the Taj was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life.  I thought it was beautiful before from what I’ve seen in pictures and movies, but I never imagined standing in front of the Taj Mahal would be as breathtaking as it was.  Again not trying to be dramatic or cliché, but when we walked through the archway leading out to our first view of the grand building I literally froze and was left speechless.  Eventually we were able to scoot out of the initial crowd and off to the side.  To preface what happened next I’m gonna back track a little.  My friends on the ship quickly picked up that one of my favorite movies is Slumdog Millionaire and that India was the port that I was most excited about.  Since I had signed up for this particular India trip before I was on the ship no one was on the same trip with any of their good friends.  My friend Michelle, who was also going to celebrate her 21^st birthday the day we were at the Taj, was on a trip with a similar itinerary that we hoped might cross over with mine at some point.  I told her that if I saw her in the train station I was going to scream “JAMAL JAMAL” to her just like in the movie… a little strange I know.  So back to the Taj… As I was standing there just casually looking at one of the 7 wonders of the world I hear “LATIKA!  LATIKA!” coming from behind me.  I turned around and was tackled by Michelle who was literally running towards me.  I don’t know what got into us but with the way we were jumping up and down screaming, you would think we were teenie boppers at a Justin Bieber concert.  I don’t even care if its weird, but I have to say that was probably the happiest/most exciting moment of my life/a dream come true.  Before leaving that night we were able to sit out by the fountain in front and watch the sunset on the Taj Mahal… pretty darn cool.  Afterwards we headed back to Dehli and I met up with Michelle to celebrate her birthday in India.

Day 4:

The next morning we went to the Rajghat, the place where Gandhi was cremated.  After that we caught a flight to Veranasi, one of the holiest cities for the Hindu religion.  It was kind of late in the afternoon when we got there.  We hopped in a rickshaw to head to the Ganges River to watch a Hindu sunset ceremony.  In the beginning of being in India I thought Cochin was the coolest place ever, then I thought Dehli was awesome, then I thought Agra was amazing, but Veranasi just topped them all.  Veranasi was what I pictured when I pictured India.  I don’t even know how to begin to describe it because it was so crowded that I don’t even know what all I was looking at.  I have no idea how we did not get in a 20 vehicle pile up (“vehicle” meaning a bike-car-goat-cow-donkey-motorcycle pile up).  The driver dropped us off about a 10 minute walk from the river.  To get there we had to walk down this CROWDED market street/bazaar.  I ran into about a million people partly because it was so crowded but mainly because I couldn’t stop looking everywhere except where I was walking.  When we got there, there was a massive crowd at the bank of the river and hundreds of people in boats waiting for the ceremony to begin.  I had no idea what was going on, but the ceremony involved a lot of burning candles, red dots on our foreheads, and constant chanting.  Very cool.

Day 5:

            The next morning we woke up bright and early yet again and headed down to the Ganges River for a boat ride at sunrise.  The Ganges is a holy river and a destination for Hindus.  I don’t know a whole lot about it all but from what I gathered in the Hindu religion they believe that if their ashes are sprinkled in the river than they can break the cycle of reincarnation and that bathing themselves in the river cleanses them of their sins.  While it may cleanse one of their sins, the river certainly doesn’t do any cleansing when it comes to hygiene.  Our guide told us that the river is 70% fecal matter… and yes, some did accidently splash on my face.  Dirty or not, riding down the river was such a cool experience.  In the river we saw floating candles, cows swimming, dead animals, people swimming, people bathing, people using the bathroom, people washing their clothes, children drinking the water, a man brushing he teeth, a dead body, and freshly cremated ashes being tossed into the water.  We even drove past the spot where hundreds of bodies are cremated every day and then sprinkled in the river (it was less than 50 feet away from this spot where I saw the man brushing his teeth).  Pretty much all I can think to say was that the whole experience was completely unreal.

            After walking around the town and doing some shopping, when went to the site where Buddha gave his first religious ceremony around 600 BC.  We flew back to Cochin late that night.

Day 6:

            On our last day in India I had a required field trip.  We went to the Chengdalamenga Village and were hosted by an organization that focuses on empowering women in the community.  We were welcome into the village buy a parade of drummers and dancers.  Afterwards, they cooked us a DELICIOUS local meal served on giant leaves and then tried to lead a large group tour of some of the village.  Two of my friends and I ended up separating from the tour portion and were shown around the village by some of the local kids.  We had been carrying around water bottles and when we were finished drinking them the kids asked us if they could have them.  Sure?  We ended up having an epic battle with water bottles as our swords.  

After spending a short week in India I’ve concluded that after visiting Rio, but before moving to Cape Town, I’m just going to have to fit in a year or so in India.  Just kidding but I am completely serious about wanting to go back to India and stay until I’ve seen everything.  When or how… I have not idea, but I know that I will 100% DEFINITELY find myself in India above everywhere else I’ve visited at some point down the road. 

“Be the change you hope to see in the world.” –Gandhi

"So where do you keep the guns?"

            When you think Somalia, one thing that might come to mind is pirates.  Our route from Mauritius to India happens to lead the MV Explorer a right around the area off the coast of Somalia.  One afternoon before we made it to India, my friend and I somehow got into a conversation with one of the chief crew members.  Early that day we had noticed some of the crew sitting out on deck 5 with numerous giant water hoses dangling over the side of the boat.  We had never seen this before so we asked our new friend what that was all about.  He said although a pirate attack was highly unlikely, it was important to be prepared for the worst.  But with water hoses?  He further explained that pirates would climb up the side of the ship with magnets and so the giant water hoses would be used to knock the invaders into the ocean.  Now somewhat concerned, we asked him “well where to do you keep the guns?  We must have some kind of weapons on the ship?”  He laughed and said, “of course not, our weapon is our speed.”  So to anyone who was maybe worried about my safety, no need to worry… the MV Explorer has speed and water hoses.

Mauritius...???

“You gather the idea that Mauritius was made first, and then heaven, and that heaven was copied after Mauritius.”- Mark Twain
            
Our next port was supposed to be Mauritius, however our ship ended up having to go off course in order to avoid a typhoon.  Sooooooo the day before we were supposed to dock in Mauritius they announced that we were going to have to cut it out of the schedule.  I have never seen so many disappointed people in my entire life.  Even though our entire trip basically is a vacation (so don’t think I’m complaining), everyone had just finished midterms and so Mauritius was basically like our one day spring break.  In addition we were hitting the roughest seas of the entire trip.  Instead of Mauritius they set up a big bbq and dance party on the top deck for everyone.  We always have pub nights so we thought it was just going to be the same old thing, but for some reason it ended up being so much fun.  I think it was partially because everyone was going stir crazy realizing that we weren’t going to get off the boat for another 9 days.  They blasted music on the top deck for the first time and when it started pouring down raining everyone ran out in the downpour and was jumping around to Shakira’s Waka Waka.  By the looks of it you would have thought everyone was hopelessly drunk.  But considering that fact that we are limited to 2 beers at night and no one is allowed to bring alcohol on the boat or been successful in smuggling, it certainly wasn’t alcohol fueling the mayhem.  And it wasn’t just the students.  The deans were out there doing the dougie and the teachers (most of whom actually were surprisingly intoxicated) could have been mistaken for Beyonce as they were getting down to Single Ladies.  When they cut off the music at midnight, instead of heading to the piano bar for my nightly m&m’s and Pringles everyone started singing (actually screaming) their own music.  Songs include… “we are not going to Mauritius, NO we aint going to Mauritius.  We’re not going to Mauritius anymore” and “na na na na, na na na na hey hey hey goodbye… MAURITIUS.”  To cap of the anti-celebration, we moved all our mattresses into my friend’s room for an old-school slumber party watching the Lion King.

            Two days later the dean came over the loud speaker and announced that they were able to work it out to where we could in fact get off the boat in Mauritius!  We were only given 4 hours, which we spent at the beach and exploring the town.  Apparently Mauritius was ranked as having the #1 most beautiful beaches in the world.  The beach and the island in general was unbelievable.  The mountains were the funkiest/most abnormal shapes I’ve ever seen and everything was so green.  But I’d have to say the coolest part was getting to swim in the Indian Ocean!

Cape Town

Considering its been almost a month since we were in Cape Town I’m just going to scribble a few bullet points down about what all I did.  But before I do that I have to say that Cape Town was one of my favorite places that ive ever been to.  And yes I know I have probably said that before, but it really was amazing.  Rio is a cool place that I could visit again, but Cape Town was somewhere I could move to!  We didn’t have near enough time there, but here’s what I did get to do in our few days in Cape Town…

Day 1:

- We walked around the shops in the harbor front area and got some great food

- Went to Robben Island where Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners were held during apartheid.  We were given a tour through the prison by an ex political prisoner

Day 2:

I had a field trip with one of my teachers who had lived in Cape Town… we went to the Old Biscuit Mill Market in the morning and then the second half of the day we went to a township and ate at a local restaurant.  The Old Biscuit Mill (or as my human rights teacher calls it… the “white peoples market”) was extremely fancy.  There was every kind of food imaginable from all over the world.  It was kind of like a Saturday morning farmers market type thing but with the fanciest and immense collection of food imaginable.  I think the best way to describe it is that it was basically the food market area in bottom of Harods in London but outside and in Cape Town.  AWESOME.  I ate so much food.  They also had clothes and jewelry, etc.  Then we took a bus to a township where we saw the exact opposite.  Everything was so rundown.  As we drove down the highway the one room shacks kept going for miles and miles and miles.  We went to a restaurant called Mizoli’s.  It wasn’t a traditional order a meal of a menu type restaurant.  All they had was a ton of meat and that’s it.  You picked out your raw meat at a small counter and then they took it in the back and cooked it.  You were supposed to bring your own sides so our teacher had bought some bread and snacks at the market for us and we went to what looked like a lemonade stand across the street for drinks.  However the biggest difference between Mizoli’s and any restaurant back home was that they didn’t give you eating utensils, and keep in mind we were eating meat smothered in bbq sauce.  A group of us split some sausage, chicken, full steaks and lamb.  It was sooooooooooo delicious and by the end we all had sauce all over our faces, hands, and clothes but no one cared.  This wasn’t a touristy restaurant at all and based on some of the confused looks we received I’m pretty sure they don’t even get many people there from outside the township.  About half ways through some people came and set up drums and were singing and dancing.  It wasn’t long before we were all singing and dancing with the super friendly locals.  Great time and the best meal I’ve had so far!

            That night we grabbed our vuvuzwelas and headed out to the FIFA stadium to cheer on the Cape Town Ajax play some soccer.

Day 3:

In the morning about 7 of my friends and I piled in a van and drove to the countryside for a wine tour.  I was so exhausted in the car ride out there but couldn’t fall asleep because the drive was so beautiful and I couldn’t stop looking out the window.  I think that drive was one of the prettiest things I’ve seen so far.  We went to a few different wineries and then ended our road trip at the Aquila Game Reserve.  The guys who were in charge of the tour group we went on had bought a bunch of the same meat from Mizoli’s and when we got to the hotel we had a big bbq and just hung around the hotel that night.  When we finally headed back to our rooms (which were individual little hut things), we realized there was a water buffalo just chilling outside our door.

Day 4:

We woke up early in the morning and did a safari!  We saw a ton of different animals.  Saw some hippos, rhinos, elephants, lions, cheetahs, giraffes, zebras, kudu, etc etc.  It was pretty awesome.  The rest of the day we spent driving back to Cape Town.

Day 5:

I had another field trip thing.  This time we went to a different township and helped out with an organization called Operation Hunger.  Operation Hunger goes into the townships and weighs and measures as many children as they can.  Basically they do the simple parts of a routine checkup than most families don’t have access to in order to identify any children who may be malnourished or have other health problems.  If a child has any sorts of problems they have someone in the community who works for the organization go and check on the family once a week and provide the child with enough food to keep them healthy.  When we got there we first walked around the township for about an hour and then I measured children’s arms.

Day 6:

The last day we woke up bright and early at 4am and went shark diving!  We had some issues with the tour groups getting mixed up so turned out we didn’t get to go until 8 but I was just glad that we were able to go in the end.  Three of us got in the cage at once and I was in the last group to go.  The first few groups saw some sharks and I got to get a good look at them from the boat.  But when I was in the water we didn’t see anything.  Nonetheless it was still SO cool!  We saw a ton of fish underwater and since you couldn’t see very far through the water I still felt like there could be sharks about to pop out.  We also saw a shark attack and eat a seal, so that definitely made up for missing out.  Also the water was FREEZING!

All in all Cape Town was AAAAAAMAZING and one of my favorite places on earth!

“Travel holds the magical possibility of reinvention: that you might find a place you love, to begin a new life and never go home.”

             -Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

GHANA

Fortunately for those who attempt to tackle this blog, I don’t have a weeks worth of things to report on about Ghana due to the fact that I was quarantined on the ship for THREE whole days!  But in the days that I did get to spend in Ghana I had an awesome time!  The first day in Ghana I went with a big group of friends and other SAS-ers to a school/orphanage called the City of Hope Refuge, which was a little ways outside of Tema, the city where we were docked.  The school and orphanage was started and is run by a husband and wife who live at the City of Hope.  They originally started the school when the couple began rescuing children from child trafficking.  At the nearby lake Volta hundreds of children are either kidnapped or even sold or simply GIVEN AWAY by their own parents to local fishermen.  Fishing is a major industry on Lake Volta and the job requires more than one set of hands.  These fishermen often have one or two child slaves that do their dirty work for them.  The difference between the water level of the lake in the dry season vs the water level in the rainy season is drastically different, and so during the rainy season (when most of the fishing is done) there are many trees submerged under the water.  A lot of times the fishermen’s nets get caught in the trees and this is where the child slave comes in handy.  The children are often sent to jump into the water and detangle the nets from the mess of limbs and debris underwater.  This is obviously a dangerous task and many children drown trying to do their owner’s dirty work. 

            Anyways, the husband who started the organization was one of these children.  He was rescued in his early teens by a British couple who provided him with a roof over his head and an education.  After being relieved of a childhood of exploitation, he was determined to completely end child trafficking in the Volta region of Ghana.  I don’t know the total number of children they have rescued so far, but there are at least 22 freed children living at the City of Hope.  Some of these children they adopted themselves but then they also have two other “new families” that take care of the children on the property.  Each family unit has their own building and a mother and father.  I talked with the mother and father of one of the new families and the couple said that they have children who have grown up and moved away. But it isn’t just the rescued kids that go to the school.  There are also children from the nearby village that attend the school, which is actually funded by an organization in Australia. 

            Anyways, sorry for the overload of background information.  So when we arrived at the Refuge it was relatively early in the afternoon so the kids were still in school.  They first showed us around their small, concrete, open air, dirt-floor schoolhouse.  After showing us around, hey split us up into groups and put us in different classrooms with the students.  I was with the little bit older kids (life 4^th grade) and we made Valentine’s day cards.  They were very engaged in their card making until we pulled out our cameras to take a few pictures and then all the attention went immediately to our cameras.  They LOVED our cameras and looking at the pictures after we took them.  After class all the kids congregated outside the school and I became instant friends with the little girl named Rebecca.  She hadn’t been in my class or anything but she just ran up and jumped into my arms and started talking my ear off.  After talking to me about everything from bugs to her Valentines Day card, I gave her my camera and she ran around taking pictures of absolutely everything!  She was actually really good with the camera and in no time she was taking videos too. 

            After all the kids who didn’t live at the Refuge went home we got busy packing a van with 600 meals that they had been preparing all day.  The meals consisted of white rice with some unidentified red stuff poured on top and a hard-boiled egg.  We then headed to the nearby village where a lot of the kids were from to feed the 600 meals to the children there.  I can tell you right now, I’m not going to be able to come even close to properly describing the experience we had feeding the kids.  From the moment we entered the village children popped out from all directions and started chasing after the bus.  By the time we reached the spot where we were going to hand out the meals, there were swarms of people surrounding the bus and van with the meals.  The guy in charge started screaming at everyone in a different language and surprisingly the hoards of children got into somewhat organized cramped rows to wait for food.  However, what little order he had succeeded in establishing at first was lost the second they opened up the back of the van to pull out the meals.  I was standing in between the mass of kids and the van and so I ended up being shoved and squished in the mad rush to get food.  Children were shoving from all direction.  Toddlers were getting trampled.  Hundreds of little hands were sticking out of the mob and were grabbing me trying to get a hold on a little box of food.  We were supposed to be passing the meals to the next helper so they could get them to the back of the pack, but when all of this first started everyone just stood there in shock.  I didn’t even know what to think about what was going on and this definitely wasn’t what any of us expected.  I just stood there promising each kid who was begging me for a meal that I would get him or her one, even though it was so chaotic that I couldn’t even get a hold of one.  When I was given boxes to hand out, they didn’t stay in my hand for one second before someone snatched it.  In the middle of the mob of children I heard someone call my name and saw Rebecca waving at me.  I made my way through the crowd and handed her a meal.  Somehow the mass of hungry children didn’t seem to get any smaller.  When on one swarm of hungry children ran off with their meals, another swooped in grabbing at anything they could get their hands on.  While the pile of meals was disappearing quickly, the number of children kept on multiplying.  As the food stained carpet of the van gradually became more and more visible, it became more and more obvious to us that many children would be turned away without a meal.  It was so hard handing out the last few meals knowing that the next kid wasn’t going to get one.  It sounds cliché, but I really have not even come close to describing what it was like.  It was unlike anything I have ever or will ever experience again.

            The next morning I woke up not feeling so hot.  We decided just to eat breakfast on the ship and then head out to the markets, but I didn’t end up making it off the ship.  I ended up have a missssserable stomach bug that kept me on the ship for 3 days.  Even though I was feeling awful, I thought that I would just try to leave our 4^th day anyways… fail.  Since I had been put on quarantine they had my name in the computer system and wouldn’t let me off the ship at all.  After going back to the doctor and telling a few small lies they cleared me to leave the next day (so our last day in Ghana).  The next day I took full advantage of my freedom.  We went to Accra (the capital) and walked around the town a little.  But the main event of the day was the art market.  I definitely caught up to the purchases of my friends who got a whole week in Ghana.  I found some really cool paintings, a rasta man hat, a million random bracelets, a flag, a crazy looking African shirt, and my favorite… a wooden elephant covered in colorful beads.  I know, all necessary things.  But everything was so cheap and I had a lot of catching up to do.  I didn’t even end up spending all of my Cidi.  I barely made it back to the ship on time because we were outside bargaining for our last Ghanaian treasures.  Even though I spent most of the time in Ghana staring out my window (which wasn’t even facing Ghana, so I was stuck looking at the ocean), I still loved what little time I had there.  I’m upset that I missed so much, but when I think of what I did back into those 2 days, I realize it’s more than I would ever expect I would experience and wouldn’t do it any differently!

“When you are sitting in your own house, you don’t learn anything. You must get out of your house to learn.” ~Ghanaian proverb

Day 24

Saturday, February 11, 2012

The last few days I’ve been playing basketball on the ship!  It’s been a lot of fun, but I would definitely say it’s not your traditional 3 on 3 basketball!  The court is very small (which is good because I’m in awful shape) so there is barely any room to spread out or anything and the walls are dangerously close to you on both sides.  Being the spas/klutz that I am, this poses quite a few problems for me!  I keep running into the metal sides of the ship or getting my limbs caught in the nets surrounding the court or we end up passing the ball off the wall.  Also, you might as well not shoot from anywhere further than right under the basket because as soon as you do, the ship shifts the entire basket to the side while the ball keeps going in the direction you shot it.  BUT, I’ve still had so much fun!  It’s nice to get to play a sport again, especially basketball.  I’m on a team with all girls and our last 2 games have been against teams of all guys.  We lost both, but only by a few points.  TWO MORE DAYS TO GHANA!

Neptune Day

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

This morning I wasn’t woken up by crashing waves, or by a beautiful port outside our window.  Rather, I was woken up at 7am by a hoard of people dressed in togas and banging drums and pots and pans outside of our rooms!  This was our wake up call for Neptune Day.  Neptune day is where you cross the equator and it’s a tradition to do crazy things like shave your head the first time you ever cross the equator.  Don’t worry I ddin’t shave my head, but I did take part in the rest of the Neptune day activities.  We threw on our rattiest bathingsuits and clothes and headed up to the pool deck to see what the deal was.  All of the crew was dressed in togas and was carrying spears or shields or razors or drums or other weird things.  At the back of the parade of the toga clad crew was our executive dean wearing nothing but a hula skirt and a crown!  Not to mention he was also covered from head to toe in green paint.  After our dean-turned-grinch sat down on his “throne” we all lined up on the side of the pool so we could have “fish guts” poured on us.  I know whatever it was they dumped on us wasn’t exactly real fish guts, but whatever the mystery liquid was it wasn’t too pleasant.  After being slimed Nickelodeon style we jumped in the crowded pool to rinse off.  Next we had to kiss a fish, yes an actually fish on the mouth.  I tried to just blow in its face like we do when we go fishing at home, but they were going to have none of that and made me give nemo a big smooth on the smackers.  We then had to kiss Dean Neptune’s giant ring and I cant wait to see what sickness we will all contract within the next few days.  The rest of the morning and afternoon we watched as people lined up to get their heads shaved!  Even a few girls actually shaved their heads.  If I were a guy I would have done it in a heart beat, but although I would do anything to get rid of my afro/lion’s mane on the top of my head, there is no way I could ever shave it all off (mainly because my hair would probably break the razor).  If the morning wasn’t already fun enough, we walked into the lunchroom I almost didn’t recognize the heavenly smell of greasy ground beef, beans, seasoned rice, and avocados.  Yes it was our first taco day!  Literally the greatest day so far.  I did learn one lesson from taco day… More than 4 tacos might be doable on solid ground but considering the fact that we are constantly rocking, you might want to at least try to exercise some kind of self-control before inhaling the entire buffet.

“The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving.”

– O.W. Holmes

Some Get Snow Days, We Get Wave Days…

Monday, February 6, 2012

This morning we all woke up super early because the boat was rocking so much.  My room is the 4^th from the front of the boat so I get to ride the waves completely up and down, up and down, up and down.  Since we just entered the open ocean for the first time in over a week, people would still have a little trouble adjusting to the normal rocking of ocean… However, we’ve been plowing through a storm ever since we exited the Amazon.  Today has definitely been the most intense though!  Our 4^th floor window is nearly touching the water as we rock side to side.  Our books are sliding all over the place, everything in the shower and cabinets is rolling around the bathroom, and my friend next door was actually woken up by the giant picture on the wall by her bed falling on her.  Everyone is so seasick that they actually canceled classes.  I felt a little seasick earlier, but for the most part I’ve been alright (knock on wood).  I think its because the rocking is so extreme that its not the constant subtle rolling that made me sick before.  When you walk down the halls everyone looks like schools of fish because of their synchronized stumble from one side of the room to the other.  I’m supposed to play in a basketball game tonight at 5… not sure how that’s going to work. But I do know on thing, if we do end up playing, I will most likely spend the majority of the time on either my face or my rear end (thank goodness I’ve been eating two packs of m&m’s a day so I’ll have a little extra cushion to fall on)!

BRAZIL!!!!!

Manaus & the Amazon

Tuesday, January 31^st

On Tuesday morning we woke up bright and early and found ourselves already docked in Manaus, Brazil!  I had an Amazon trip planned for 8am so naturally I woke up around 7:45 and somehow met up with the group with 5 minutes to spare.  We got off of our ship, walked to the other side of the pier, and stepped on a little bit smaller boat for our cruise past the city of Manaus on our way to the Amazon river.  We had two very cheery tour guides who spoke a rough mix of Portuguese and English.  The boat took us to the spot where the Black River (where Manaus is) and the Amazon River meet.  You may be thinking, “cool… the spot where 2 rivers mix… we see that every day in Charleston.”  But due to the acidity of the Black River and the filthiness of the Amazon River, the two waters don’t mix.  It literally was a definite line between the two, with black coffee and coffee with cream on the other.  I’ve never seen anything like it and still just don’t understand how it works, but somehow that’s just the way it is.  In the main part of the Amazon we saw some pink dolphins (cool, but to be honest they were pretty ugly).  The bigger tour boat took us back into a little bit smaller part of the Amazon where smaller boats were waiting on us.  After getting in the smaller 25 horsepower Yamaha propelled boats, we went further into the smaller tributaries of the Amazon.  I’m going to be honest… at first it didn’t look much different from the creeks back home, but once we got into the small canal ways, I knew I definitely wasn’t back home.  It was exactly what you might picture when imagining cruising through the Amazon Rainforest.  We didn’t see many creatures, except we did see a line of massive ants carrying leaves.  It’s hard to explain, but they were so big that we could see them even though we were in the boat and the ants were a good ways into the jungle. 

            I think one of the craziest parts of going through the Amazon was seeing the little villages and how the locals lived.  They literally lived in falling down shacks that were floating on the river (remember… the AMAZON river).   A school “boat” picks up the children every day and apparently they are made fun of for being from the river.  I think they are kind of like the Amazon version of a “redneck.”  After cruising through the Amazon, they took us to a floating restaurant where a mile long buffet of freshly cooked food was waiting for us.  What we ate… I couldn’t tell you, but whatever it was I tried everything and everything was delicious.  I know that I had some kind of fried fish, which really hit the spot.  I wasn’t so sure about what kind of fish it was, but I think the mounted piranhas covering every inch of the walls and sitting on every table just might have something to do with it.  After our heavy mystery lunch we took a short walk back into the rainforest to a lake with HUGE lily pads.  The lily pads were literally massive and our guides said that they could currently hold a baby, but that they also will grow to be even bigger!  After throwing sticks at an alligator in the lake for a while, we finally headed back to the boat back to Manaus.  Manaus has a bridge crossing the Black River that looks like one tower of the Cooper River Bridge and it reminded me so much of home!  I would say that was the only time I’ve felt homesick for Charleston.  It just reminded me so much of cruising through the harbor in the summertime. 

            After we got back to Manaus, we walked around the city for a little while before heading back to the ship.  Manaus was a very strange place.  The buildings were so pretty and old looking but everything was dilapidated.  One of our teachers told us that when Manaus was first being developed, there was actually so much rubber money flowing through that they imported everything from Europe and modeled the city after Paris.  It’s hard to imagine now, but when you looked past the trashy, vine-covered walls of the empty, filthy, windowless buildings, you could see that the city was once really nice.  The streets were covered in trash and jam-packed with people giving us the most absurd looks.  Pretty sure they don’t get too much tourism in Manaus.

Rio de Janeiro

Tuesday, January 31^st – Friday, February 3^rd

            After very briefly exploring Manaus we headed back to the ship to get ready for our red-eye flight to Rio de Janeiro.  After washing off the Amazon, I jammed as much stuff as I could fit into my backpack and headed out to meet the group for our 9pm departure from the ship.  That entire night was such a blur.  I’m not sure how long we sat in the airport, or when our flight left, or how long the flight to Rio was.  All I know is that I woke up around 7am Rio time, just in time to se the city and the beach before we landed.  Sleep or no sleep, it was clear that no one was going to let us waste anytime in Rio.  Our tour guide, Ricardo  did not stop talking from the moment we first stepped onto the bus until we stepped off at the foot of the beach at Copacabana.  The vivacious, spirited, VERY Brazilian Ricardo led our sluggish group of red-eyed college students on a 30 minute walk straight up a hill to where we were going to eat breakfast.  Just when everyone was ready to sneak off for street food in stead of continuing walking we made it up the hill where every kind of fruit and pastry were waiting for us.  Definitely the best breakfast I’ve ever had!  I ate so much I could barely move, which wouldn’t have been a problem if Ricardo hadn’t planned a surprise hike through a favela (slum) to the top (yes, literally the top) of a mountain.  Thank goodness I couldn’t fit my tennis shoes in my bad so had to wear them on the plane, because there were kids doing this hike in their pjs and flip-flops.  Although I felt like I was going to die, the hike was definitely worth it.  A leader in this particular slum led us through his small favela.  If I had been in awe at how the people in the Amazon lived, it was nothing compared to everyone’s reaction walking through this favela.  And our guide told us that this was one of the nicest and most developed slums in Rio.  He also said that it was probably one of the only slums that was safe enough for tourists to walk through.  I’m guessing “safe” was a fairly relative term for our situation considering we had four security guards escorting our group.  Once we made it to the top of the mountain we could see all of Rio.  In addition, it was the first time we could all get a good look at the Christ the Redeemer statue that overlooks all of Rio.  Definitely worth it!  After our surprise hike, we went to the hotel, threw on our bathing suits and went straight to the beach!  Never in my life have I seen so many man bikinis and thongs! 

Three friends and I just sat on the beach for hours before heading in to get ready for dinner at a real Brazilian steak house.  The amount of food I consumed at breakfast was NOTHING compared to my meat intake at dinner.  The only thing I can say about dinner is YUM.  After dinner we met up with someone’s friend from home who was studying abroad for the entire semester in Rio.  He took us out and showed us all around town.  The next day we woke up and walked around Copacabana for an hour or so before heading to Corcovado to see the Christ the Redeemer statue.  After a train ride, some walking, some escalator riding, and some more walking we finally made it to the top of Corcovado and the base of the statue.  The entire experience was very unreal.  It didn’t surprise me one bit that this statue overlooking all of Rio with open arms is one of the 7 wonders of the world.  By the time we made it back to the area of our hotel it was time to get ready for dinner again.  Ricardo took us to the Lapa District in Downtown Rio for dinner and for going out at night.  Since Carnival is only a week or two away, they were having rehearsals in a lot of the bars in Lapa.  It basically looked like a Mardi Gras dress rehearsal or something.  Since the next morning we had to wake up at 6am for our flight, we decided to save sleeping for the plane and try to just stay up all night long.  I almost made it without sleeping except for a nap from 5:30 to 6am.  Although it felt like we were in Rio for weeks, we were herded reluctantly back onto the bus only 48 hours after arriving in Rio.  With about 6 hours of sleep in 72 hours, this was no doubt the most tired I’ve ever been in my life.  But somehow Rio was so exciting that I didn’t even realize my lack of sleep until I was waiting in line to get back on the MV Explorer.  Rio was one of the most unique and beautiful cities that I’ve ever been too and it is one place that I know for a fact I will return to at some point in the future.

Day 10

Saturday January 28, 2012

This morning we entered the Amazon River… yes the AMAZON.  But I would have no idea that we were cruising down the Amazon River unless that had told us because the river is so wide that you cant see either side so it basically just looks like we are in the ocean.  This morning I also started taking my Malaria pills.  I hadn’t been concerned in the least about this until my Global Studies class that I just had.  In Global Studies my teacher was talking about all of the diseases that people harvesting rubber in the Amazon are in danger of contracting and all of the reasons why we take our malaria medicine (because apparently its not just for malaria).  Evidently we are entering an area where vampire bats, spiders the size of your head, ticks, leeches, cyanide-squirting millipedes, worms that somehow get into your brain, berne flies that lay eggs under your skin, “kissing bugs” that latch onto your lips and cause heart or brain swelling, mosquitoes bring malaria and yellow fever, etc, etc, etc (I couldn’t type fast enough) are not uncommon… HOWEVER, I think I’ll be just fine.  I can’t believe in 2 days I will be off the boat and exploring Rio!  This is the longest amount of time we have been on the boat without seeing land so far and even though its only our 4^th day everyone is going a little stir crazy.

Day 7

Wednesday January 25, 2012

My body hurts so freaking bad!  I cant remember the last time I had as much exercise as I had yesterday!  But aside from the muscle pain and seasickness I had a great day.  Today I spent all day laying out on the deck in the sun and doing my homework reading about genocide and crimes against humanity… need I say more. 

Dominica

Monday January 23 – Tuesday January 24, 2012

Day 5-6

Day 5:  As it has every morning, the sun woke us up at the crack of dawn regardless of our attempts to try to sleep past sunrise.  But this time when we woke up it was the endless ocean that we saw.  Instead we were already docked to a pier that extended out from the giant green mountains of Dominica!  Although I wish I could have seen us sailing toward Dominica, it was so cool to go to sleep at sea and then wake up with a volcanic island outside our window.  I’ve never seen anywhere that looked like Dominica.  It really was one great big set of mountains covered in rainforests.  Everything was green and colorful. 

            I threw a bathing suit and towel in my backpack as fast as possible and ran to go get in line to see our first stop around the world!  I had signed up four a tour and to float down the longest river on the island.  A group of us hoped in taxis and the first place they took us was somewhere called the Emerald Pool.  It was about a 20 minute drive through the craziest roads ive ever been on.  Our guide was telling us that they didn’t really have many driving laws in Dominica and if you could drive here than you could drive just about anywhere else in the world… I would definitely have to agree.  In Dominica it is perfectly legal to drink and drive, there are no speed limits, no stop signs, and no stoplights.  But if you are caught littering you could be fined $5,000 or put in jail for a year!  Sounds extreme but I certainly didn’t see one piece of trash the entire time.  We made it to the Emerald Pool after the 20 min drive and a short walk through the rainforest.  The Emerald Pool was a small pool surrounded with rocks and a small waterfall pouring into it.  Whoever named the pool was dead on because the water really was an emerald color.  I had never seen water that looked like that.  So after a quick deep in the freezing cold water we threw our clothes back on and got back in the vans.  Next they took us to the bank of the longest river in Dominica.  When I signed up for a river tubing trip I was picturing myself leisurely cruising down a natural version of a lazy river getting a nice sun tan.  When I got out of they van I was handed a life jacket, helmet, and paddle and I 

I quickly realized this was no lazy river trip.  The river wasn’t super rough but in was pretty intense for sitting in small inner tubes!  The water was freezing and was completely water logged by the time we reached the end of our trip down the river.  The river literally went through the rainforest for most of the time and at other parts it was just mountains shooting straight up on either side.  In addition, the guides had fresh cocoanut, fruit, sugarcane, and rum punch waiting for us at the end of our journey.  These two things alone would have made for an amazing day, but that was only the beginning.  After we drove back into Roseau, which is the small capital of Dominica, we walked all around town in our soaking wet clothes.  We walked through the market and stopped at a restaurant for lunch and ended up trying an assortment of crazy flavored rums including one with a dead snake in it.  There aren’t really beaches in Dominica since it’s a volcanic island but towards the end of our wandering we saw people jumping off a pier into the ocean.  I have never seen water clearer than the ocean in Dominica.  Literally the clearest water I’ve ever seen.  Before we knew it tons of other Semester at Sea-ers also discovered the pier and we had spent nearly 3 hours just floating in the WARM ocean.  Around 5 we headed back into town and looked for a cheap hotel for a group of us to stay the night.  We booked a room at “La Flamboyant” and headed back to the ship to get ready to go out.  That night we went to a local bar called JR’s which happened to be right across the street from our colorful hotel.  We met a ton of great girls from the trip at JRs who we ended up hanging out with for the rest of the time in Dominica.  At JRs we also hung out with a ton of cab drivers! Haha It doesn’t sound safe at all but they take advantage of the absence of a no drinking a driving rule.  The cab drivers were some of the nicest and most friendly people we met on the island.  Yes, it was probably because they wanted our business, but they charged us one dollar a person and stayed with us for the entire night taking us anywhere and everywhere we wanted to go.

Day 6:  The next morning we woke up around 7:45am and did the 40 minute walk from La Flamboyant hotel back to the MV Explorer.  The town was bustling bright and early because everyone was setting up for the day.  Right when we made it back to the ship we met up with a group to go hiking through the rainforest to a 400 ft waterfall.  It was about a 30 minute drive down winding dirt roads to get to where the hike began.  Once again I did not think that this would be a very strenuous activity… this time I was EXTREMELY wrong.  It was about a 4 mile hike through the rainforest, and when I say rainforest I actually mean mountainous rainforest.  Parts of this hike seriously involved climbing rocks at an unimaginably steep incline.  I’m not surprised to say that when I woke up the next day ever part of my body was so soar!  Basically it was so hard I almost had to whip out my inhaler!  I am an outdoorsy person, but hiking the mountains isn’t exactly an activity Charlestonians get to partake in every day.  Trust me, it was hard.  So right about when I though I was going to die we finally reached the waterfall!  The waterfall was the biggest and most amazing thing I’ve seen in a long time!  I threw off my clothes as fast as I could because after that long hot and humid hike all I wanted was to jump in so cool water.  It wasn’t 30 seconds after getting there that I jumped off the 20 foot ledge into the water.  I thought the water had been cold at the Emerald pool… but this literally was the COLDEST water EVER!  I seriously thought my heart was going to stop beating!  The waterfall was so big that we couldn’t swim under it.  The current kept pushing everyone back so that no one could get very close to it!  After that the hike back seemed so much shorter.  On our way back it started pouring down rain.  When it first started raining we could here it hitting the tops of the trees but for about 5 minutes we weren’t even getting wet because the rainforest was so thick.  I looked like a total mess by the end of the hike and my legs and arms would not stop trembling uncontrollably, but who knew that I would have the time of my life getting covered in mud while hiking through the rainforest in the rain.  I loved everything about Dominica!  Once reason I think was because it was nothing like somewhere like Nassau.  Tourism is the island’s number one industry but you would never know based on the feel and look of the city.  No commercial feel whatsoever. 

“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

Day 4

Sunday January 22, 2012
Today I had my first day of real classes.  I really enjoyed them actually and think that my teachers are going to be pretty amazing as well.  Last night we had our first of many time changes.  From here on out they said we will start losing sleep almost every night, but I doubt we will really be sleeping that much anyways so I’m guessing we will be so tired already we wont even notice the change.  Even though we’ve been on the boat for 4 days it just hit me that this is actually what I am going to be doing for an entire semester.  As I was sitting in class staring out the window at the ocean (no surprise there) and noticed huge mountains in the distance.  My teacher interrupted class to announce that we are now passing Puerto Rico and then casually got back to her lecture.  That’s when I realized I’m actually going to be sailing all the way around the world.  I mean who gets to do that?  And on top of that, tomorrow I will be tubing down the river through the rainforest in Dominica… unreal.

Day 3

Saturday January 21, 2012
Today was the first day of classes.  Luckily I only had one class so it wasn’t too bad… not bad not bad.  After class I went and got my email all set up, or at least attempted considering its still randomly not working.  Today flew by.  I don’t even know what I really did today because it certainly wasn’t much.  After I met up with some friends for lunch and we had what it starting to look like what we will be having for every meal on the ship… pasta and rolls.  Don’t be surprised when I come back looking like the Pillsbury Doughboy because it is inevitable.  So far I’ve only encountered two semi-problematic things about life on the ship.  The first is seasickness but that will go away soon enough.  But the second is a little more serious…. They stop serving breakfast at 8:30 am.  Being the smart student that I am my first class isn’t until 10 so I guess I will just have to learn to go without breakfast.  I’ve met so many amazing people.  I think there hasn’t been one person that I have met that I do not like.  We sat around and played cards today from around 7-11:30 and it was a ton of fun.  The ship is still rocking pretty badly, but I’m starting to somewhat get use to it or at least use to the seasickness.  Apparently they have turned the stabilizers on the ship off so that we can move faster since we left the port in the Bahamas so late.  But who knows if that is really true because I’ve already discovered how rumors spread out of control on this ship!

“To feel at home, stay at home. A foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It’s designed to make its own people comfortable.”
                 – Clifton Fadiman

Friday January 20th 2012

Ok I wanted to write a lot tonight about everything that we have done, but now the combination of looking at this computer screen and our first night at sea is making me so sea sick so I’m going to keep this short or else its not going to be pretty.  Yesterday morning I said goodbye to the boys and boarded the ship.  We were originally supposed to leave around 12 but there were 23 students who were in Florida still trying to get visas.  We waited and waited and then waited some more for those students until they finally got here tonight at 8 and we took off right after they boarded.  All we did was orientation stuff today so not going to lie it was pretty boring.  But tonight was pretty fun.  It was our first few hours and sea and everyone was just happy to finally be moving.  We signed up for clubs and activities also.  I signed up for a million things so we will see what I actually end up doing.  I signed up for basketball, volleyball, ping pong (watch out Richie), yoga, zumba, and to get an adopted family.  There are around like 50 couples (mostly retired) that are getting to cruise with the ship and sit in on classes, etc.  So what they do is they pair you and about 3 other students up with one or two adults and they are your “family” while on the boat… kinda cool.  Well I’m going to go take all of my seasick medicine now and try to go to bed as my mattress slides back and forth in my bed frame.  

Wednesday January 18, 2012

Right now I’m sitting in our hotel room in the Bahamas trying to go to bed while Charles is talking to me about his new sunglasses, navy seals, video games, cars, and goodness knows what else.  This afternoon we flew to the Nassau in the Bahamas where I will finally get on the ship!  I finished packing about 30 seconds before we left the house to head to the airport.  I’m excited Semester at Sea is finally about to begin but I certainly don’t feel like it really is.  As I was sitting in the lobby early tonight there were tons of students down there, who all seem like they already know each other, getting ready to go out.  Definitely not for me because exhausted is the last thing I wanna be when I’m carrying my body bag on the boat tomorrow.  I’m a little embarrassed about how much stuff I have, but I guess my one big suitcase isn’t all that much for almost 4 months.  When we first arrived at the hotel dad did something that didn’t surprise me one bit… he has the people at the semester at sea desk a million and one questions so we learned a thing or two. This afternoon the boys somehow convinced me to swim in the FREEZING cold pool (oh and Gedney you never did play ping pong with me).  Later Gedney tried his luck at blackjack in the casino and just ended up turning 100 bucks into 15.  Tomorrow I board the ship at 1015, meet my roommate, and get all settled in.  I can’t wait!  Please send me your emails so I can get in touch with you.  I miss ya’ll and hope to hear from you soon!