GHANA

We left Ghana a couple of days ago and I’m still going through so many different emotions from my experience. I had a lot of really fun moments mixed in with a lot of sad moments too. Probably within the first 20 minutes after getting off the ship I could tell it was so much different than the other places we’ve been to so far. There were a lot of locals right near the ship that were selling different African souvenirs that would come right up to you and put their arms around you and ask you your name. It got hard to walk in and out of the gates after a while because the crowd of people trying to sell us stuff got bigger as word got out that we were there. And they were extremely persistent.

The first day when we went into the market place down town was really upsetting. A lot of kids came up to us and asked for money and water. It was really sad because we wanted to give them some but soon realized that it wasn’t a good idea. The poverty everywhere was definitely a huge culture shock. Later that day we decided to get out of the city and go to one of the beaches. The differences between the beach and the market place were so extreme that it didn’t even feel like we were still in the same country. The beaches were gorgeous and had no crowds. It felt like we were on a remote tropical island somewhere instead of in Africa. We met a lot of really nice locals at the beach and they all seemed genuinely interested in us.

The two SAS trips I did in Ghana were both really good. I visited a village one day where they put on a ceremony for us with lots of drumming and dancing. We also had a naming ceremony where we all got African names that came from the day we were born on.  After that we got to walk up to the school and play with the children for a little bit. They were so cute. They all wanted to get their pictures taken and take pictures of us too. When we were leaving a lot of the kids followed us to the bus and asked us for things. I gave one boy a pen and another little boy asked me for a shirt. I wish I had brought more things with me to give to them. The other trip I did in Takoradi was on the last day where I visited an orphanage. We had a lot of fun playing games with the kids all day. We taught them how to play elbow tag and sharks and minnows and they taught us how to play one of their games. One little boy got really attached to me and didn’t want me to leave at the end. He clung to my arm and tried to get on the bus with us it was really sad.

One of the other things I did in Ghana that was really cool was go to the Kakum National Park with my friends Hannah and Kaitlyn. There was a canopy walkway in the rainforest that was way up in the tops of the trees that we walked along. The walkway was basically a long plank of wood with some rope around it. A few people in the group got scared because it was really wobbly but I thought it was a lot of fun and the view was absolutely amazing. I actually enjoyed it more than my rainforest trip in the Amazon. Hopefully I can find an internet café in South Africa so that I can try and put some pictures up of the canopy walk so people can see how cool it was. We have 4 more days at sea until we get to South Africa. I can’t wait to get to Cape Town! I’ll try to post again as soon as I can.

BRAZIL


Firstly, I want to clarify that we did in fact sail down the Amazon River in our ship to get to the port in Manaus. I know a lot of people were confused about that when I was talking about it before I left because it doesn’t seem like a big ship would be able to fit in a river, but it fits in the Amazon at least. Most of the time we could see land on the sides of the river, but a lot of the time it was very far away. The river itself is a muddy brown color and there are a lot of huge floating land masses moving around it that make it hard to maneuver big ships. We had to pick up a Brazilian pilot along the way to steer the ship because I guess it can get really tricky if you don’t know the river. We heard that at one point the ship missed hitting the bottom by like 18 inches or something. Anyways, one of the things I liked about the Amazon River was that it was the smoothest sailing we’ve had since leaving Nassau. There was really no rocking at all—sometimes you could barely even tell we were moving. That was definitely a nice change for me because I had gotten sea sick in the beginning of the trip so it was heaven to be on the river! The only bad thing about it was the bugs. Huge. Massive. Bugs. There were beetles the size of my hand and moths the size of birds. And lots of mosquitoes, of course. Fortunately, the bugs were worse on the river than anywhere else I went in Brazil.

I stayed in Manaus for most of the week and got to know the city pretty well despite the fact that I couldn’t understand anything the locals were saying. There were really only a handful of people that I encountered that spoke any English at all. And we soon learned that Portuguese isn’t anything like Spanish because people rarely understood any Spanish either. The city itself is really dirty. There are literally no trash cans anywhere. People just throw their trash down on the street and then workers come by late at night and pick up the huge piles of trash.

On the first day we just walked around and explored. There was an entire street shut down and they had hundreds of different carts selling random things all over the place. One of the things that we thought was really funny was that they sell women’s lingerie EVERYWHERE on the streets. Literally everywhere you looked there were piles of underwear and bras being sold. It was the strangest thing.

We also saw the opera house, Teatro Amazonas, which is one of the main attractions of Manaus and probably the prettiest building in the entire city. It was built during the rubber boom when the city was very rich so it stands out from most of the city, which is now pretty run down. We actually got in for free to see an orchestra perform so that was really cool. Inside the building is even more beautiful than the outside. 

On the second day, I had a SAS trip that went to Presidente Figueiredo, which was a 2 hour bus ride outside of the city. First we hiked through the rainforest to a huge cave.  The cave wasn’t really anything that exciting but the rainforest, itself, was really beautiful. We didn’t really see any wildlife though. Then we drove to a different spot to some waterfalls and ate at a local restaurant. The food was pretty good. I really liked the rice dishes but the meat was way too salty. We were supposed to go tubing down the rapids but we didn’t end up having time because it took so long for us to get our food at the restaurant. Then we went to the “zip-lining” part of the trip, which was really just one zip-line across the river and then one back. It was fun but I was expecting it to be through the rainforest and a lot longer, but oh well.

I spent the rest of the trip exploring Manaus. One night we went to this Samba thing which was a big rehearsal for Carnival with live music and dancing. It was a lot of fun. It made me wish that we were there for actual Carnival but it’s not till next month, unfortunately. We did some other cool stuff too.. I’ll try to write more when I think of things and have more time.

Dominica!

We got to our first port yesterday in Dominica and it was a lot of fun. I went on a SAS trip that was for the oceanography class I’m taking to the hot springs and beaches that lasted for most of the day and was totally worth the money. Probably my favorite part of the whole day was riding in the open jeep/bus vehicles with our awesome tour guide Louisiana.  She taught us a funny rum song and other cool things about the island and people.  She told us that the people there live to be very old—actually she said only the women live to be very old and there’s like 3 women to every 1 man on the island. A lot of women live past 100 years old, which she said was because of their clean drinking water and other things.

Driving around the island was a little scary at first because the roads are extremely narrow and winding. There are also a lot of cliffs all over the place. The drivers are beeping their horns constantly around corners because you can’t see around the bends at all, but our guide told us they only have about 2 fatal accidents a year, which is very surprising.

So, on our first stop we hiked to the hot springs. The rainforest was really nice but I didn’t think the hot springs were that impressive. Then we rode around to a couple of different beaches and stopped at each for a while. There was this one little strip of land that we drove down where you could see the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea on each side of you. It was gorgeous there!

After that we went to Champagne beach where we went snorkeling for a while. They call this spot Champagne beach because there is an area where bubbles float up from the hot air underground that makes it look like the bubbles in champagne. We swam through it and the bubbles were cool but I was expecting a little more. The reefs were really cool though and they had a lot of tropical fish swimming around us. They said sometimes there are turtles but we didn’t end up seeing any, unfortunately.

Today was a lot less exciting though. It kept raining on and off and we couldn’t find much to do within walking distance. We just went in to town to do some shopping but there weren’t really a lot of cool places to go to. I did buy a cool colorful necklace though. If I were to ever come here again I would definitely stick to the more nature-y places because it’s all so gorgeous and town gets old pretty quickly.

Warm weather--here I come!

So, I only have 4 more days left at home now until I fly out to Nassau with my parents. I can't wait to finally get out of the cold but I'm starting to really freak out because I feel like I still have sooo much left to do in such a short time! The process of packing is proving to be very stressful. How do you even begin to pack 4 months worth of stuff in 2 duffel bags and a backpack? Well, I guess I'll find out soon enough.

I'm nervous and excited about this trip all at the same time. I know I'm going to have the time of my life, but the unknown kind of scares me sometimes. And it's definitely going to be sad to leave my friends and family and my boyfriend behind, but I'm sure the time will fly by. And I will be doing many exciting things to keep me from getting home sick. I've already signed up for a few trips so far. I'm going zip-lining in the Amazon, going on a safari in South Africa, and hopefully doing a trip where I'll get to sleep on the Great Wall of China!

My next post probably won't be until I'm finally on the ship so I apologize in advance if I'm not able to post very often. We don't get very much internet time on the ship and I'm sure I'm going to be very busy but I will do the best that I can!

Places I will be traveling to