Hey there,
It's been a little while since I've been able to get to an internet place that's fast enough and that I've got enough time to update this thing!

So I'm currently in Botswana. Just come out of the Okavango Delta, which was stunning if a little wet. I don't think I've ever camped in that much rain before, but it was fun and the lightening storms were amazing! Sadly I think the rain scared away all the animals as we only saw an elephant, giraffe, a few zebra and, possibly the highlight, a pair of shagging baboons. But no worries, it was fun trying to ploe around on a traditional makoro (canoe) and we went on some lovely walks.

So what else has been happening? I think I last wrote just before Zanzibar? Well, Zanzibar was truly beautiful. Liked the Northern beaches a bit more than Stone Town, but was good to see the difference. Managed to get in a couple of dives off Mnemba Island - private island off the north eastern coast, where it costs US$300 just to set foot on the beach! Needless to say we didn't land and just dived around the reef nearby. Didn't really do too much else there actually, chilled out and caught a game of rugby or two.

So from Zanzibar we headed back to Dar Es Salaam. Another couple of nights there on the beach, where we had our own Masai Warrior guarding the campsite - slightly incongruous site - warrior in full traditional gear, on the beach.

And from Dar we then headed to Malawi. Spent one night enroute, then into Chitemba beach. It was on the shore of Lake Malawi, but we were only there for a night so didn't see much. From there it was on to Kande Beach in Malawi. We were there for 3 nights so managed to fit in a fresh water dive (at altitude as well). The advert for the dive centre said it would be like swimming in a giant aquarium and it was. Not much by way of coral or reefs or anything to look at, but a whole lot of fish! Also managed to watch more of the world cup - saw South Africa nearly get beaten by Tonga, so close!! Didn't spend up too large, although the Malawi woodwork is amazing. Some people went absolutely crazy! So we had a very full truck after all the Malawi chairs that were bought.

So from Malawi we headed into Zambia. Into Chipata for one night, saw the second half of the NZ match against Scotland, nice work! But not much else happening there. From Chipata it was into Lusaka where our campsite was on the edges of a game park so we drove in through a herd of Zebra that were just hanging out where we were pitching our tents. Luckily they didn't stay otherwise we would have had to watch our step in the night!

And from Lusaka we then headed into Livingstone. Yes, the one of "Dr. Livingstone I presume" fame. Actually, bizzarely I had dinner in a restaurant called Livingstone in Stone Town on Zanzibar, it was apparently the place they stored his body when shipping it back to England. Anyway, it's a little town basically one main street, so not a huge amount going on there. We managed to make a night of it though as there was a sunset 'booze' cruise. All you can drink - someone should have warned them never to offer that up to Laura!! - so we proceeded to drink them dry of vodka...wasn't all my fault!

Needless to say wasn't feeling the best the next day, so lucky it was a lazy day to do nothing.

Next day we headed into Victoria Falls from the Zambian side. Not a huge amount to see from that side, but you can stand above the falls. It was only 4 of us that wanted to do that, so from there we walked over to the Zimbabwe side and headed for the campsite.

Not entirely sure what I was expecting from Zimbabwe, but it delivered more then I could have imagined. The people are lovely, yes there's a food / drink shortage (walk into restaurants and half the menu is missing) and the bar at the camp site were buying beer off the black market, but everyone's happy enough and it's really not dangerous at all. The only annoying thing is the constant request for you to trade anything for a small trinket. If I'd had anything to trade I could have come out with quite a few wooden carvings.

So we were in Vic falls for 4 nights. Long enough for me to throw myself over the Zambezi River on a flying fox, a zip line (they call a foofie slide?!) and then, the worst, a gorge swing. Before finishing off the day with a 120m abseil down into the gorge. Of course then you have to climb out of it! Tiring day!! The gorge swing is quite possibly the scariest thing I've ever done. Did it three times as well! Once forward and twice facing backwards... I only stopped to ask myself why after I'd done it!? But survived to tell the tale, so all good. The day after that I managed to book a flight on a microlight and took a flight over the falls. Just amazing. If anyone is heading that way, I definitely recommend it as a great way to see the falls. Even though the falls are in dry season at the moment, it's still so impressive. It's easy to imagine what it must be like during the wet season...just awesome!

So exit Zimbabwe and hello Botswana. Stayed for one night in Kasane just to get us into town before heading to Maun where we spent one night before heading into the Delta.

Just gearing up to watch the quarter final against France tonight, where it might be called for to have a beer or two... And then tomorrow we're off to Namibia. Looking forward to all the experiences to come, maybe even through myself out of a plane... But I'm still deciding about that one.

Anyway, I hope everyone's keeping well. I'll try and update again soon. But that was a really quick update on the highlights so far.

Oh, I've changed tours too. I left the other truck in Vic Falls, and joined a new truck with only 10 people on board - woo hoo and whole double seat to ourselves when we're driving. It's luxury! And the tour leader and driver are just amazing, so it's going to be a good couple of weeks to finish off the tour.

Take it easy, catch up with you all soon.
L xx

So I've finally managed to find an internet site that actually seems to work, so an update from Africa.

So where to begin, there's been so much happening! Here's a brief snapshot.

Mt Kili was tough. I didn't make it to the top, but it was an awesome experience doing it and I met a good few people along the way who have ended up in my tour. The final ascent began at midnight so you can try and get to the top by sunrise. I only made it to 5000m before I realised I was just taking too long so decided to turn around at that point. I don't think mountains are my thing... I might stick to diving I think.

So from Kili I began the tour through Africa. We had a full truck this time, 24 people. We had some really long driving days - 10 hours in a sweaty truck isn't a huge amount of fun. But we needed to get to Rwanda in time for the gorilla visas. We stopped at Jinga along the way, where I white water rafted starting at the source of the nile. So much fun - after you got over that whole OMG I'm going to die feeling! I was sat at the back of the raft which wasn't the smartest move as I came out of the boat 4 times - the rest of the raft only came out twice. Not sure I'll be doing it again in a hurry, but definitely a fantastic experience.

So from Uganda at the source of the nile, we headed into Rwanda for the gorilla trek. Words do not do any kind of justice to the experience of seeing a family group of gorillas hang out in the forest. The group I visited had a sliverback (he was a big boy!) and 5 females and all the females had babies - they were so cute!! We spent an hour following them through the forest before heading back to the hostel. Everyone was just completely blown away by the experience. One of the guys in our group was touched by the silverback - he just kind of wandered past him and touched him on the shoulder as if to say, 'yeah, I know you're there. I'll tolerate you for a bit.' Needless to say he was a little freaked when he saw the silverback come towards him.

From Rwanda we were back in Uganda for a few nights, where we were able to see some animals for the first time. We stayed at a couple of places, Lake Nakuru where we did a game drive in the morning and saw all the pink flamingo - the ones from the movie out of Africa - then we moved on to Lake Naivasha where I did a walking safari through herds of giraffe, zebra and antelope. We got so close to them!

At Lake Naivasha we said goodbye to 8 of the guys on the tour - a little sad - and said hello to another 15 people. Craziness! We then headed back into Kenya and to the Masai Mara. In the mara we saw a whole lot more animals including lion. Just amazing. We were able to get so close to them. The photos really don't do it any justice.

And so from the mara we headed back to Nairobi again and dropped off another 7 people leaving us 23 people for the tour to Victoria Falls.

The last few days have been spent at the Ngorongoro crater, where we managed to spot a couple of cheetah - now they were impressive.

We've just finished the last couple of days driving down to Dar Es Salaam and I'm now waiting to board the ferry to Zanzibar for 4 nights of relaxation and no camping! Yay!!!

It really has been a quick recap of the last few weeks sorry about that - I'll try and be a bit more regular as long as the internet access allows.

Hope everyone is well, take care!
L x

It just seems to speed up the further South we get. Syria was fast, Jordan was even quicker! We did indeed stop at the dead sea on the way to Wadi Musa (Moses Springs). Was so cool to be able to sit in the water with no effort what so ever. I normally float at about chin height, in the dead sea I was floating with half my chest out the water. It was quite difficult to keep your legs down and remain upright! Definitely an experience.

We arrived in Wadi Musa fairly late, went and checked out the sight where apparently Moses struck the rock and water sprang forth. It's housed in a little shelter, was a little exciting uintil I found out there's apparently 5 or 6 sites where he's allegedly done this. You never know, maybe he was really thirsty...?

So the next day was what I'd been waiting for the entire trip. The journey into Petra. We had a short horse ride to get to the gate and then we entered the Siq (canyon basically). Really amazing to see the roman paving stones still there. After about 600m of twisting and turning down this canyon, you turn a corner and there it is. The treasury. The great big temple that's carved out of one piece of sold rock. Breathtaking. Took just a couple of photos of that... (sorry haven't worked out how to put photos on this, haven't really had the time to play).

The rest of Petra is pretty spectacular as well. It's an entire city basically carved out of the face of the canyon. Took a stroll (well, climb) up to the monastery - worth the view from the top and then made my way back down to the treasury. On the way bumped into a semi celebrity. Apparently there was a NZ woman who feel in love with a bedouin dude back in 1978. She married him and moved into the cave with him. She wrote a book about it called something like 'I married a Bedouin' (naturally). Anyway, on the way out I stopped with one of the guys to buy a souvenir and met her son. Quite freaky to hear him speaking arabic then all of a sudden break out a full on kiwi accent. Apparently he studied at Nelson Boys. All good!

So from Petra we had a fairly chilled out drive to Wadi Rum. A wicked Jeep safari through the desert followed by free camping in the desert that night. And that was our last night in Jordan. Very much a whirlwind tour. The next day was the fun (?) border crossing. We started at 7am with breakfast at 8, got on the ferry at about 10:30 / 11am and thats where we sat for the next 4 hours, before the ferry finally set sail. It was the slow ferry too so we took about 4 hours to get to Egypt, managed to get off the ferry by 6pm but getting through customs took us till 9pm! Craziness. So we arrived finally in Dahab at 10:30 that night. feeling very much grimy and greasy. But we're having three nights here, so all good!

Yesterday I managed to complete my advanced diving certificate, with the navigation dive and a night dive. Yay! So today I finally dived the blue hole and the canyon. What Dahab is famous for. Just amazing. One more night for us here before we head into the desert once again to climb Mt Sinai. I've done this before, but we're doing it a little differently this time. Starting the climb at 8pm, we're camping up on the top to be sure to see the sunrise. It will be interesting, especially if the toilets are as I remember. I definitely need the practice with the climbing though, as I start my Mt Kili climb on Sunday...Yikes!

I'm not sure when I'll be able to get to the internet again, maybe after Mt Kili. So wish me luck, I'm going to need it after the last three weeks of inactivity.

Hope everyone's well.
Still travelling. Lx

Well, following close on the heels of the whistle stop tour of Turkey, came the even faster tour of Syria!
We arrived in Aleppo after 4 hours at the border crossing in stupid heat. Only to find the hotel (and the whole city) was experiencing intermittant power cuts due to the heat and the over use of air conditioners. Having a shower then jumping out and immediately starting to sweat is not much fun.

Had a walking tour of the city the next day, then enjoyed a candle light dinner (not intentional - restaurant had no power...god knows where they cooked the food!) before getting an early night for the drive to Crac de Chevalier.
Here we had a look around the castle which has been there since 1061 (or something like that) was an outpost for the crusaders and even Richard the Lion Heart has stayed there. Rather cool! Unfortunately the accommodation wasn't so great, somehow the hotel had managed to bump our booking, so we all slept on the roof of the hotel. Again, unfortunately, that was of course the only night it decided to rain! So we were up at 4:30 and in the bus heading to Palmyra. Mammoth drive there, awesome to see though. Absolutely huge ruined city from the 1st Century, cool to see. It was only a quick stop though, cos then we drove on to Damascus. Where I am now. We're staying in a camp site in the middle of an industrial area... although surprisingly you wouldn't know it. They've fenced it off and there's really nice lush green grass. Cos it was so nice we all decided to camp without tents - a bit silly for me esp when there's mossies around. Woke up this morning with two nice big bites on my face! Looking good!

So had a chilled out day today in town - not a huge amount to see though, as it's Friday and apparently Friday is the Muslim holy day - so nothing was open!

Have to get up early tomorrow (5am in the truck) for another mammoth drive to get to Wadi Musa in Jordan. Apparently we do stop to swim in the Dead Sea...which will def be a highlight!

So it's been very interesting to see all the ruins, but not much else to do... I'm feeling a little blah from no exercise and sitting in a truck for 14 hours every second day isn't exactly the most fun. But I'm seeing some amazing places and have had some fun experiences. Try push starting a massive old army truck...

Not sure when I'll be able to get to the internet again - maybe Egypt? Anyway, I'll keep updating this. Hope everyone's all good. Lx

Well it`s been a whistle stop tour, but tomorrow marks the end of my time ın Turkey. Heading to the Syrian border tomorrow.

Turkey is just an amazing country. After Ephesus we headed to a little seaside village of Oluydenız - apparently they filmed the blue lagoon ın the blue lagoon that we camped by. Had a fantastic day out on a boat, which was nearly over shadowed by me stupidly diving in to the sea with my sunglasses on. Luckily one of the guys managed to spot them on the bottom of the sea and I got them back. All good!
Wasn`t so lucky with my travelling towel that I managed to leave in the hostel in Selçuk. Doh!! But I now have a very nice touristy towel from Kaş.

From Oluydenız we headed to Olympos where we spent one nıght to trek up a mountain to see the enternal flame. Apparently it`s the one that the olympic tourch is lit from. Quıte good but it was a walk at 10pm at night and by the time I reached the top I was quite literally soaked in sweat from the humidity. Nıce!

So from Olympos we had a massive driving day (try 5am tıll 4:30pm)and ended up here in Cappadocia. One word - amazing! Took a balloon ride this morning and got to see the landscape from the air. Just breath taking. We`ve then had a bit of a tour for the rest of the day and a chilled out night to come before another 5am start to get to the Syrian border.

The tour`s not completely what I expected, but it`s a good group of people and just fantastic to be seeing the countries I`m seeing.

I`ll try and update again soon. Hope everyone`s all good. Lx

Managed to arrive safely in Istanbul this morning, had a very exciting nap and now I´m about to head out to see what the old town has to offer.

Not exactly sure how this blog thing works - so I´ll keep it short to start.

Hope you´re all well, look forward to catching up with most of you soon.

L