My first blog from Africa, as the internet and computer facilities here are a few years behind to say the least.

I have had an amazing time so far...

South Africa:
I arrived in Cape Town on the 27th of March and stayed at quite a luxury hostel, with some awesome room mates from Finland and the US. Had a good few days just chilling round the town and checking out some of the sites but Cape Town is very touristy and isn't really Africa - very cosmopolitan and full of swanky bars etc. Had too much of a good time in the local pubs and clubs and managed not to go up Table Top Mountain or see Roben Island, however I did squeeze in a dive with the Great Whites, which was amazing! We had a marine biologist on board who brought a seal pup on board, which had washed ashore the day before and we were taking it back to the seal colony - was very cute but very noisy and I was hoping we'd chuck him in and see him get hit by one of the sharks ;-)

After we dropped the pup off we headed for a point off the island and after an hour or so of no luck we decided to head to one of the other boats that had a shark around the boat. When we pulled up we were greeted by a 4.5 meter beast of a shark and we put the cage in the water and 5 of us jumped in. The shark dwarfed the cage and bumped into the cage a few times and gave us some very close encounters - could have reached out and touched it as it glided past and was tempted but didn't think it'd be right. We then saw another shark which was over 4.5 Meters again and then a couple which were only 3 - 3.5 Meters - all in all we were very lucky indeed! Will be posting some vid of the encounter up here soon - the vis wasn't the best but it was still one hell of an experience.

Overland - Cape Town to Nairobi:
I started my overland tour exactly a week ago and it has been an amazing week. Everyone on the bus is fantastic and it's a right mixed bag of folk, which is perfect. We're in a monstrous yellow overland truck called Ben, which just screams "TOURIST!" and we're accompanied by a fantastic guide called Caz and a hilarious driver called Brendan - both from Oz and are a brilliant laugh.

We started of heading north for Namibia and stopped in the citrus heartland of South Africa - a valley where South Africa grows all its oranges etc and it was gorgeous. The scenery was amazing and we got to go on a bush walk with a local bushman called Skokee, who told us all sorts of stories about the bushmen and then pulled scorpions, insects and snake skins from under rocks and showed them to us - was brilliant to see a local guide who loved sharing his heritage. We camped there for the night before heading for Namibia.

We have been in Namibia for a few days now and have been canoeing and floating down the Orange river (which is the border between South Africa and Namibia) , we also climbed Dune 45 (a monstrous 500 foot dune) to watch the sun rise over the oldest desert in the world and then ran down the monsterous dune at full pelt - only a couple of casualties ;-) . Yesterday I had a fairly quiet day and had a scenic flight to 10 thousand feet before sky diving over the desert and today I spent my afternoon quad biking through the dunes - truly awesome! I have truely been blown away by Namibia - I didn't know what to expect and all I can say is that it is a pretty magical place - visit it if you get the chance!

Tomorrow we head north to see seal colonies and then stay the night at a Cheetah reserve, where I will even get to pet some of them and play with the cubs! Then we head North for the Etosha Game park for the BIG 5 and onto the Okavanga Delta a few days after that. All in all - I am having a fantastic time and it seems to be getting better by the day!

Will hopefully get a chance to add another blog soon but internet access will become even more scarce up north I have been told - so I will keep this up to date when I get a chance. Laters...

Pete ;-)