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

Finally... We're booked!

Whenever we begin to discuss our trip with worried relatives, they ask "But nothing's booked yet?" to wish we shamefully answered "no", and once more their smiles were restored and their fears banished. 

But the tables have turned!!!! and the excitement grows!

Our flights (and travel insurance) are now booked and paid for.  Thing's were slowed down a little for us, living in Jersey, as companies specialising in travelling and gap years do not have offices over here.  So, after one horrendous phone call in which we began hysterically laughing and throwing the phone to one another, we resorted to communicating only through email.  So, this weekend Megan when to visit her cousin at the University of Brighton.  Where STA travel conveniently have an office.

Two and a half hours of details and decisions later, it was definitely for the best to have visited an agency in person! The staff were brilliant and each had travelled all different parts of the world so knew exactly what kind of flights and insurance we should be looking at. After spinning the globe on the desk around multiple times, I managed to figure out exactly where we were heading...

With our first stop switching from Niarobi to MOMBASSA to take part in Camp Kenya (elephant sanctuaries, hanging out with local tribes, game drives and volunteering in local schools.... more details to follow after the next pay cheque!) we were left with a grand total of EIGHT flights through our five destinations. For under £1,700 for all the flights, booking through STA was definitely a good decision as we could use our under 25's discount saving huge £££££!!!!!!!!

Finally booking is a HUGE relief, leaving us with only visas, transfers and a few essentials to buy before simply earning our much needed spending money for food, accommodation and necessary extras; eg SKY DIVES, BUNGEES JUMPS, ADVANCED DIVING COURSES, and hopefully some other wild adventures!


Brighton itself was wild but great, the perfect british weekend away finished off with fish & chips on the pier in the rain, mmmmm.

Check out the moody brighton sea...


Updates soon!
Megan and Jodie.

The Plan

    Hujambo, Selamat Sore, Hai, Sawatdee, Ayo Bowan.

 

So firsts thing's first on the travel front; the plan - believe me it's changed alot over the course of the last few months. 

First, we were all about Bali, Thailand, Australia, New Zeland and Fiji.  The classic gap year route with countless bagpackers just like us to meet, surf, sun and beautiful auzzie boys.  Saaweet enough, but when we sat down to think about what we wanted from our experience and from each country we planned on visiting, we were unsure.  We don't want to just gain a tan and sit on a beach drinking smoothies (although for a little while it might be nice!). We want exotic locations (not just a hot England), exciting cultures to learn about, cool sites and beautiful, rare species to see!

So, we decided to mix things up a little;

Kenya - Bali - Malaysia - Thailand - Sri Lanka.

(hence the 'hello's at the beginning of this post).

Unfortunately, we had to crop Madagascar out of the equation where we had planned a diving, teaching and conservation project, due to cost reasons.

We plan to stay for roughly a month in each country.

Kenya; the one place in which we plan to stay still, mostly due to it being our first and probably most dangerous stop.  We're in the process of organising a volunteer project; perhaps staying with a tribe, building for the community and a conservation project all in one...

Bali; I suppose it's difficult to give a real plan at this stage of each of the stops, as really our plan is to explore and see something new - the religion and temples as well as the wildlife here,

Malaysia/Thailand; Something very exciting/death-threatening here. Our flight drops as to Kuala Lumpar in Malaysia and picks us up in Bangkok (eeeeek!)  So making our way along the coast, visiting different islands on the way should be interesting!  We are also looking at a short conservation project with Orangutans in Malaysia with real gap if funds permit.

Sri Lanka: Our last stop before home and the most planned yet.  Jodie is lucky enough to have friends from Sri Lanka who have helped us plan our route, places not to miss out on and some volunteering.  After arriving in Colombo, we will hopefully be able to stay with some of the locals who live not far away before heading straight up to the mountains to explore the temples, the national park and visit a friend's family (hopefully digging into a traditional dinner of curry) and to volunteer in the children's orphanage.  Then, as we begin travelling down towards to coast and more touristy side of Sri Lanka, we will stop off at the wildlife orphange, volunteering there for a couple of days.  We will finish our trip with the "beach boys" as our Sri Lankan helper puts it before heading home to Jersey.

Woah, apologies for the waffle but hopefully you find our plan even a quarter as exciting as us! 

Comment and let us know what you think or if you've been to any of these places - tips much appreciated!

We'll keep you posted,

Jodie and Megan

(photos from Nat Geo)

Our starting point: Jersey

Jersey.
Our hometown and pretty great starting point that is.
After our final summer holidays of kidding around before far too many of our friends left for university, we've been left looking back on our incredible summer with nostalgia as we dive into 9-5. 

The beaches, the parties, the nights when you and ten friends are naked in the pool as the police arrive.  True, the nightlife is shit but there's lots of ways to make your own fun when you've got great company and lots of water (and vodka).  With countless beaches, you're never at a loss of things to do as even when the weather isn't great, rock-jumping and surfing with a hot chocolate afterwards are always less than nine miles away!

Pass the Parcel and a passed-out member of the party at Jodie's 18th.

Appreciating the Jersey waters.

 Prior to being chased around the house naked by a policeman getting told "there's nothing special between your legs".

Charity sky-dive for Hope for John managing to raise £1,200 between three of us.

Our Favourite place to spend time - St. Ouen's Bay

Peace and Love,

Jodie and Megan.