and tomorrow... Luanda

Since my departure from Toronto on September 27th, I've been traveling around South Africa and Mozambique, buying some time for my visa to be processed and for my collegues to return to Luanda. I figured it was better to wait around on the pristine beaches of Mozambique than watching the rain fall on Montreal or Cambridge. I think I made the right decision.

In the past 2 1/2 weeks I have developed an amazing tan, witnessed lions eat a giraffe and have myself eaten more grilled chicken than a vegetarian ought to eat. I might be passing from a fake-atarian into a full-on carnivore. Well, at least in Africa, where being a vegetarian often means eating a meal of rice or cassava (both if you're lucky!). The only tofu I've come across is the beach (actually, it's named Tofo, but most of the tourists say 'tofu' anyways).

I visited Tofo only briefly. It's supposed to be a beach paradise, but I found it to be awful. It looked nice, but the combination of South African/English layabout tourists and a fierce wind left me going inside to escape the wind and going to bed to escape the tourists. I tried to leave the next day with some guys I met, but a shoe that jumped ship from my bag kept me around another night (I did find it on the sandy road right outside the resort... it had been run over, but still works!). That evening turned out to be really great, and I met a guy who works as an adventure guide and photographer for National Geographic Explorer. Amazing stories! I was also sitting with a South African who works in sustainable agriculture in Northern Mozambique. When I told him the story about my shoe, he laughed and said "hey, I ran over your shoe today... twice!" He made it up to me by giving me a lift up to my next destination, Vilanculous. And the friends I had to leave at the bus to go back and find my shoe? They were the first people I ran into when I got to the beach in Vilanculous. I love traveling.

Vilanculous is the beach paradise I was looking for. As opposed to the pure tourism of Tofo, Vilanculous is actually a town, the market is crazy and the beach is packed with dhows (fishing and trading sail boats). When the tide goes out, you can see sandbar beaches and channels of azure water as far as the horizon. Ya, this is what I was looking for. I spent about a week at Vilanculous, getting lots of sun, sailing on a dhow, snorkeling, running down sand dunes and generally having good clean fun.

Next on the list (are you all bored yet?) was Kruger Park. After a brief stop in Maputo to rest after my 17-hour bus journey, I set off with Jared (the MEDA intern with the same job as me in Mozambique) and Cortney & Guy (two other CIDA interns in Maputo) to conquer Kruger. And conquer we did. Armed merely with an array of cameras and ginger snaps, our brave VW Citi ("Chico" as we called it, since it was written on the side) carried us to the ends of the earth in search of more and more impalas. Damn, there's a lot of impalas in Kruger. But when we were able to see past them, we did manage to see the lions eating a giraffe get charged by an elephant who briefly turned at us and had us all thinking "#$&*!" while white and black rhinos danced around and dared us to tell them apart, wildebeast fulfilled their destiny by walking headlong to their certain deaths, giraffes told us what sex they were by the amount of hair on their horns, mongeese scurried, elephants lumbered, hippos hid, crocodiles crocked and tourists gawked. Yes, Chico, we owe it all to you.

I must be getting tired. Sleeping-in on my vacation has been 7:15am, but I usually am awake by 6am. The sun is down now, and that might explain the last paragraph.

So, the next step in this crazy, crazy world is Luanda, Angola. I have a feeling that my crazy, crazy world is about to get more so. Angola, judging by people's reactions when I tell them I'm going there, is an intense place. I feel like I am pretty well prepared for the work, but I really don't know what to expect of the city. What will it be like to live there? Will I get mugged like my friends in Maputo? How will my non-existant Portuguese get me around? Will I be able to afford to eat? [I'm not joking, it's my biggest fear: Luanda is one of the most expensive cities in the world]

I'm going to start getting answers to those questions tomorrow afternoon, so I'll leave it at that. I'll write soon to give you all some first impressions (Jennifer and Pauline, I promise I'll talk about my work in that post).

Ate logo,

Ryan