Onsdag 9 Januari 2008 - Korfu
The green island it is called. I do not know how green it is compared to how it looks in Sweden in the summer. But to be an island in Greece in the summer it is green. An amazing island with a bit of everything, as long as you know where to go, I do:-). Culture, beaches (both crowded and empty), warm water, cold water, waves, no waves, night clubs, bars, restaurants, sports, shopping etc.
So many years, so many memories. As long as I can remember the Greek island Corfu has been a part of my life. Every summer, always the same place. While sitting here in the non-existing winter I can just close my eyes and experience a normal summer day at this lovely island.
Is there a better way to wake up than from the sound of cicadas and feel the sun just being perfectly warm against the tent. And then, get up from the air mattress and just go out under the magical olive trees. It is amazing with a tree looking like that i think. It is like they were taken directly from a fairy tale. Their strange way to grow, all the holes in it, the shapes, and so very fun to climb :-) While looking around it is possible to see that most people at the camp site are up now, or are about to get up. Breakfast is a must. Me and my brother usually go to the camp sites' local mini market. By now we know the owner and his family. Very friendly people they are. There is no need to read the news papers, or watch the news on TV, anything you have to know he can tell you. The weather, happenings at the island, what that fire you saw yesterday were and so on. Still, when it comes to the weather it is rare with something else but sun and a blue sky. After a nice breakfast and the dishes it's time for the adventure of the day. Since we have a car distance is not a problem. As usual it is a family discussion concerning where to go. Corfu is filled by so many lovely beaches, nice towns and other things to see. But in the heat of the summer beaches with chilling water is always a nice alternative.
Only 200 meters to the nearest beach but not far to others either. However, I have my personal favorites in the very north, Sidari, and at the west coast, Glyfada and Hermones. Not to forget all the others nearby and on the way there.. Guess I like the west coast more since it is more windy and bigger waves. I do not mind sitting in the car for half an hour looking at the nature while driving to these beaches. First the tourist civilization and then a bit further away it is less houses, and even less houses, a few villages and a valley in the middle of the island. Not to forget the snake roads up and down the mountains. Everyday the same, but still a new adventure. While finally at the beach it is time to relax. Just enjoy the sun and the crystal clear water. And if that is not enough plenty of water sports are available. However for me it is usually just enough to enjoy the water by itself. Through myself into the waves and see how far they can carry me. The whole day is spent like this. some sun, some water, some shadow and often an exciting book to dream away in. Something really is special with these kind of days. A day at the beach, hear the water against the shore when the waves break, the laughter and the many conversations all around you, children building sand castles, the smell of the salty water..
When back att the camp site the staff in the reception always welcome you and ask how the day was. After a nice lunch it is time to go the beach again. And if really tired just to the swimming pool. So nice to take a nap in the shadow and wake up a while later just to realize it soon is time for the activities of the evening. Even now it is a lot to choose between. Just stay at the camp site, go to one of the lovely pubs/bars, the cinema, Corfu town, out to dinner, and why not end it with a late night bath.When tired it is time to get back into the tent and fall a sleep to nothing but the sound of the wind and the nature, and all other "night sounds" close by. Just before falling asleep the knowledge is there. Tomorrow will be a day just as perfect. Just by closing my eyes...
So many years, so many memories. As long as I can remember the Greek island Corfu has been a part of my life. Every summer, always the same place. While sitting here in the non-existing winter I can just close my eyes and experience a normal summer day at this lovely island.
Is there a better way to wake up than from the sound of cicadas and feel the sun just being perfectly warm against the tent. And then, get up from the air mattress and just go out under the magical olive trees. It is amazing with a tree looking like that i think. It is like they were taken directly from a fairy tale. Their strange way to grow, all the holes in it, the shapes, and so very fun to climb :-) While looking around it is possible to see that most people at the camp site are up now, or are about to get up. Breakfast is a must. Me and my brother usually go to the camp sites' local mini market. By now we know the owner and his family. Very friendly people they are. There is no need to read the news papers, or watch the news on TV, anything you have to know he can tell you. The weather, happenings at the island, what that fire you saw yesterday were and so on. Still, when it comes to the weather it is rare with something else but sun and a blue sky. After a nice breakfast and the dishes it's time for the adventure of the day. Since we have a car distance is not a problem. As usual it is a family discussion concerning where to go. Corfu is filled by so many lovely beaches, nice towns and other things to see. But in the heat of the summer beaches with chilling water is always a nice alternative.
Only 200 meters to the nearest beach but not far to others either. However, I have my personal favorites in the very north, Sidari, and at the west coast, Glyfada and Hermones. Not to forget all the others nearby and on the way there.. Guess I like the west coast more since it is more windy and bigger waves. I do not mind sitting in the car for half an hour looking at the nature while driving to these beaches. First the tourist civilization and then a bit further away it is less houses, and even less houses, a few villages and a valley in the middle of the island. Not to forget the snake roads up and down the mountains. Everyday the same, but still a new adventure. While finally at the beach it is time to relax. Just enjoy the sun and the crystal clear water. And if that is not enough plenty of water sports are available. However for me it is usually just enough to enjoy the water by itself. Through myself into the waves and see how far they can carry me. The whole day is spent like this. some sun, some water, some shadow and often an exciting book to dream away in. Something really is special with these kind of days. A day at the beach, hear the water against the shore when the waves break, the laughter and the many conversations all around you, children building sand castles, the smell of the salty water..
When back att the camp site the staff in the reception always welcome you and ask how the day was. After a nice lunch it is time to go the beach again. And if really tired just to the swimming pool. So nice to take a nap in the shadow and wake up a while later just to realize it soon is time for the activities of the evening. Even now it is a lot to choose between. Just stay at the camp site, go to one of the lovely pubs/bars, the cinema, Corfu town, out to dinner, and why not end it with a late night bath.When tired it is time to get back into the tent and fall a sleep to nothing but the sound of the wind and the nature, and all other "night sounds" close by. Just before falling asleep the knowledge is there. Tomorrow will be a day just as perfect. Just by closing my eyes...
Onsdag 7 November 2007
Since I was ten I have had a dream. It all started with one of my teachers giving a presentation of her trip to Kenya. Then I decided before I turn 25 I have to go there too. I don't know why I put the limit 25 but so I did. I prefer to see myself as a person doing what I decide to do, and just not a person saying that I will do things. And about this time last year I decided that I had to go, time was running out.
Usually it is kind of easy to just book the vacation, everything is set and all I have to think about is to pack my luggage and go. This time it was not the case. After doing some research I understood that Tanzania was a better option than Kenya this time of the year and found this small travel agency with an amazing two and a half week long program. It was almost to good to be true. Later it would show that so was the case, it was to good to be true. The dates of the departure kept changing, when we arrived to the office to meet the person behind the travel agency we realized that something was not right. All of a sudden he added a few extra days (which he told us was a surprise). But what made us change our mind and book with someone else was that he did not have any tickets for the flight departure from Sweden. I mean, I am sure that everything would have turned out ok, but I was not willing to take that risk.
Anyway, we decided to travel with another travel agency, one that we had only heard good things about. This was also something that did not turn out exactly how we had expected. Still, I am glad for everything that happened to us. This made my vacation something extraordinary to remember.
The way there
In The end of February it was finally time. My dream was going to come true. The departure was getting closer and my expectations could hardly be any higher, I had been waiting for this almost 15 years. Both I and my friend had borrowed backpacks from our parents and probably looked like we just traveled back 30 years in time. Anyways, we checked in, went through security control and thought everything was as it should be. We had two stops, one in London and one in Nairobi. The stop in London was fine, so far so good. But in Nairobi everything went wrong. Firstly the flight was a bit late. No problem we thought. Had about one hour at the airport, they told us that we had to confirm our tickets to Tanzania/Kilimanjaro. Since we were sure that we had confirmed tickets this kind of confused us. Anyhow we did as they said and I have never been standing in a line moving that slow. In 30 minutes we maybe moved a feet or two. After a long wait and lots of worries later it was finally our turn. And believe me when I say I was chocked when they told us we had no tickets any longer since we should have checked in two hours ago, we had not even arrived two hours ago. We tried as hard as we could to make them understand that we had to go on this flight. We had people waiting for as at the airport, next to us a couple were shouting at the staff also upset that they no longer had tickets to their flight. It did not matter what we said and how much we begged, the next flight we could take would departure 8 hours later. So we were stuck at the airport in Nairobi the rest of the day and could not do anything about it. To make the best of the day we decided to take a day trip to the city, the airport paid for our visa, lunch and a hotel room where we could take a shower.
Nairobi was nothing at all as I had expected it. I sure would like to go back to be able to explore it more. On the way back to the airport we were in a very good mood even though terrified when it came the the traffic. I would never had dared to drive a car there! We joked about that with our luck our luggage was probably lost and of course it was. Tired from the traveling and with this coming too I burst into tears, not because I was sad, it was just to much. We decided to leave without the luggage and sat down in the plane, it was one of the smallest I have been flying in. After about an hour we finally had reached our destination. Kilimanjaro. Shortly we found out that our luggage was on its way with a flight from Amsterdam. How they managed to end up in Amsterdam I still do not know. But a few hours later we had our luggage with us and everything seemed to still be there. Our guide drove us to the hotel which of course had booked in a double room for us and not a twin room as we had ordered. Not a big problem we decided and fell asleep till the next day.
The safari
When we woke up in the morning walking out from the hotel room everything was green, the sun was shining and the temperature was just perfect, not too warm, not too cold. After some breakfast we took a shower and checked out from the hotel. From this point it took us just about a week till the next time we would be given the privilege to take a shower and to be sure that we had water at all. We had chosen to go on a camping safari to be as close to the nature as possible. The coming days were like a dream come true. Actually it was better than a dream. The animals were just amazing to watch. And they were so many. Some of them which I did not even know they existed. The first elephant we saw was hardly visible and we thought it would be like that, that we might get a glance from far away. We were so wrong. I could never have imagined sitting in the car with a lion resting in the shadow from the car, a rhino walking by just in front of us on his way towards the sunset, zebras passing us from all directions. This was only the first day of our safari and we had already seen four of the big five (elephant, lion, buffalo and rhino). Still all the animals fascinated me. The movie "Lion King" was getting real in front of my eyes. Our guide pointed at the animals telling us stories about them, made sure that we got as close as possible and not even once seemed upset that we wanted to stop to watch the hippos for the hundred time. Even though he told us we were going to see plenty of them the coming days.
Back at the camp site we talked about our day and was served the most amazing meal. The soup was not from this world, I totally loved it. The main course was great too and the desert.. What is better to end the meal with than a plate of fruit. I must admit though that we during dinner was very anxious. I mean we were out somewhere at the middle of the savanna. Out in the wild. Any animal could at any time just show up. New sounds all over that we did not recognize from before. Still I will never regret doing a camping safari. It made my experience so much more colorful. The coming days were as amazing as the first. Beautiful landscapes, beautiful and fascinating animals. Two of the highlights must have been when we saw a lion family with a little baby lion strolling at one of the well, kind of roads, the other highlight when we got to see a leopard. Such fascinating animal. First we just saw an ear of it. And our guide was almost more excited then us. Then the leopard came closer and climbed up on a tree branch just in front of our car. Our guide had never seen something like it during his time as a guide and kept pointing out how privileged we were to experience this. For a couple of minutes the time stopped and all we could to was to take in what we saw. We had now seen all the big five and lots of other animals. Still we had one day left on the safari.
Of course everything was not just perfect. Things happened on the way. The engine broke out in the middle of nowhere. And what to fix it with? I was definitely surprised when our guide opened the engine, saw what the problem was and then fixed it with super glue. My friend got sick from the sun, a bunch of tsetse-flies kind of attacked us. That hurts! A lot of things happened but still it would not have been the same without them and it would show that at the time we were suppose to leave for Zanzibar things kept coming up. As a start we almost missed the flight to Zanzibar. The car broke on the way to the airport. We arrived a few minutes before the flight should leave. Somehow we managed to get on it and up in the air the flight decided to change direction an go to Dar Es Salaam first, and then go to Zanzibar. Ok I guess.
Zanzibar
When we finally arrived it turned out that our travel agency had messed up our reservation so the hotel was full until the next day. But they helped us so we got another room for the night. In the morning we when we woke up we saw how beautiful it was. The nature, the beach, the buildings. We also got our new room and for a couple of days all we did was to relax, swim and read. Just that kind of vacation. Once again everything was perfect until we were going to move to another hotel in the city. We found out that the hotel we were going to stay at also had gotten the wrong information from our travel agency and once again the people at the office in Zanzibar had to fix everything. Amazing people really! The hotel we got to stay at was great. And from here we did a few excursions.
A city tour was one of them and it really was a lot to see. Still I believe that the most memorable place we went to were where it previous had been a slave market. It was horrible. We went down in a room where the people had been kept, we got to see the chains and we could see the pain in our guides eyes.
The other excursion we did was to Prison Island. There we went to a reserve for Tortoise which were happily fed but the visitors. I must say they are huge! also we got to do some snorkeling, and once again I have to refer to a movie. It totally reminded me of "Finding Nemo".
My Africa adventure is something I will carry with me for the rest of my life. I would really like to go back sometime. Do not think I would ever get enough of the nature, the animals and the wonderful food we got to eat. I would by far say this is one of the most exciting vacations I have ever had. I am happy about the obstacles on the way, how everything turned out and I would not exchange this experience for anything.
Usually it is kind of easy to just book the vacation, everything is set and all I have to think about is to pack my luggage and go. This time it was not the case. After doing some research I understood that Tanzania was a better option than Kenya this time of the year and found this small travel agency with an amazing two and a half week long program. It was almost to good to be true. Later it would show that so was the case, it was to good to be true. The dates of the departure kept changing, when we arrived to the office to meet the person behind the travel agency we realized that something was not right. All of a sudden he added a few extra days (which he told us was a surprise). But what made us change our mind and book with someone else was that he did not have any tickets for the flight departure from Sweden. I mean, I am sure that everything would have turned out ok, but I was not willing to take that risk.
Anyway, we decided to travel with another travel agency, one that we had only heard good things about. This was also something that did not turn out exactly how we had expected. Still, I am glad for everything that happened to us. This made my vacation something extraordinary to remember.
The way there
In The end of February it was finally time. My dream was going to come true. The departure was getting closer and my expectations could hardly be any higher, I had been waiting for this almost 15 years. Both I and my friend had borrowed backpacks from our parents and probably looked like we just traveled back 30 years in time. Anyways, we checked in, went through security control and thought everything was as it should be. We had two stops, one in London and one in Nairobi. The stop in London was fine, so far so good. But in Nairobi everything went wrong. Firstly the flight was a bit late. No problem we thought. Had about one hour at the airport, they told us that we had to confirm our tickets to Tanzania/Kilimanjaro. Since we were sure that we had confirmed tickets this kind of confused us. Anyhow we did as they said and I have never been standing in a line moving that slow. In 30 minutes we maybe moved a feet or two. After a long wait and lots of worries later it was finally our turn. And believe me when I say I was chocked when they told us we had no tickets any longer since we should have checked in two hours ago, we had not even arrived two hours ago. We tried as hard as we could to make them understand that we had to go on this flight. We had people waiting for as at the airport, next to us a couple were shouting at the staff also upset that they no longer had tickets to their flight. It did not matter what we said and how much we begged, the next flight we could take would departure 8 hours later. So we were stuck at the airport in Nairobi the rest of the day and could not do anything about it. To make the best of the day we decided to take a day trip to the city, the airport paid for our visa, lunch and a hotel room where we could take a shower.
Nairobi was nothing at all as I had expected it. I sure would like to go back to be able to explore it more. On the way back to the airport we were in a very good mood even though terrified when it came the the traffic. I would never had dared to drive a car there! We joked about that with our luck our luggage was probably lost and of course it was. Tired from the traveling and with this coming too I burst into tears, not because I was sad, it was just to much. We decided to leave without the luggage and sat down in the plane, it was one of the smallest I have been flying in. After about an hour we finally had reached our destination. Kilimanjaro. Shortly we found out that our luggage was on its way with a flight from Amsterdam. How they managed to end up in Amsterdam I still do not know. But a few hours later we had our luggage with us and everything seemed to still be there. Our guide drove us to the hotel which of course had booked in a double room for us and not a twin room as we had ordered. Not a big problem we decided and fell asleep till the next day.
The safari
When we woke up in the morning walking out from the hotel room everything was green, the sun was shining and the temperature was just perfect, not too warm, not too cold. After some breakfast we took a shower and checked out from the hotel. From this point it took us just about a week till the next time we would be given the privilege to take a shower and to be sure that we had water at all. We had chosen to go on a camping safari to be as close to the nature as possible. The coming days were like a dream come true. Actually it was better than a dream. The animals were just amazing to watch. And they were so many. Some of them which I did not even know they existed. The first elephant we saw was hardly visible and we thought it would be like that, that we might get a glance from far away. We were so wrong. I could never have imagined sitting in the car with a lion resting in the shadow from the car, a rhino walking by just in front of us on his way towards the sunset, zebras passing us from all directions. This was only the first day of our safari and we had already seen four of the big five (elephant, lion, buffalo and rhino). Still all the animals fascinated me. The movie "Lion King" was getting real in front of my eyes. Our guide pointed at the animals telling us stories about them, made sure that we got as close as possible and not even once seemed upset that we wanted to stop to watch the hippos for the hundred time. Even though he told us we were going to see plenty of them the coming days.
Back at the camp site we talked about our day and was served the most amazing meal. The soup was not from this world, I totally loved it. The main course was great too and the desert.. What is better to end the meal with than a plate of fruit. I must admit though that we during dinner was very anxious. I mean we were out somewhere at the middle of the savanna. Out in the wild. Any animal could at any time just show up. New sounds all over that we did not recognize from before. Still I will never regret doing a camping safari. It made my experience so much more colorful. The coming days were as amazing as the first. Beautiful landscapes, beautiful and fascinating animals. Two of the highlights must have been when we saw a lion family with a little baby lion strolling at one of the well, kind of roads, the other highlight when we got to see a leopard. Such fascinating animal. First we just saw an ear of it. And our guide was almost more excited then us. Then the leopard came closer and climbed up on a tree branch just in front of our car. Our guide had never seen something like it during his time as a guide and kept pointing out how privileged we were to experience this. For a couple of minutes the time stopped and all we could to was to take in what we saw. We had now seen all the big five and lots of other animals. Still we had one day left on the safari.
Of course everything was not just perfect. Things happened on the way. The engine broke out in the middle of nowhere. And what to fix it with? I was definitely surprised when our guide opened the engine, saw what the problem was and then fixed it with super glue. My friend got sick from the sun, a bunch of tsetse-flies kind of attacked us. That hurts! A lot of things happened but still it would not have been the same without them and it would show that at the time we were suppose to leave for Zanzibar things kept coming up. As a start we almost missed the flight to Zanzibar. The car broke on the way to the airport. We arrived a few minutes before the flight should leave. Somehow we managed to get on it and up in the air the flight decided to change direction an go to Dar Es Salaam first, and then go to Zanzibar. Ok I guess.
Zanzibar
When we finally arrived it turned out that our travel agency had messed up our reservation so the hotel was full until the next day. But they helped us so we got another room for the night. In the morning we when we woke up we saw how beautiful it was. The nature, the beach, the buildings. We also got our new room and for a couple of days all we did was to relax, swim and read. Just that kind of vacation. Once again everything was perfect until we were going to move to another hotel in the city. We found out that the hotel we were going to stay at also had gotten the wrong information from our travel agency and once again the people at the office in Zanzibar had to fix everything. Amazing people really! The hotel we got to stay at was great. And from here we did a few excursions.
A city tour was one of them and it really was a lot to see. Still I believe that the most memorable place we went to were where it previous had been a slave market. It was horrible. We went down in a room where the people had been kept, we got to see the chains and we could see the pain in our guides eyes.
The other excursion we did was to Prison Island. There we went to a reserve for Tortoise which were happily fed but the visitors. I must say they are huge! also we got to do some snorkeling, and once again I have to refer to a movie. It totally reminded me of "Finding Nemo".
My Africa adventure is something I will carry with me for the rest of my life. I would really like to go back sometime. Do not think I would ever get enough of the nature, the animals and the wonderful food we got to eat. I would by far say this is one of the most exciting vacations I have ever had. I am happy about the obstacles on the way, how everything turned out and I would not exchange this experience for anything.
Lördag 3 November 2007
Will write some about where i've been, to where I want to go back and not and of course travel plans for the future :-)