I made it to Africa.
It is very hot here. Not really, it's not that hot; it's only in the 80s but it is very, very, very humid and there is no air conditioning in my camp.
I am supposed to be doing the work right now but the water was too rough to go out :( and the other intern guy isn't here yet bc his flight was delayed and the other intern gets the day off because his mom is here visiting for her birthday so they said I was probably tired and could just go chill. I am very tired. I am exhausted. This blog post will probably suffer because of it but oh whale.
Actually I will write this later when I am less tired and hot. I would go take a shower but there's only one knob to turn it on/off and it is very, very hot too. Hot is good when it comes to showers but like it's burning hot. Maybe I'll try it again anyway.
Okay so it's been a week but the internet here is poop.
Okay so my original flight was on Emirates from Dulles (Washington DC) to Dubai to Durban (South Africa) but a week before I was supposed to leave my flight was cancelled because Emirates decided they no longer wanted to fly into South Africa because of the rona. So I rebooked on Qatar which was cheaper anyways. So we stopped at Applebee's on the way to the airport then I used my Clear and TSA precheck to skip security and then I had to take the tram to the B terminal. Internet on the fight was only $10 for the whole flight so I got it to watch Amazon Prime but the show I wanted wasn't available outside the states so I just watched it on Putlocker.
Then I had a 9 hour layover in Doha and they have a pool there but it was closed for the Rona too. I had lounge pass so I went to the lounge but they only had 5 lay down chairs and I didn't know you needed to put your name on a list so I kept checking every like 30-40 minutes to see if one opened and of course it never did and they only had one shower but at least I did get to take a shower and then I just sat in a regular chair so like nothing special about it. I got some juice and water and a couple plates of chicken rice. It was only $50 tho and everything else except Duty Free was closed in the airport so it was fine. Oh I also didn't see any blonde people until I went to my boarding gate bc the flight next to me was headed to Germany. So everyone was staring bc I was blonde. I guess that's uncommon in Qatar?
My flight from Doha was straight to Durban but we had to stop to pick up more people in Mozambique. Just like on the flight to Doha, I had a row on the way to Mozambique and I did get to sleep but only for a little bit because that was a pretty short flight, only 7 hours with 2 meal services. Then from Mozambique to Durban there was someone on my aisle. But anyway in Mozambique it sounded like people were speaking Spanish and after sitting in Qatar for 9 hours it felt so good to recognize words being said lol so I googled it and Mozambique was a Portuguese colony so they were speaking Portuguese. Nifty.
Then I got to Durban and I couldn't find my pick up guy so some Uber driver called him for me. Then I was like I wonder if they tip here and then I realized I didn't do any research or prep or anything coming here and I know nothing about Africa lol so I googled and yes they tip like 10% but for good service and going to the restaurants and stuff they just charge like the price so if you want to tip you have to tell them before they do it not after but Nick says if you want to tip to just give them money because otherwise it takes too long on the cards and they don't really get it.
So. If you remember, my New Zealand album is called Green. Cow. Mountain.. Well. Bruh. I would've thought I was back in New Zealand. I had absolutely no idea South Africa looked like this and we're back to the I clearly should have at least googled South Africa before coming here 😂 I did look up Sodwana Bay but it just showed me pictures of like the marine life so like yeah... anyways. These "mountains" are a lot smaller than the ones in New Zealand, hence Green. Cow. Hill. But it is so green and there are cows literally everywhere and they call them Sodwana Bay Robots (traffic lights) because they'll just stand in the middle of the road. I like cows. Cows are chill.
Anyways so South Africa is quite green and quite hilly and full of cows. The drive from Durban airport to Sodwana Bay is like 4-5 hours. And the car needs a break in the middle because the tires get tired so otherwise it wouldn't make it. Sounds fake but okay. But it's a good thing Craig's flight was delayed because myself and my luggage barely fit in the car. I had bags sitting on my feet. We also passed a lot of gum trees planted in straight lines and Christmas trees and sugar cane plantations and pineapple plantations. Reminds me of Jamaica or Dominican Republic but with less trash on the streets. Also there's a lot of hitchhikers and people sitting on the side of the road to sell bananas and pineapples.
So they obviously speak English in South Africa but they also speak Zulu and Afrikaans which is a mix of Dutch and Zulu. The Afrikaans is actually not that hard to understand if they speak slow enough sometimes because it just sounds like I'd guess German? to English (not quite Portuguese to Spanish easy) so like just be smart and you can kinda get it sometimes. But sometimes it sounds like I'm in Jamaica and they're speaking Pigeon being like "awe why can't you understand when we know we're speaking Pigeon and you speak English" ugh, Jamaicans. I don't know why they hate so hard on Bahamians when in my mind/experiences the Jamaican stereotypes of the two (Jamaicans and Bahamians) should be flipped. But anyways back to Africa lol
So then we finally got to the camp and there's a few things that I'm like "wow they must've watched my interviews" then there's somethings I'm like wow ok who dis. So. They put me in the whale shark room woo hoo I love whale sharks. If ya'll read my whale shark post from June 2016 you would know that whale sharks' spots are like unique finger prints so if you see a whale shark with the same spot pattern, it's the same shark. I swam with them in Coral Bay in Australia in 2016 and I saw them from the boat in La Paz, Mexico in 2018. Love whale sharks. They're the biggest fish in the ocean and they are a shark not a whale.
Moving onto food. In Tahiti I ate oodles of noodles and peanut butter sandwiches every single day; that's literally all I ate and I loved it. French Polynesians make the best oodles of noodles and I am coming to realize that like coconuts, oodles of noodles are different in each country too. For example, the ones in Africa are no bueno. No mal either but no bueno. But anyways so they got food for me and they got me oodles of noodles and peanut butter! Like broooooooooooo. How did you know! But then they filled the whole fridge with vegetables and no meat and like I eat meat not vegetables so it's like 😒 but Nick makes me his chicken nuggets and gives me some biltong which is meat so it's fine. Plus honestly normally we go out to eat bc they didn't give me any good food and the store here doesn't have anything in it either. Remember those starving kids in Africa you had to eat all your food for because they were starving? Still actually not me but if I had to just eat what they got me then it would be. Also people waste a lot of food here so like where's the starving kids?
Until next time,
xoxo,
Tasha
PS I know the starving kids are in "typical" African countries like Tanzania, Ghana, Kenya, etc so don't come at me that was just a cute line to end my blog post on, k thnx.
