Stolen Appendix! (Brazil)

For those of you who don’t know (that is a majority of you) I had my appendix taken out in Brazil. To make a long story short, I had stomach pains on our 3rd day at sea after we left port in Cape Town, South Africa. We were still 5 days out from Brazil and since the doctor felt it was appendicitis, they sped the ship up (the other option was flying a sea plane out to us and flying me in but since I reacted to the antibiotics fairly quickly and my fever went down, they chose the second option). Anyway, we ended up getting into Brazil after 3 days of speeds of 29.5 knots (we average about 15 knots throughout the voyage so this was fast). If you are interested in the rest of the story, here it is:

4/6

12am
I took my malaria medication because I had realized that I had forgotten.

3am
I thought because I hadn’t eaten in a while and that I didn’t take much water with my malaria medication that that was the reason for my stomach ach. I went to bed but could not find a comfortable position to lay in. I got up and had some water along with some bread to see if that would help. Of course, it didn’t. I got back into bed but still could not sleep because of the pain. I tried to get up again but fell to the floor in pain so my roomate called the Pursar’s Desk to find who was on call. Karl who lived down the hall from us was the nearest doctor and he came immediately. I got back on my bed and Karl did what he could with the limited resources he had and decided that there were too many possibilities to determine what was wrong with me. He gave me some Vicadin to take and said that he would be back around 6am to see if anything had changed.

6am
The Vicadin worked for about an hour and then I woke back up with the same pain as before. I threw up some. Karl came back, checked my vitals again and told me that I would have to wait until the clinic was open if I could.

8am
I was moved to the hospital ward on deck two and was hooked up to an IV, blood was drawn and I was given a suppository. I woke up periodically thoughout the day with a finger feeding me pills. I slept well since I had morphine in me and felt nothing. I remember feeling the morphine spread through my body, it was incredible how fast it reached every part of me.

12pm
An announcement was made to the shipboard community that there was a passenger (me) who needed medical aid and that was the reason for the sudden surge of speed. The speed was so great (29.5knots officially) that there was actually what is called a ‘rooster tail’ coming out of the back of the ship. They are going to take me off the ship and to a Brazilian hospital to run more tests and see if it isn’t my appendix.

4/7
9am
My body temperature dropped back down to a more comfortable level after spiking at 105.5*. At one point my roomate said that I was hilucinating. Apparently I had said something along the lines of "Shhh! The oranges are sleeping!" That afternoon I watched a few movies to entertain myself since everyone was still in classes

930pm
Adam, Maggie, Jess and I played Skip-bo for a while to pass the time. Tried to sleep after that since I was to get up early in the morning to head to the hospital.

4/8
8am

Awaiting my fate

Having immediate clearance to get off the ship, I disembarked the ship and got into the ambulance without Dr Mike. He took forever to get to me. He was out there taking pictures, having a great time, talking with the driver. Oh, by the way, this ambulance that I was laying in, was an Isuzu pickup truck with a topper and I am not joking. Laying in the ‘stretcher’ my legs were hanging out the back and I had to scrunch (mind you it is my abdomen that is in pain) to fit into the bed. Once I was situated, the driver slammed the tailgate against my feet. Thanks bud. Salvador is known for its cobblestone streets. Not something you hope for when your legs are vibrating as they're pressed against the tailgate of the truck. My entire body shook the next 10min until I arrived at the hospital.

830am
Arrived at hospital where no one speaks English but somehow we get into an office where I can lay down and get checked.

10am
Blood tests and an ultrasound were done and the doctor found that I had appendicitis with some secreting liquid. Shortly after, doctor Mike asks me if I have any money so he can go eat lunch. I gave him about $30 and he left.

Getting another shot

230pm
Get shuffled into the operating room, hooked up to a few more IV’s and then the mask over my face and…

530pm
Wake up to the operating team laughing behind me out of sight, but I have no idea at what. Get moved into my room where more language barriers were built. No matter how many times I said that I didn’t understand Portuguese the nurse just talked louder and said things over and over thinking that would solve the problem.

After spending a few hours of waking up to a nurse walking into my room whispering words in another language and then hooking up new IV’s to me and walking back out without so much as an understanding, I started walking around. The doctor said (or what I understood from his broken English) that I would not be able to return to the ship because I needed to rest and be under watch by the hospital. This was a shock to me.

4/11
8am Breakfast!! I got to eat my first ‘meal’ since last Tuesday afternoon before all of this began. It wasn’t very good but I ate it all. The doctor stopped by and gave me the good news that I would be released at 1030 today. There was so much to get done, the bill itself was a headache to figure out because no one spoke English to help me get things organized. They wouldn't accept my medical insurance coverage since I was a foreigner so I had to pay cash. I was able to cover most of the expenses but fortunately the port authority guy that had coordinated my transportation to the hospital was there and he paid the rest until I worked out having money from home sent on to him. Very nice of him to do that.

Tonight I went to dinner at a traditional diner with Dr Russ, Professor Lang and his wife and Ann. The Lang’s spoke Portuguese which made everything easy. We took taxis up the hill (Salvador has two parts of it, the upper and lower city which can be ascended by car or you can take an elevator) and man were they steep hills. They were cobblestone the entire way. The winding and turning was incredible, it seemed as though the cab was not going to be able to make it up the hill and at one point the wheels actually spun before catching some rock again. It was just like in the movies with buildings on either side and a narrow street going up the side of the hill.

The food at the diner was amazing, it was my first official meal after surgery and it was excellent. The desert of sliced banana sprinkled in brown sugar and something else was great along with the national drink Caperania which was a little on the lime side. After dinner, we went to a dance and drum show in a small theater that sat no more than 100 people. The show consisted of singing and a lot of Capoeira which is an African fight brought to Brazil by the slaves from Angola in the colonial period. The show also had a man who played with fire, spinning with it on his head, placing his hands in it (catching them on fire) and stepping into it as well along with eating fire. There was also a solo with a very interesting instrument which I am not sure what the name is but I am sure that when I buy one on the street I will include it in here (I found it! It's called a Bidding Bow)

After the show we went up the cobblestone road to an outdoor bar and had some melzbeir which is also a Brazilian drink that is a concoction of regular beer and a sweeter tasting mix. The city is amazing and I have only seen a little bit of it. I am very excited to see more of it tomorrow.

4/12

The elevator

Today is my older sister’s birthday and so I want to wish her a happy birthday. Today I pretty much just took the day to walk around and enjoy Salvador. The streets of Brazil are filled with shops and people everywhere. The unique thing about Salvador like I said before is that it is separated into two parts, the upper and lower city. This may sound simple in and of itself but in fact the city is divided by a hill that is virtually straight up. The first day back after surgery, we took a cab ride to the top of the hill which was unbelievably steep and windy and all cobblestone. This is the difficult way to the top that was the only way until 1972 (a little history lesson here) when an elevator and cable car were erected to transport people between the two sections of the city. The elevator has since been renovated, cost .05 reil to go up or down it and to me is ingenious. Anyway, I spent the day milling around Salvador, taking it easy.

Around lunch time I ran into a college student who was from D.C. and was studying in Brazil for the semester. She told me that she had been studying with a group of only 10 other Americans and had not talked to anyone besides them. In her studies, she has 3 hours of Portuguese everyday so she knew the language well enough. Bored with being with the same 9 other students I was a refreshing change for her. She took me to a restaurant called Comida Por Kilo (for those of you who may not know Spanish very well that means Food by the Kilo). It was a nice little restaurant and we had a great time.

4/13

Could make this a postcard!

Taking it easy again today, I went out with Dr Russ to just walk around Salvador again. We stopped in various shops. Wondering around a bit more, we found a small restaurant and sat down for something to eat. Russ and I ended up splitting a bottle of white wine with some cheese and that got us talking. After an hour, Professor Fessler and Suhoza showed up and joined us. We ended up staying for dinner with them and talked for hours. Tonight was probably the best night in port the entire voyage, we had a great time talking about everything, laughing about my ordeal at the hospital and other things that have happened on the ship.
Sadly, I had to leave them since I had an appointment at the hospital for a check up tonight and just as I was a few minutes away from getting to the pier, it began to rain. It wasn’t a down pour but it was steady enough to drench me. Anyway, the check up went well and the doctor said I was cleared to continue on to Venezuela.

4/14
Today was another day to relax, not much done but a little market shopping. In the indoor market, there was an upstairs and a downstairs from the main level. I had seen many people head downstairs but from the way the stairs were, I could tell that there weren’t any shops down there, yet curiosity got the better of me. I descended the stairs and found myself in a dungeon type basement. It had all the feelings of a medieval time, a castle like atmosphere and very creepy. There were concrete walkways through the basement that allowed you to walk around the foot or so of stagnate water all around you. I later found out that this was where the slave trade in Brazil took place. The slaves from Africa were brought into the dungeon type area, to that very basement, stored and brought out to be sold in the market area that was in use to this day. Did you know that of the 3 million slaves that came out of Africa, 1/3 of them were traded in Brazil and only 500,000 were actually brought to North America? By North America I mean the entire continent, Canada included. The country of Brazil had more slaves than an entire continent!

Well, enough of a history lesson (the truth compared to what we learn of in grade school and high school), I have 3 days of class that I have to make up, hope things are going well back there.

Thinking about making a t-shirt for my experience in Brazil....thoughts?

Temperature = 105.5
IV sticks = 6
Stitches = 7
Appendix lost in Brazil = Priceless

Last night in Brazil

Kloofing (S. Africa)

I have been constantly writing this email on the day things happen to be a little more accurate and since I have a short memory problem, it's probably better this way. Here is the South African Update:

Table Mtn, Cape Town, S. Africa

Coming into Cape Town at 8am (same as every port) gave us an incredible view with Table Mountain peeking over the horizon well before we even saw the city. Table Mountain gets it's name from the top of it being very flat. It is a popular climb taking roughly 2 hours and has around 300 different trails ranging in difficulty. Even the most seasoned veterans of mountain climbing have been stranded on the side of this mountain. There is a cable car that runs up it as well and has restaurants at the top. You can also go abseiling (repelling) part of the way down (actually the longest natural repel in the world). The locals call the occasional cloud cover, which we got to see, a table cloth because it only covers the top of the mountain and will sometimes inch its way down the side of the cliffs making it appear even more like a table cloth. Legend has it that this cloud/fog comes from a retired pirate who fled to the mountain after leaving his ship and smokes a pipe from time to time.



 The first day, a few of us left as soon as the ship was cleared and set out to find out exactly what we were going to do since we had no prior plan. We found a Cape Town Travel Info place that seemingly every SAS student was at. We finally got up to one of the counters and set up a trip for the afternoon. We decided that we wanted to visit the Winelands and since everyone seemed to be going there in a few days on bikes, we decided to go on horseback. We took a private car to a small out of town place, more a hobby farm, and met a very nice family who saddled us up and provided a guide to take us through the winelands and taste test some wine. I rode a black stallion named Spencer who reminded me of Shadow and Thunder. Thunder was a horse I rode at Heartland Ranch in South Dakota and Shadow was a horse my mom took care of years ago and she took me some Saturdays to ride it with her. The views we saw as we made our way through the backcountry were incredible. We rode for over an hour until we got to the winery called Stellenbosch. We had the opportunity to taste test wine but since we left so late in the day, we only had 15 minutes before they closed. We rode the horses back to the hobby farm and had a great conversation with the owners who currently pay a commission to the agency in the city to recommend them to people who want to go through the winelands. We told them about The Lonely Planet and how it has so much information in it that people rely on and if they could somehow get into it, their business would increase and they wouldn’t have to use the agency in the city anymore. We told them that we would write in to The Lonely Planet and recommend them.

Today I heard there was a shark attack off the coast and someone (not sure if SAS) fell off Table Mountain.



Taking a break

 On our second day, I rented a bike and took it to the outskirts of town and randomly ended up at Table Mountain National Park after about 2 hours of biking. The park was full of trails so I had the chance to actually put the mountain bike to the test and had a spectacular view of the entire city below and waterfront. After going around the park I headed back to the waterfront. It was downhill the entire way so it took me roughly 15 minutes to literally fly down passing cars as I did. Once back in town, I saw the movie Hitch with Will Smith. My favorite part of the entire movie wasn’t even in it, it was a commercial before the starting of the show. The commercial started with a shot of a man dressed as a sheriff of the wild west, the screen was redish brown and had the flickering of an old projector/reel movie player. The sheriff walked up to a man in the saloon who had 3 smoking bullet holes to the left of his head and said to him “I thought I told you never to come back here!” and the assumed outlaw said, “Well, I was going to be I thought…" nih—nih—nih, nih nih nih nih nih—nih—nih” and the sherrif says “oh” and suddenly the outlaw as a double-barrelled shotgun pointed at the sheriff and with a bewildered look on his face, the sheriff gets shot. Then, a woman’s voice comes over as the commercial ends and says “If they had wanted a cell phone in the movie, they would have put it there.” (If you don’t get it, the outlaw’s ‘nih—nih” was a cell phone going off and the sudden appearance of a shotgun was to show that you totally missed something important). Anyway, I thought it was funny. After the movie we went to a resturant called St. Elmos which made pizzas in a brick oven. Those of you who know, last summer I and a few others built a brick oven where at Round Hill and we got to try it out. The resturant was great, small and comfortable. The pizza was great (although they had an odd assortment of toppings which did not included sausage, pepperoni or any usual Pizza Hut toppings) but the pizza we made with the one I built at Round Hill was a lot better (I am bias though).

View from the top

Hiking up to Jump

The third day we went Canyoning which is a combination of kloofing, abseiling and rock climbing. I’m guessing that most of you have only heard of rock climbing before so I will use the term in the states that best describes what kloofing and abseiling are. First, kloofing is the same as rock jumping into a pool of water where abseiling is pretty much the same as repelling except that you repel through waterfalls. So this is how this all went down. We got up at 6am and headed to our pick up point but no one was there. We waited and waited but still no one. Finally they showed up and as it turns out, they were told the wrong time by the company who hired them. It was two men who started their own company 18 months ago called Frixion (friction) Adventures and had exclusive rights to a particular canyon we would be making our way down. After about a 45 minute drive, we arrived at a small cabin in the woods. It had wood paneling on the inside and smelled like a forest. We had breakfast there and took a truck up to the top of the mountain. Once at the top, we began our descent to a point where a creek began (at this point all of us had our harness and helmits on). We got to the creek, waded across and came to our first waterfall. The point of abseiling is to repel down the face of the waterfall into the pool below and head to the next one making your way down the mountain. After our first abseil, we came to the kloofing point (remember what that is??). Our guides (Brett and Scott) had us first jump off the 4 and 6 meter (12 and 18 feet approximately) a few times before allowing us to try the 15 meter. Don’t worry, the pool we were jumping into was over 20 meters deep with no rocks. Although I had no idea what I was doing way up there, I jumped. The proper way to jump from rocks into water from that far up is to have every part of you body tucked in if your diving or going in feet first (with shoes). Well, my left arm obeyed my command to stick to my side but my right seems to have a mind of its own and stuck straight out as I hit the water.



Landing Wrong

When I finally surfaced, I could hardly use my arm to swim the 10 meters to the edge and get out. My arm was so red after that. After I went, my friend Maggie went but she did worse than me. She lost control of her whole body and actually went into the water in a “L” shaped position and could barely move at all after that. After we finished cliff jumping, we headed further down stream (wadding in the stream to get down) and just before our next abseil we had lunch with a fire to warm us up. Then it was on to our last few abseils but before we got to finish even our first one, it started to rain. The nice thing about what we were doing was that it already involved getting wet in the waterfalls so it didn’t really bother us. It made the rocks that were at one point dry, wet but then again, just about everything we had been walking on and repelling down was slippery so it made little difference. When we did finish for the day, we headed back to the house and had dinner with our guides. It was a candle lit dinner since there was no electricity to the house and the generator was broken (they don’t like using the generator anyway because of the noise and it takes away from being in the middle of nowhere). Since the farm we were presently on had a trout farm, we got fresh smoked trout. Our guides were incredible, they had the know-how and skill along with a positive attitude and love of what they were doing. They were still small as a company (their office was one of their homes) but they have big ideas for the canyon in the near future.

On our fourth day in Cape Town, we headed to the other side of Table Mountain to Kirsenbosch Botanical Garden to relax for a little while. A world famous garden, Kirsenbosch used to be a forest 400 years ago but in the late 1600’s the trees were harvested to fulfill the need of timber for houses in the growing communities. Soon, the area was completely cleared and erosion from the streams coming off the mountain changed the landscape. It was farmed for a few years and then in the mid 1800’s a man by the name of Kirsenbosch purchased the land and began to turn it back over to nature. His dying wish was to have a garden behind Table Mountain that people can come to and see what the land used to be like before development. When he died in 1908, it was taken over by another man who followed up the dream and became the first director of the gardens in 1913. The gardens itself is incredibly huge. I walked around the outskirts of it and it took over an hour to get around. At one point I found myself walking up a hill that by the time I got to the top, there was an incredible view of the city below.

After being at the gardens for a few hours, my friend Katie and I decided to walk up Table Mountain. We found the only path leading out of the gardens and asked an employee how long it would take and they told us 3 hours. It was 4:45 so we knew we would have to move quickly. We walked for about 15 minutes and ran into 2 people from the ship going up the same route and linked up with them. After walking up well over 3,000 steps dug into the mountain side, we came to a rock quarry with rocks the size of cars and saw that the path went through. After we made our way over and around the rocks, the path started to go down. We walked and walked but never went uphill again for a while. Confused, we continued since this was the only way we could go. After about 30 minutes, it leveled off and the path widened, was well maintained and at some points, we actually walked on boardwalks that were still being constructed. The views we got of the city below were amazing and even as we were skirting along the ridgelines and through gorges and valleys the drop below (for those of you who don’t know, I hate heights) was quiet far. At one point, we came across a broken brick building and two canons overlooking the city. The canons oddly enough, were not facing the bay but right over the heart of the city. At this building, the trail seemed to disappear and it took us a while to find it again. Soon we approached the 3 hour mark and the sun was beginning to set but we had still not arrived at the top. We could see the ship and the tram that ran to the top for people who didn’t want to walk it but we were nowhere near it. We kept skirting along the middle of the mountain with the only visible sign of us ascending was a path well in front of us heading straight up a gorge. Just as we reached the gorge, the sun was set and we decided to not be a victim of the mountain and headed for the road we had seen below us. Once we made it to the road, we found someone who knew where we could find a taxi and began to head up the road. The wind had picked up at an incredible rate and luckly was at our back to push us in the right direction. The wind must have been at least 50 miles an hour. After we walked for another 30 minutes, we came up to the lower tram station and just as we got there, all the employees were getting into a matatu-like van and they offered us a ride off the mountain. The man who was running the shuttle introduced himself as Lucky. After laughing about his name, we later decided that he probably got a lot of people who are stranded on the mountain find the lower tram and he just calls himself Lucky to humor them. To make a long story short, we made it back safely but never reached the top.

Our fifth and final day in Cape Town was more of a relaxed day, got a few things and biked a little while and took a cab to the tram to make it to the top of the mountain the easy way. The view was amazing and well worth the attempt yesterday.

We didn’t visit Robben Island but it has such an important history that I thought I would include it briefly. Robben Island was used as a prison for political activists who opposed the government mainly during the 1960’s and 70’s. The most popular or well known of the prisoners was Nelson Mandela who was imprisoned in the early 70’s for speaking out against the atrocities of the government. He was sentenced to life on the island, working mainly in a quarry. His wife was only allowed to visit him twice a year and only behind glass, no contact, for the first five years until she too was arrested and sent into solitary confinement for no reason. They questioned her about her relation to activists and claimed that she was involved in various acts against the government. They kept her in solitary confinement for 17 months and finally let her go. During that time, she was allowed to write her husband once a month but receive none back from him. After serving 22 years, Mandela was finally released and shortly thereafter was elected president of South Africa. The tour is given by either an ex-prisoner or warden and includes a view of the cell Mandela stayed in.

That’s all for now, I guess it is a lot of writing but that’s what happened. Catch you all after Brazil.

Nerves of Steel (Kenya)



 I know I haven’t written in a while but I have been a little busy so I apologize. Here is the update about what is going on and where we are:

We just passed between the island of Madagascar the continent of Africa and are coming up on South Africa. We will be stopping in South Africa for a few days before heading on to Brazil.

As for our last port, Mombasa Kenya:

The first day I went with some friends on a 2 day/1 night camping safari to East Tsavo (pronounced Sa-vo). Six of us went through a tour company called Ketty Tours that provided everything including a cook. We got picked up at the ship and were driving for about 3 hours to the National Park. However, no safari is a safari without some sort of a vehicle breakdown. We were fortunate that all it was was a flat tire. We broke down in the middle of nowhere but out of nowhere a man showed up and helped us.

After we arrived at the gate into East Tsavo and began to make our way to our campsite, we must have seen a dozen or more elephants, zebras and giraffe. All in all we saw over 20 different species in the first hour of our drive through the park to our site.

Campsite

Our site, a public campsite, made me think that public had more meaning than I knew before. Not only were there locals about 100yds from us but the area we had chosen was apparently a baboon sanctuary as well. I kid you not, there were 50 or more baboons walking through our campsite when we got there. I figured that this would be all that I would see of them but later I found otherwise. I’ll get back to that.

Our game drive after dinner (the food was amazing) was incredible. We saw cheetahs, dik-diks, gazelle, hippo, water buffalo and so much more. After we returned to our camp, we had the opportunity to just sit down at the fire and talk with our guide and cook about Kenya. We asked questions about their culture and they asked about ours. We talked for a few hours before turning in for the night.

That night I had a dream that I remember distinctly. I dreamt that our campsite was being surrounded by animals when suddenly I heard a noise consciously and began to wake up. Then I heard it again and tried to look outside without my glasses (our guide left a lantern on to keep animals away). I saw something move outside and started thinking that the locals from the campsite next to us were coming to take stuff. I put on my glasses and what do you think I saw? It was a herd of antelope making their way through our campsite (guess the lantern wasn't a great way to ward off the animal kingdom). They weren’t more than 10 feet from my tent!

The next morning when I got up and packed all my things, I looked at my tent to find that the baboons staying the night in the tree above my tent had left me a surprise all over my rainfly. Then, if that wasn’t enough, a monkey during breakfast finished the dirty deed by going to the bathroom all over my tent. When nature calls I guess right? Haha.

So we went out for an EARLY (6am) morning game drive and saw a bunch of other animals but I think pictures and video would better tell what I saw than me telling you. So I'll have to work on getting that up on here.

Masi warriors

Masi kid

On our way back to Mombasa, we stopped at a Masi Village where we were shown how this indigenous group of people live. They showed us homes built of goat and cow manure (which we got a tour of the inside, much cooler than the outside and not smelly at all) and sticks/grass. They also showed us how they started fires simply with sticks. They were no ordinary sticks though. In order to become a ‘Fire Man’ of the village, you must travel by foot to the mountain rage about 8 miles from their village and get a particular piece of wood. Along with manure and dry straw, they can start a fire in a matter of seconds. I also had the chance to start a fire (and was successful). We also had the chance to participate in a traditional Masi Warrior dance where there is singing and jumping.

Masi Warrior dance

Anyway, our return trip to Mombasa was uneventful and we crashed for the night. The next day we headed to the North Coast on a Matatu (Swahili for minibus). Before we get to what we did on the North Coast, let me tell you about these matatus. Before getting to Kenya, we were warned not to take them because they are dangerous and were strongly encouraged to take taxis. We tried to take a cab but to travel the 15 miles, they wanted $75 USD. So we opted to take the matatu for 50 cents round trip per person. Matatus are awesome! It is just slightly bigger than a mini van with about 12 seats. There are two people who work it, a driver and a doorman. You tell the doorman where you want to go, get in and as they travel through the city, the doorman yells to people on the sidewalks the general direction they are headed and at random points, the doorman sees someone signal to them and he hits the top of the van to tell the driver to stop. They person gets on, the doorman hops back in, hits the top again and the driver speeds away. This happens about every block so by the time we have been in the matatu for a few minutes, it is packed! There were so many people (more people than seats) that the doorman had to leave the sliding door open and stood with his feet barely on the inside of the door. Dangerous? Probably but it was fun. The driver had nerves of steel. The roads are not only poorly maintained but there are no lines or rules apparently. At one point, the driver wanted to pass a car while two semis were heading right at us. It was chicken to the ump-teenth degree. Talk about white knuckle driving!!

Dhow

Anyway, we finally got to the North Coast, safely, and dismounted from the mitatu. The North Coast was were we had chosen to go snorkeling and camel riding. We got to do both. First we took a glass bottom boat out to a spot (a hired boat with equipment and other people) and a diver took bread below and fed the fish. At one point, he put the bread in his mouth and the fish ate out of it. After his demonstration we were given our gear and jumped into the water. I took a moment to head under the boat and had someone take a picture...turned out pretty good. The snorkeling was amazing, there were tiger fish, zebra fish (we called this our ocean safari) and many others. If you have ever seen the movie Finding Nemo, I saw an angel fish exactly like the one in the fish tank at the dentist's office. I also saw a sting ray and got to hold a 10lb clam shell that was the size of a soccer ball. After about an hour, the guide took us to a natural sandbar about 300 yards off the coast where we got to swim for a while with no one around.

Prep for snorkeling

After we got back to shore, we found a resturant to eat at and had some great food right off the beach. Sometime during our meal, a small dog that looked like Wishbone appeared at our table. I fed him some of my scraps and at the end of our meal, scrounged up leftovers and fed him on the beach.

Under glass bottom boat

After getting back to the ship, I looked in the ticket trader box (a box that people can put field programs that they no longer want to do in so others can take and go on) and I found 2 tickets for a SOS Children’s Village visit on the outskirts of Mombasa.

Playing soccer

New best friend

Some of us went to the village and got a tour of the facilities. They have 12 houses, two stories each all with "Mama’s" along with 10 children. The person who took our group around was an 18 year old who just graduated high school and grew up in the village. It wasn’t a village that you might think of when you think of Africa. It was a nice place, grass lawns and was very clean. The houses were built as a house in the states would be. We got a tour of one of the homes and had the chance to meet the family that lived there. Shy at first, we broke the ice by asking if they played futball (soccer in the states). They all shook their heads yes and they took us to a field behind their house. It was regulations sized with no lines and metal poles for the goals (no nets). They brought out a soccer ball and we began to play. It was the USA Vs. Kenya (10 of them vs 5 of us). After about 5 minutes, 3 of team USA fell out because of the heat (it was midday and extremely hot) but Pete and I stuck it out and played for almost an hour. They ended up winning 6-5 but it was an incredible and humbling opportunity to play with them.

The remainder of our stay in Mombasa was mostly uneventful. We did go out to a Florida Night Club and saw the Kenya night life. A few crew members were there along with some SASers so there was no fear of something happening.

So that was Kenya. Like I said before, we just passed Madagascar and the sea has gotten rocky again. They told us that this was because there is a tropical storm hitting Madagascar and there are 2 other storms both over 1,000 miles away. The problem is that some have clockwise winds and others counterclockwise. This is bad for us because the wind pushes our ship around plus the waves come from all directions. We are ok and are heading closer to the coast of Africa to try and get a smoother ride. No worries.

Well, I have been writing so long my battery is probably going to die. We are having a Crew Talent Show tonight which should be interesting. Hope things are as entertaining back there as they are here.

Trying to Make a Difference (India)

I am currently in India, we got here yesterday. It is an interesting culture but I have yet to really experience it. I went to Mother Theresa's Missionary of Charity yesterday which is in Chennai and houses about 20 mentally and physically handicapped children. We were there for a few hours to play with them but it was hard. It was hard because of the living conditions, because of the smell, because the children were unwanted. There was an adoption waiting list with around 150 couples waiting but they were waiting to get 'normal' kids.

Today I am just going to walk around India to get a better feel for what it is like. Last night I went to a Bollywood movie with some friends (its the second largest movie industry in the world) and it was in Hindi so we didn't understand it. India is unique when it comes to language, it has 324 confirmed languages. People can go to different areas of the country and not understand what the people are saying even though they are from the same country. Anyway, this Bollywood movie was funny not because we had no idea what was going on (although that was part of it) but because at random times throughout the movie they would break out in song and dance. It was sort of a combination of Grease, STOMP, River Dancing and Newsies, interesting and LOUD!!. I don't know if India suffers from a hearing problem but I know that I do now.

Rickshaw

One of the modes of transportation in India is something called a rickshaw. A rickshaw is a 3-wheeled motorcycle that has a bench back seat which seats three (uncomfortably) with the driver steering with a bicycle-type handle bar. It is enclosed, sort of, but if you got into an accident, there is almost no chance of making it out alive. That being said, these things cruise around town weaving in and out of traffic. At some points, I could reach out and touch buses as we passed them by. Scary huh? They were fun and not as dangerous as it sounds. There have been some close calls but its all an experience I wouldn't trade for anything.

The gang

Tsunami Relief Orphanage

Coloring

Some of us were able to make it to a Tsunami Relief Orphanage for a day. While we were there, we played London Bridge, Duck Duck Goose and coloring in Lion King coloring books. They had never seen Lion King before but they were keen on coloring! At the end of the day one of the kids gave me his drawing, signed and his hand print on it. He had colored in Timon green and Pumba purple. I wish I could have stayed longer, did one day make a difference?




I hope to find out from them if there is a way to maybe build houses in southern India. We also want to go to a national park on the west side of the country to do some hiking and camel and/or elephant trekking.

We leave for Kenya on the 10th and should arrive there on the 17th. We do have Neptune day in there which is the day we cross the equator and everyone gets to have churned fish remnants poured on them, swim across the pool, kiss a fish and then King Neptune's hand...its a nautical tradition in order to become a Shellback (people who have not crossed the equator on a vessel are considered Pollywogs). Think I might get a tattoo sometime depicting this....

Smooth Sailing

Things are going great here, we just passed Singapore (we are going through the straight near Malasia and Thailand) and we are nearing the area of the world that was hardest hit by the tsunami (Sri Lanka was the second hardest hit). We are about three days out from India where I want to visit the Taj Mahal, a War Museum, go Camel Trekking near the Pakastani border (don't worry, I know all about the issues in Pakastan, I'll be careful…I won't ask for any military discounts up there). As far as pictures go, I just burned a CD of over 1,000 pictures and gained about 6GB of hard drive back on my computer so I think it is safe to say that I have plenty up until now and don't plan on stopping for the remainder of the trip. There is a SAS DVD (approx. 120 min) that is on sale, it is being made, will be finished in the middle of the summer and will be shipped to my house in late August. I have over three hours of video right now and I have five more hours left of recordable tapes so if the SAS DVD isn't great, I have my own personal ones I can work on.

Anyways, things are going well, the ship is a lot smoother ride now. Its funny looking back at all the previous students that posted on the message boards that everyone should bring lots of motion sickness medication or magnetic bands. I say funny because riding the way the ship is right now (how it should have been since we started) I do not understand how anyone could possible get sick. We're cruising at a very smooth pace. I guess its all relative right?

Chu Chi (Vietnam)

I only have a few minutes left so here is a quick review of what I have been up to in the last week or more...

It is the night of the 23rd right now, I am currently 13 hours ahead of CST. While in Shanghai, I checked out Old Shanghai. Pretty awesome aged area. Did you know that Shanghai boasts over 2,100 highrise buildings? After spending a few days in Shanghai, I took a train to Beijing to see the Great Wall, Tian'amen Square, the Forbidden City, and Old Beijing. I went with a few others and had a great time on the train. The bathroom was an interesting experience (no toilet seat, just a hole in the ground and a bar to grab to hold you in place.

Snow covered Great Wall

Sledding

Yup.....

We took a cab to the Great Wall and it started snowing! As we made out way up the hill side to the walkway up to the Great Wall, we passed a pickup truck with two guys in the back shoveling salt onto the roads...interesting method. Once we got to the Wall, there was no one there. It was completely void of anyone. We were able to walk around the wall for a few hours and at one point there was enough snow accumulated to take some cardboard signs we had with us and go sledding down the wall! All in all we had a great time.

Largest outdoor Budda

After Shanghai, we flew to Hong Kong where I visited the largest Buddha statue in the world (that was pretty much the only thing I was able to do since we were only there in HK for 2 days). I did make it to the jade market and a few other small markets before we departed.

Tunnel enterance

Heading into the unknown

Once we arrived at the Vietnamese airport and got through customs, I went with a group to the Cu Chi Tunnels (the location where the movie "We Were Soldiers" actually took place) and got to crawl through a tunnel that they said had been widened since it was originally dug to accommodate for tourist. I still barely fit, it was crammed!

Blue Ocean Resort, Mui Ne, Vietnam

Anyway, after that we worked out a trip to Mui Ne, a coastal town out of the city and away from SAS'ers where we stayed at the Blue Ocean Resort. The bus ride there was only $5 but an hour into the 3 hour trip, the A/C on the bus broke and it was nearly 105*! When we finally got there we ran into a SAS field program there and there was abt 30 SAS'ers. Oh well, it was still really nice. If you have a chance to go to Vietnam, go. It is what Hawaii used to be 50 years ago when hardly anyone knew about it. I figure that it will be a hot spot very soon as Europeans vacation here already. While I was in Mui Ne, I ran into some American flight attendents (a mother and her daughter who worked for United and American) who said that flying to Vietnam is extremely cheap. Getting a visa for Vietnam is easy too and since it is a country where most people talk a decent amount of english, it is very easy to get around. Anyway I've been having a great time so far.

Mekong Delta

Tomorrow I am going to plan a trip to the Mekong Delta with some friends and Friday we have our last (thank goodness) field programs for the remainder of the voyage. The ship is suppose to be in port on the 25th so we will be back on it then. The hotels they are putting us up in are amazing!! Great service. anyway, I hope this gives you an idea about what is going on here...hope things are going well back home.

Ticket Problems (China)

The Bund, Shanghai

I am writing from an internet cafe in Beijing, China. Some friends and I took a 12 hour train ride last night from Shanghai to Beijing and it was amazing. Things are going well right now, we are currently making our way through the city of Beijing towards the Forbidden City and Tian'naman Square and tomorrow we are going to the Great Wall. We are going to be taking the train back to Shanghai where we will take a plane on the 16th to Hong Kong. Right now we are about a day ahead of you, it is currently 10am on the 14th. Shanghai was incredible! I walked around Old Shanghai, around all the markets and saw a lot of poverty. Overall things are going well and I am very excited to be here. There is just so much to say, I don't know where to begin.

12 hour train ride

The flight from San Francisco was long but after seeing the city as we traveled through it to our hotel energized me to explore the city. At night, the entire city is lit up by its 2,000+ highrise buildings in the downtown area. It is very bright! The entire trip out to Beijing has been an eye opening experience since people here are not so friendly to Americans. we went up to a ticket window in Beijing to get our train tickets back to Shanghai and even though we had Chinese lettering telling them what we needed, they refused to help and left the window. We then went to an international hotel where an English speaking woman called the train station to find if there were any tickets available for us and she told us there weren't any for the day we wanted to leave so I asked if there were any leaving tonight that had any room and without hesitation she said no, so we figured that she wasn't trying to help at all. We continued to a travel agency and got our tickets with no problem.

Old Shanghai

So now I am sitting here in the internet cafe with five of my friends, all of us are at computers writing back home. We're with a good travel group, we're not too big but big enough to be able to split up if someone wants to go into a store and someone else wants to go into another. Things are going well, we have been trying to find phones that allow the use of international phone cards but all of them thus far take some sort of credit card type thing. Still haven't figured out how to use them.

We are going to try and get a hotel or a hostel near the Great Wall tonight so we can get up early tomorrow and have the entire day to see it. I have a lot of pictures already and so many will be taken in the next 24 hours and a lot of video footage too!

Alright, we're heading out. Just know that we are ok and are enjoying every minute in China. Hope things are going well back home. I'll try and call home or email again sometime.

Destination: Airport (Hawaii)

So after spending two weeks in Hawaii will finally be flown to Shanghai since the engineers don't foresee the ship being fixed for nearly a month longer. They have told us all the flights we will each be on (what a logistical nightmare it must have been to figure out how to get 650 students flights out of Hawaii to China! Craziness! Anyway, the unfortunate side of this mode of transportation is it is not direct...meaning I am flying to San Francisco (about a 5 hour flight), then suffer through a nine hour layover until my 14 hour flight to Shanghai. Not really looking forward to this. On top of all that, we have to pack what things we need for the next month so we can live out of our bags as we move from country to country until the ship can meet up with us. Where that is going to be, no one seems to know.

I Survived!

Raft accidentally deployed

45* to port

45* to starboard

It's been a few days since what some are calling "Wave Day" and others "The Day That Never Existed" and we finally have a course set for Hawaii, not Japan as originally planned. It was the night of the 26th and like the previous week or more the seas were choppy and our ship was being tossed around. At around 3am I woke up in mid flight heading towards the desk in my room. Fortunately I was able to catch myself and shortly after, "The Voice" came on over the PA system announcing that we had just been hit by a massive wave and that everyone needed to put on their life jackets and move into the hallways. This was not a drill. As Adam (my roommate) and I opened the door we peered up and down the hallway seeing everyone frantically putting on their vests and sitting down in the hall waiting for further word. I brought my video camera and have some amazing raw footage of this happening.

Rocking down.....

....looking up....

After a few hours of sitting in the halls talking to everyone, the captain came on over the PA and told everyone to make their way to their muster stations (life rafts). As we all moved into the stairwell, a crew member walked up to myself and a few others and moved us to the front asking us to assist in the boarding procedures once the order was given. It was very hard throughout all this to maintain any sort of balance as the ship continued to be rocked by easily 30 foot waves. I found out from the crew that the ship had lost engine power keeping the captain from turning the vessel into the waves to keep the rocking to a minimum.


A few more hours passed when the captain finally gave the all clear. A cheer echoed around the ship as relief set in while at the same time, some cried after experiencing such a humbling trial. Roughly 1,000 people on a small craft, thousands of miles from any land on the verge of capsizing is a life changing event. We survived. I survived.

...and back down

Walking around the ship it looked as though a tornado had torn through it. Glass doors were shattered, planters were over turned with dirt spilled everywhere, furniture was tossed around, even the baby grand piano was flipped and smashed to pieces. When Adam and I made it back to our room, it looked like someone had broken in and was looking for something. Our beds were tossed, closets were wide open with our clothes strewn about, and our computers were off our desk and on the floor. Fortunately they both still worked. We had the insight prior to getting out of our room to make a duct tape cage around our TV....that was the only thing that was still in it's original place. The damage internally to the ship was astounding.

Destroyed library

Over the ensuing days, many of us pondered if we really went through what seemed like something out of the movies, if in fact we had starred death straight in the face and came out unharmed. We joked about how that very night, we had crossed the international dateline three times and therefore, January 27th 2005 was a day that never existed for us.

I was able to visit the ship's bridge (I was suppose to tour it the day the wave hit us) a few days after the incident and a student raised the question to Cpt Buzz wondering how close we were to capsizing. In the calm voice he had every time he came over the PA that day, he pointed to an instrument panel that showed just how much the vessel was rolling port to stern (left to right). He said that at the worse moments, we were rolling 45* one way, than 45* the other. In all, had we gone another 2-3* more in either direction, we would have capsized and sank in 10min (the upper decks are all make of giant glass windows that would shatter and water would rush in). He said that if it hadn't been for his crew, and their quick action, we may not have been so lucky. He recalled that the nearest merchant vessel was over 18 hours away, a Coast Guard seaplane was able to do a fly by around noon (9 hours into the ordeal) so we were very fortunate.

In all, one senior passenger had suffered a bruised ribcage and one crew member (an engine room worker) had broken his arm trying to get the engines back online. There has been a rush of phone calls through various sat phones some people had purchased for this trip so I was able to call home for a few minutes. There has been a rumor going around that once we land in Hawaii, some students are calling it quits. Not me! No way!

The plan that we know so far is we are heading to Hawaii until the ship gets fixed and then back to sea. It looks like right now, Japan and Korea are being cut from the program but the hope remains that the program in its entirety will continue on once the ship is again seaworthy. Looks like we'll be in Honolulu for a few days (thank God they opted against Midway Island!).