Nusa Lembongan

Possibly the sweetest island you will ever see.

About an hour on a slow boat away for Sanur, but it could not be more different! With no stalls of clothes, or even cars on the island, the only thing between our room and the sea was the sea wall - amazing!

 

 We spent our days with juice and yoga (where we once again befriended two middle-aged women who taught us a little about the island as they own property over here) by the beach, along with snorkeling with Manta Rays (much bigger then we remember from South Africa!!!!!) and surfing Lacerations (a surf break out to sea.... green waves and everything CHECK US OUT).  It's really sweet how the kids out here have so much more freedom than back home but are then again, so much safer as everyone seems to look after them.  For example, our surf instructor's boat took out a couple of the local kids! They were squealing with delight every time they caught a wave and I bet their parents weren't at all worried about where they were.

 Scooting around the mangroves was probably the most unsteady few hours of our life, but cool way to see the island without a painfully long walk... hilarious AND practical.

 Snorkelling ^ lol at the honeymoon shots.

Only in Bali.... not enough money for the change so got a chocolate bar instead, perfect.

Probably the best sunsets I have seen in my life! 5 days was not long enough!

Peace and love from Bali,
Jod + Meg xxx

Kenya. Camp 2: Tsavo

Tsavo is RED. Everything is red and glowing as soon as you swing open the banda door in the mornings.  The sand is red and so is the sky, and now so are our clothes and skin.

 

We are now based in the middle of nowhere about an hour and a half's drive from Voi Town - which is pretty much skankville, but quite hilarious! with 'jambo jambo' man shouting how he's clean and my face is shiney - brilliant  But where we are is wonderful!  One night, our roommate Dave, came into our room whispering around about an elephant.  We assumed he was just pissed but he piggy-backed me along and led us to an elephant about 2 metres from the fence!! so amazing!

One evening we watched the African sunset, definetly somthing for everyones bucket list, AMAZING!

For project work, we dug trenches to help maintain the water holes for the wildlife, we dug a shit-pit for the school in order to build a boys toilet, built the foundations for a new classroom, plastered a classroom already built by other volunteers and did some 'wildlife monitoring'.  Safe to say there was a lot of ho'ing involved.

 We also learnt to start fires with Masai Mara when we went to visit there town which we later put into practice on our 'bush adventure day' during which we built dens, in case we got stuck in the bush with a hungry lion, as well as firing bow and arrows built fires out of sticks.

Den Building ^

 

 

The most inspiring part of our trip so far was visiting Imani, the womans group in Voi town, put together to help locals with HIV/Aids, as well as orphans and other in need. The leader that spoke to us was so immensely grateful for our help and had the best stories to tell. We helped them plant crops to fun their group, as well as making bracelets; another form of income.

 

Writing this from Bali (post coming soon!!) we are lovesick for Kenya already, the locals, animals and the friends we made, made it probably the best month of our lives so far!

You have to go to Tsavo, even if it's just for the stars...

Updates soon, Meg and Jod xxxxxxx

KENYA: Camp 1, Muhakka

After a short journey but sweaty journey across the border to Kenya, we arrive at Camp Kenya's beloved camp: Muhakka. With monkeys swinging around in the trees, kittens playing, chickens trotting about and our OWN REAL BEDS (!!!) in a new Banda, it was a huge difference to the Camp in Tanzania, but equally as charming.

 In Muhakka there was a main addition to Camp Life... nightlife! The infamous Forty Thieves was the club we visited 3 times in the week that we visited Muhakka. It was a step up from a shack on the beach, but still.... a shack on the beach + alcohol. The shooters bar was AMAZING (personal favorites being the Toffee and Kamakazies) plus the most cheesey music meant we had a great night every time.

 Campfire area.

The food in Africa so far has been great! THIS IS JULIUS ^ He was our chef and filled our stomachs with African food: Chapatti! Pancake like additions to a curry; so good! 

The project that we worked on in Muhakka was the dispensary, a project designed to provide the local village with a emergency maternity ward, as currently the mothers in labour have to ride on the back of a moped to the nearest hospital... not practical!

Jodie and one of the local kids...all of whom seem to dress in ballgown like attire.

LADS LADS BEER BEER DIGGING DIGGING LADS LADS LADS 

One of our days we requested if the two of us could go and work at the local school.  It was so fun and interesting to see the differences between school life over here compared to home.  All the kids click and jump to get their teacher's attention and are free to jump all over the desks.  They are not allowed, however, to speak any other language than English whilst at school. This was odd - of course it's great for them to learn English so quickly, but Kiswahili sounds far nicer! 

Speak soon,

Jodie and Megan xxxxxxxx

We made it!!!!! First stop: Tanzania!!

WE MADE IT
for us that's an achievement in itself, trust.

It wasn't in our original plan to come to Tanzania, but then again what was? However, as the Kenyan elections were going ahead, and there was no guarantee that the uproar they caused last time would not be repeated, Camps International sent all there volunteers to Tanga camp for a few weeks until everything died down. 

At first this caused a little stress with changing flights booked with STA etc., but aren't we glad about it now!! It's always great to tick another country off the bucket list and exciting to see the differences as we drove across the border and into Kenya.

After the four flights(!!) it took to get us to Kilimanjaro, surprisingly (due to our awful luck at the best of times), a smiling Camps representative 'Sammy' was there to greet us and drive to our campsite. Nothing to worry about!  Our journey was amazing.  It was just unbelievably cool to drive past every tiny village with millions of kids trying to get you to wave back at them, and jumping for joy when you do and millions of adults just sat in the shade, staring out at the world.

When arriving at the camp, we saw our soon-to-be friends for the next month hard at work and COVERED head to toe in mud. 

Our accommodation for the next week was a reasonable enough looking tent.  That was until the great storm hit!!! Our sponge mattresses soaked up what they could of the lake that surrounded us, the odd sock, passport or camera floating where we lay.  We screamed for help but our constant 'guys?...guys?' was no help.  In the morning however, we discovered the rest of our camp-mates had been giggling at our calls outside together, wondering why on earth we didn't just LEAVE the tent! hahaha

For our project work here, we were finishing building a school for the local village.  It was great to be working right in the middle of the community to see who our work was benefiting as well as to be jumped upon constantly by the village kids shouting 'mzungu mzungu' (which means 'white person' by the way...fairly close in sound to 'mzunga' which means penis..hmm) at you and acting like your biggest fan. In the afternoons, we took in turns to teach the locals (students aging from 6 to 55) computers and English - and we learnt a little Kiswahili too.  The others who were already in Tanga had been seaweed farming and de-worming the animals - so I'd thoroughly recommend staying for longer than the 1 month we did at Camps.

Next up...Muhakka!
Much love from somewhere that's not Jersey these days

Meg + Jod  

Past Travels: South Africa

Firstly, as of today it is officially 1 week until we set off on our travels!!!!!! (que enthusiastic readers)

Many are surprised at our choice of Kenya as our first stop, mainly as it's not your classic aus/thailand gap year.  I think the main reason for this decision and our love of Africa is due to our amazing little taster of South Africa two Summer's ago. Walking into my bedroom, you will see countless African paintings and masks and if you catch Megan stripping off you'll see three elephants tattooed onto her rib. YES WE CANNOT WAIT TO RETURN!!!!!

On the way to Kruger Park, we encountered a coach reversing backwards along a motorway and ending up in a ditch - resulting in a group of girls playing cards outside a petrol station for around 10 hours and a very bumpy journey in the back of a truck in the pitch black!

We aided Operation Wallacea with their conservation research by catching dung beetles, waking up at the crack of dawn to listen for bird calls and listened to THE most boring woman on the earth talk about insect preservation techniques for hours on end! We also had a really sweet night of star-gazing, midnight game drives and bush walks where we most definitely spotted a cheetah's tail (maybe, we think!)

We ate waaaaayyyy to many treats from the tuck shop (mostly because ELM wanted to flirt with Clive), drooled over the rangers QUOTE: "don't worry...I've used this rifle before ladies" and darted for the toilets past our bedtime hoping not to run into any hygenas on the way.

After 2 weeks here, we headed through Swaziland and back into South Africa to Sodwana Bay - this time to drool over the dive-masters. We accomplished our fear and grew to love diving, after a very stormy first dive where we lost eachother in the massive waves and panicked as we began to think the welsh school pupils were plotting against and switching off our oxygen tanks - things get a little crazy under the pressure of an entire african ocean.

Outdoors showers, beach-side markets and African singers turning up at our braai. Yes, we were now officially in love with Africa.

ello mate

BUGZ

Mates for once

Ready for some elephants

MOOOOOOO

Stole our sandwiches

BUG QUEEN

Buck-shit-spit, actually putting shit in our mouths and seeing who could spit it furthest

Fighting as usual

Fresh from a dive.

The best.

Peace out xxxx