Our boat stopped in two places.  The first was a little island where we snorkeled from the beach.  The water was calm and beautiful, with tons of coral and fish right near the beach.  The second stop was out in the ocean at the reef, which was a bit rougher sea but just as impressive.  I even saw a tiny shark!  (I’m told these ones are harmless… but I still turned and swam away quickly).  The Great Barrier Reef was an unexpected highlight of the trip for me, and I’d highly recommend a trip out to see it.

Our boat: Passions of Paradise

On the way to the reef

These huge batfish hang out around the boat

Our first stop at Michaelmas Cay

At the cay we snorkeled right from the beach

The Great Barrier Reef

Tons and tons of fish

Beautiful coral

Red fish

Blue fish

Old fish, new fish?

Ben snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef

The small shark I saw at a distance

Tired and happy after a day of snorkeling

 

Self-drive Safari

How it works

Animal viewing from the car

We visited Kruger National Park, a huge game reserve east of Johannesburg. You could call this a “self-drive safari” because visitors simply drive their own cars around all day looking for animals. The animals are anywhere and everywhere, and most of the time we spotted them crossing the road, or near a river or water hole. You’re not allowed to get out of your car except in a few designated areas, but with all the animals around you wouldn’t want to anyway.

So Ben and I rented a car and stayed 3 nights inside of the park in a private bungalow with a small kitchen and grill. Each day we would head out, armed with cameras and binoculars, in search of wild animals…
 

Animals!

During four days of driving around Kruger, we saw almost every animal imaginable. The most common sightings were impala (a type of antelope), elephants, and giraffe. We also saw plenty of zebra, wildebeest, warthogs, baboons, vervet monkeys, hippos, rhino, water buffalo, and kudu. And finally, we were lucky to see some of the more rare animals: a pride of lions sleeping on the road (sunrise drive), a leopard hanging out in a tree, three cheetah (barely visible through our binoculars), some ostrich, and a hyena nursing a pup.
 

Interesting Encounters

Here’s some of our memorable experiences at Kruger:

• Driving on a dirt road, we came across a pack of about 20 water buffalo. They were slowly grazing and making their way from one side of the road to the other. With nowhere to go but forward, we inched our way towards the heard, eventually becoming surrounded by buffalo. Most of them didn’t seem to mind, but we got a few very intimidating stares. In particular, one buffalo stood in the middle of the road directly in front of us. She was protecting her calf, and glared at us without budging. Luckily, after a few minutes she shooed her calf off the road and let us pass.
  

  Face-off with a water buffalo

• My favorite animals at Kruger were elephants. We saw plenty of them, and I enjoyed each and every encounter. We usually found them crossing the road in groups of 10 or more, with at least a few adorable baby elephants in tow. They’re huge animals, and look so funny as they use their trunk to pull leaves off the trees and put it in their mouths.
  
• Ben’s favorite animals were rhinos. They remind me of dinosaurs with their tough skin and horns. On one of our guided drives, we came across a group of three white rhinos. Apparently intimidated by us, they would trot about 20 feet away, and then stop and form a defensive stance. They stood with their back-ends together and facing outward.
  

  Rhinos on the defense

Photos

Of our hundreds of photos, here’s some of the better ones… enjoy!

Lion resting on the road

Lions before sunrise

White Rhino

Baboons

Elephant

Elephant

Elephant crossing the road

Giraffe

Ben in Kruger Park

Warthogs

Kudu

Zebra and Impala

Vervet Monkey

Leopard resting on the tree branch

Leopard through our weak binoculars

Olifants River, Kruger Park

Alonna & elephants in the river basin

Ben with the rental car

There's a wildabeest in the distance (middle left)

Sunset in Kruger

 

Abu Sir pyramids near Cairo, Egypt and the Giza Pyramids very faint in the distance

We arrived to Cairo in the evening and booked a private tour for the next morning to the pyramids of Giza, Saqqara and Dahshur. At 6am I woke up to this beautiful hazy sunrise over Cairo:

The pyramids were huge, impressive, and a bit underwhelming all at the same time. It rarely happens this way, but they were exactly what I expected; enormous pyramids made out of limestone sitting out in the desert and surrounded by tourists. Besides the Sphinx (located down below from the Giza pyramids to guard them), there were really no sculptures or statues or any ornamentation at all. Most of the tombs were robbed hundreds or thousands of years go, and anything remaining was moved to the Egyptian museum in Cairo.

Besides the famous pyramids at Giza, there are many other sites in the area with burial grounds, temples, and pyramids. At Dahshur there was a cool “bent pyramid” which was started with a 55 degree angle, and later changed to 43 so that it wouldn’t cave in on itself. At Saqqara, there’s a step pyramid which was the first pyramid shaped tomb ever built. The weather was great (about 70, sunny and breezy) and we had a wonderful and exhausting day!

Pyramids of Giza

A security guard on camel-back

Alonna

Ben posing with a camel

Ben is the small blue shirt at the bottom

Ben pondering life in Ancient Egypt

This guy gave me a funny... smile (?)

The Great Pyramid

The Sphinx and Khafre Pyramid

Just for fun...

Great Pyramid and Great Sphinx

Entrance to the Red Pyramid at Dahshur

Inside the Red Pyramid

The Bent Pyramid

Alonna & Ben in Egypt

First Step Pyramid at Saqqara

Step Pyramid at Saqqara

 

School Girls fascinated by Alonna!

At the pyramids yesterday there were many groups of school kids. A few times, a large group of school girls would go past us, and they all stared at us and giggled and some even took photos using their cell phones. At first I thought they were looking at all of us, but eventually it was obvious that it was just me. I think my blond hair and pale skin was part of it – but the catch (I think) was that I was wearing shorts and you could see my legs. In the more strict Muslim culture, women don’t show much skin – just their face (sometimes even that is covered) and hands. When I turned to look back at them, they all had huge grins and shouted “hi! hi!” and waved. I smiled and said hi back, feeling like a celebrity. The last time it happened I was prepared, and as I waved and said hi I took these two photos. These girls actually started running towards me while waving; they were so excited! I’ve never experienced anything like this at all… it was hilarious and I loved it!

School girls running out to greet me

I think they found my blonde hair and shorts very exotic!

Volcano Tour – By Horse

I’m no fan of horses. I guess it’s because I had a bad experience as a kid, but still I just don’t see the point. I’d rather walk than put my life in the hands of a strong-minded animal. So naturally I was disappointed when I learned that the only way to see the huge active volcano on Isabela Island was on horseback. But I really wanted to see the volcano, so I convinced myself that I could do it.

Long story short, we both survived and it was worth it. The horses were very tame and we didn’t have any problems, although I was completely terrified the entire time.
 

The volcano is called Sierra Negra, and it’s a huge crater that is constantly letting off steam. It’s actually the largest active volcano crater in the world (one crater in Africa is larger, but inactive).
 

After seeing Sierra Negra, we hiked to another active volcano called Volcano Chico. This one doesn’t look like a volcano at all, it’s more of a general area of volcanic activity. We walked around in lava fields with cool-looking cactus, and enjoyed great views of the rest of Isabela Island.
 

An Evening in Isabela

Our first night on Isabela, Kristina, who worked at our hotel, took us around town. We ended up at a cool bar with a wall full of iguanas. Lucky us we also happened to be there right in time for a few games of volleyball!
 

Isabela Bay Tour

We took a tour of the bay near Puerto Villamil, which is gorgeous with clear blue water, black lava rock, and green mangroves.  We saw a billion iguanas, a few penguins, one blue-footed boobie, and then went snorkeling with sea turtles and a big sting ray. After a hike around one of the islands, we returned to find a sea lion hanging out in our boat. I think this happens a lot, because the boat owners seem to be a bit disgusted with the sea lions. But I got a kick out of it.
 

Tortuga Bay

One day in Puerto Ayora we walked to Tortuga Bay, which is a large beach 40 minutes outside of town. It was fairly uneventful, except for some amusing iguanas on the beach. If you got too close to them, they’d start to run which looks pretty funny with their short legs.
 

These cactus trees are all over the Galapagos. The cactus evolved to grow into tall trees so that the giant tortoises and iguana wouldn’t eat them.  I’m not sure the photo captures it accurately, but they look really cool.
 

Here’s some of the animals we’ve seen on the Galapagos:

Blue-footed Boobies
The symbol of the Galapagos, these birds are found everywhere. Unfortunately we didn’t witness their funny mating dance, but I’m sure we can find it on youtube.

Red-footed Boobies
We saw tons of these guys on Genovesa. They really do look at us with an expression that seems to say “and who the heck are you?” Their babies are adorable white furballs.

Nazca Boobies
Grey feet? How boring

Seals
The laziest-looking animal on earth, all they seem to do is lie around all day. It’s fun to spot them though, as they tend to park themselves in all kinds of precarious locations.

Sea Turtles

There are plenty of sea turtles in the islands, and we even saw a couple while snorkeling. We’re pretty sure the tracks on the left are from sea turtles crawling onshore to nest.

Giant Tortoises
Some of the largest tortoises in the world inhabit the Galapagos Islands. We spotted 3 in the wild, but these photos are from the Charles Darwin Research Center where they’re breeding them.

Penguins
Although the Galapagos Islands lie on the equator, you can find tiny penguins here due to the cold water coming from the south.

Iguanas
There are iguanas galore in the Galapagos. They vary by size and color, but they all have a kind of bad-ass look. Even though they’re relatively small, they seem to say “back-off, you don’t want to mess with me!”

Crabs
The bright red crabs here are both beautiful and creepy. They crawl and jump around on the black lava rocks with ease, which makes them look like giant spiders with claws, yikes!

Frigate Birds
These birds are thieves; they don’t hunt their food, they steal it from boobies or other birds.

Other Birds
There are tons of birds in the Galapagos, especially on a remote island we visited called Genovesa.

The Galapagos Islands are a totally unique place on Earth, so we decided to check them out while in the neighborhood (they’re off the coast of Ecuador). To see the different islands and animals, you have to take one of many expensive cruises. We found a great last-minute deal on a short 4-day cruise, and then decided to extend the trip by staying 6 more nights on the islands themselves.

We were lucky to get a First-Class boat for our cruise, called “Tip Top III”.  Compared to economy boats, this seems to translate to nicer cabins, better food, and a better guide and crew.  The boat holds 16 passengers, whom we got to know pretty well within the 4 days. We even exchanged emails on the last day. Overall we were really impressed with the entire operation and would definitely recommend this boat.

Every day we went on excursions like hiking and snorkeling, and every night we motored to a new island. For anyone who’s been to the Galapagos or is thinking of going, these are the locations we visited:

Day 1: Black Turtle Cove (Santa Cruz)
Day 2: Rabida & Bartolome
Day 3: Genovesa
Day 4: Santa Cruz Highlands & Charles Darwin Center

My favorite part of the cruise was visiting Genovesa. Due to it’s location far away from other islands and on the edge of the Galapagos plateau, Genovesa is home to thousands of birds. I’ve never been anywhere with so many birds all around and not the least bit affected by my presence. It was amazing to be standing in the middle of such a unique place.

Next post I’ll show you some of the really cool animals we saw.

Here’s some photos from the drive here. The country side was really pretty. We also drove around Lake Arenal, which is popular for wind surfing. Now we know why – it was VERY windy all around the lake.

While driving, we found a bunch of cars stopped to look at these small racoon-like animals. We’re not sure what they’re called, but they were pretty cute and let us get up close to take photos.

Here’s some photos of the volcano and our awesome hotel. The hotel has beautiful landscaping, lots of humming birds, and an amazing view of the volcano from our cabin porch. Also, the maid created an elephant out of our towels today!

Have you ever tried to take a picture of a humming bird? It’s really difficult! The first picture I managed to catch one sitting still, the send is the result of lots of out-of-focus shots.

Today we took a really fun “Canyoning” tour. We hiked and repelled through a small canyon in the jungle. The repells were over waterfalls, two of them were pretty big. We had a blast, and even managed to keep our camera dry.

As you can see, we’re having a great time here. The weather and scenery have been beautiful. The next two days we’re hoping to get in some mountain biking, a hot springs visit, hiking and sightseeing, and hopefully we’ll get to see the lava at night.

Salud! (Cheers)
Alonna

For some reason I thought we’d get here rested and ready to start the adventure. But the 5 1/2 hour overnight flight didn’t quite do it – we were tired. Still, we had a rental car waiting, and a 4-hour drive to our first destination: Santa Elena, home to the Monteverde Cloud Forest. This is a small town in the mountains where moisture from the pacific rises and forms constant clouds over the forests. This moisture creates a unique forest with thousands of plants and animals that can’t be found anywhere else in the world. So, we headed out in our small SUV (Daihatsu Terios) Manual 4×4. About half way, we had to turn off of the highway, and start up towards the mountains. The roads turned to very rough dirt/gravel for about 25 miles. The views were great, but it was a bumpy ride. Here’s some photos from the trip:

The rest of Saturday we pretty much chilled out, slept, went out to eat, and did a little shopping.

Sunday we went on a Sky Trek zipline adventure, which was a blast! It consisted of being harnessed and hooked onto cables, then zipping across the jungle. There were 11 cables total and it took about 2 hours. Here’s some photos.

After the zipline, we went to the Monteverde Cloud Forest and spent about 2 hours hiking around. Luckily, we happened upon a small tour group, just as the guide had found a beautiful blue/green bird with a red chest. He let us take a look through his scope. It turns out this was a Quetzal, which is a rare bird that people come to see in Monteverde. On the hike we also saw a monkey up in the trees. Other than that it was uneventful – although the forest itself is pretty. Here’s a couple photos of the cloud forest:

Later, we took a night tour of a different cloud forest reserve (called the Children’s Eternal Rain Forest). We were in a group of 8 plus a guide, given flashlights, and basically hiked around in the dark searching for nocturnal animals. We spent most of the time looking for sloths up in the trees, but what we saw were 3 tarantulas, a couple tiny frogs, tons and tons of sleeping birds (who tuck their head under their wings, and puff up their bodies), a long line of army ants (whom Ben tried to confuse by blocking their path), and some large rodents that I can’t remember the name of. The whole thing was pretty fun, the forest is very noisy at night with beetles, frogs, and other insects. Here’s two contrasting photos – one is the sunset we saw before the tour, the other is of one of the orange-kneed tarantulas (yes, I was scared).

Today we’re heading to La Fortuna, home of the active volcano Arenal. We’ll be spending 4 nights here, and plan to do some fun things like biking, repelling down waterfalls, visiting hot springs, etc. We have wi-fi there so stay tuned for more photos!

~Alonna