First Few Days of the Kalahari Trip (more to come)

My friend Chris and I completed a drive of about 2500 miles through the Kalahari in South Western Africa. The Kalakari is a huge desert that spans through all of western Botswana, much of Namibia, and into Northwestern South Africa. The green line on the map below shows our route through the Botswana Kalahari.

We went from Lusaka, Zambia south to Victoria Falls. Crossed into Zimbabwe breifly to see Vic Falls with some Dutch friends from Lusaka. Then we continued on down into Botswana to the Central Kalakari Game Reserve. We camped for four nights in the CKGR, then headed south to the Kgalagadi Transfrontier National Park on the boarder of South Africa for another four nights of camping. Then drove on to Johanesburg for the last couple days before I flew back to Alaska.

Here is one view of Vic Falls from the bridge across from Zambia to Zimbabwe. Vic Falls is one of the largest falls in the world. It is 1 mile long and 360 ft high, which forms the largest sheet of falling water anywhere in the world. It is called "The Smoke That Thunders" in the local language since you can hear the falls and see the "smoke" from a long distance away. Another unique aspect to Vic Falls is that it falls into a gorge. I think this adds to the "smoke" appearance of the falls from a distance and certainly gets you very wet when you walk up to the edge of the gorge.

Here we are on the bridge with Vic Falls in the background. This is Chris and I with some Dutch volunteers that we traveled with briefly.

These pics are from the Zimbabwe side of the Zambesi River.

More jumping pics. These are very fun if you've never tried. Actually, the ones that don't work out right are even funnier. I'll have to make a blog of those sometime too.

We all went out for a nice lunch. Actually, this lunch was on the Zambia side. The Zimbabwe side is kinda messed up at the moment. They have the highest inflation of any country. There are bread lines and no one has any money. They just started printing million dollar bills there. Many stores aren't even open and the ones that are only accept foreign currency. It's a pretty sad situation there.

I got an artist to do a jumping pic with me. This guy was really cool. He and his friends were very good artists.

From Vic Falls, Chris and I left our Dutch traveling companions and drove off into the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. There was some fun 4 wheeling to do, and check out some of the animals we saw:

This is a Gemsbok, aka Orynx, not sure why the two names, maybe it has something to go with the mugger coloration on the face. Only a mugger needs two names, right? Actually, these guys are pretty amazing animals. We saw herds of them.

This is a lilac breasted roller, which is one of the most colorful birds we saw. It's really beautiful.

This Leopard Tortoise was super cool.

You're not technically supposed to be out of your car, but we couldn't resist this tortoise, he was so cool.

Here's another jumping pic we did while having our lunch when we were driving around looking for game. Soon after this pic, we came across 4 lions chilling out in the shade.

That's a nice yawn!

Here's our campsite. This was a pretty sweet spot. Good views from here and good sunsets too. We camped here the first few nights. It's kinda crazy cause you see lions and then drive about 10 minutes to here. no fences. no nothing. which is a little creepy, especially after the sun goes down and you know the lions are out hunting (cause they mostly hunt in the evening/night/morning when it's not so damn hot out).

This concludes the end of round one. More photos to be posted soon from this trip, including those of the mating lions. Ooooooo... mating lions. That's right.

A Niuu Zealanda Berthday Potti

Lisa (from New Zealand so it's Liser) and I have the same birthday which is great cause she is awesome!!! She and Dan threw a party for the super birthday twins which was really fun. We all got really drunk on martini's (and by we, I mean me of course). Then we played a bunch of games. Lisa and Dan had a very silly game from New Zealand (go figure) where you roll a dice and if you get a 6, you have to quickly dress up as a mugger with a facemask, scarf, and thick mittens, pick up a knife and fork, then try to cut yourself a chunk of chocolate off of a chocolate bar and eat it before someone else rolls a 6. FUN!

(photo courtesy of Dea and Ben's Blog)

Here are the super birthday twins before they (I) were too drunk!

Here is the sceene for game playing. After the chocolate game, we moved on to pictionary, which was of course a violent game since we (I) were all so drunk.
Here is Lena getting serious about pictionary. Lena and Lisa were on my team and we rocked the house.

Ben, Andy, and Dea were another team, and Dea was gettin serious.

Dea gettin really serious now... Did I mention that it was Dea that got me drunk by making me martinis all night long so that she would be able to win at pictionary? Another team in high Fairbanks fasion.

The fourth and final team drawing like Picasso!
The martini's Dea made for me were very sophisticated at the beginning, but towards the end of the night, the martinis that Dea was making for me became more and more strange. Here is the final martini of the night called a "Toiletini" which had a blob of fondue chocolate in it :) (Photo courtesy of Dea and Ben's blog)

Backblogging

It is terrible, but I have begun backblogging. I am such a slacker with blogging that I have all of the summer activities to still add. I began adding things which are mixed in with other blogs now. If you scroll through, you will hopefully start to see some new ones popping up here and there.

I hope to be better at keeping up in the future. This summer was AWESOME! One of the best I've ever had. But, it was really busy and I didn't get much blogging done. So, I'm trying to fill in the holes.

Ice Festival - Matanuska Glacier

The 2007 Ice Climbing Festival on the Matanuska Glacier, organized by the Mountaineering Club of Alaska, was awesome!!!!!!

Climbing without tools is supposed to make you learn to use your feet better. It is pretty hard though. You are only balancing on the ice with a few small spikes on your toes. You cannot grab anything with your hands. If you move wrong, your toe spikes can slip out of the ice.
This is the only picture I have from the bonfire. Carlene and Vlodka looking good. This photo was taken just before I went and started people off doing keg stands. Yay! There was also one of the group leaders who had their 73rd birthday party at the bonfire. Very cool. I hope I'm as active as he is when I'm his age. He looked much younger than 73 and very healthy. Very cool. Carlene had a bunch of cakes for everyone to celebrate. There must have been over 100 people.

This was me trying to do an overhang. I got up the first tricky spot here.
But, I didn't get further than here. Too difficult for me. I didn't know what to do. I'm glad I tried it though, otherwise I'd always wonder if I could have done it and what it is like to try. So, even though I didn't get it done, it was a fun attempt. I think I know better what to do next time.

Dawson City Music Festival

Towards the end of July is a great time of year because it is when the fireweed is out and it is time to drive to Dawson City for the music festival. Traveling with a bunch of friends on a road trip through beautiful Alaska and Canada. The hills that burned a few years ago werefull of fireweed.

Dawson City is a great little town on the Yukon River. In order to get across the river, you have to ride on a ferry boat. There's a great little campground to stay at. There is a casino there with Roulette. And of course, there is great music.
After we all arrived, we went out for a good burger and a beer and got ready for a great night of music.
Getting ready for a great night of music of course included drinking gin and tonic in the parking lot.

Be careful when taking photos in the beer garden. Canadians are very slick at sneaking into your photos and looking hot.

Here's our whole crew of Fairbanksans early on in the night. We were just gettin started.

Somehow the next morning we all got up and either ran or biked up to the top of the big hill behind Dawson City. There is an organized race every music festival weekend up to the top. It's a pretty grueling run up, especially after a late night of partying.

Followed up by another great night of music and partying.
Ashley was the most adventurous and got into the crowd surfing. Pretty awesome! She was up there longer than most people - quite impressive.