Finally! An update!!

I've been writing these on my computer on the bus the past few days....enjoy!


July 11

Well...I feel like I’m officially on tour now. We left Swakopmund early this morning and are currently on the bus on our way to Waterberg.
Last night was our last time with Mascato until the end of our tour when we reunite in Windhoek for one last concert. We had such an incredible time at our dinner.
It was about 20 minutes outside of Swakopmund in the dunes. We were lucky the east weather had died down a bit so it wasn’t quite so windy. But they come prepared and had huge tents setup where we ate our dinner.
I had planned before hand with Afro Shine to have them perform at the dinner. At first I thought we could just do it informally and just have their piano player come and have them sing off mic. But the more Dollar and I talked about it we thought it could be cool to have their entire band come (Bass, drums and keyboard…plus the 3 guys on mic)
It was SO amazing! Between Mascato all dancing around us and Afro Shine singing their butts off, I think Kokopelli had an experience they won’t ever forget! (plus the food was INCREDIBLE!!!)

July 12

We spent our night last night at the Waterberg Plateau. It was a really neat place…it actually almost reminded me of the Jasper Park Lodge except warmer and in Africa. Haha….it had an AMAZING view! A few people decided to climb up to the top of the plateau last night. I decided to take it easy and go in the morning instead. We went last night to watch some crazy people go swimming in the outdoor pool. Amanda has now decided to never do that again.....in life.....ever!
We had an incredible meal and I headed to bed early so I could be up by 6:00am to climb the plateau. I think I was asleep by 9pm!! Crazy!! Lots of people are getting sick (with colds) including me, so going to bed early was a very nice thing!
A few of us got up at 6:00 then and did the climb. It took almost a half hour and was one of the biggest workouts I’ve done since I’ve been here! Ow! But so worth it! The view was incredible....unfortunately we miscalculated the sunrise and it came up on one of the sides of the plateau and not on the horizon. It was still really amazing though!

July 16

I’ve kind of fallen behind on this! After we left the Waterberg Plateau we headed to Etosha stopping at a cheetah sanctuary along the way. That was pretty neat…we saw a bunch of cheetahs and learned all about them.
After that we finished we finally hit the Okaukuejo Camp where we would be staying for the next 2 days. Just driving to the camp we saw more animals than we did the entire time we were in Africa last time! It was ridiculous!!! We saw SO many elephants and giraffes (which we barely saw any of last time!) And of course many zebras, springbok, jackals, gemsbok, kudu and wildebeests!
John and my room was pretty sketchy… almost everyone else got beautiful renovated rooms so we were a little disappointed. There was a mix up with the rooms and somehow one got cancelled so John and I basically just got whatever they could drudge up on short notice! All the bungalows around us were under construction which was weird….we felt like we were in the middle of nowhere! At dinner though we had a nice surprise…. Just as we were all finishing eating we heard music. Suddenly a bunch of little kids came into the dining hall all singing and dancing! They were from the Okaukuejo Primary School where we were supposed to sing in the morning! Apparently they do this every Tuesday and Thursday night for the tourists that come through to get some donations! They were so shocked when we started singing along with some of the songs that we knew! It was a total party…the kitchen staff came out and said it was the best night they had ever had there! They didn’t want us to leave!!
The next morning we went to the Okaukuejo Primary School. We were very excited to see the kids that we had met the night before! The concert was great and the kids loved it. They sang and danced for us afterwards and we had a great time with them afterwards!

After we left the school we went on a game drive and saw tons of animals again. Later on we headed back to the camp where we saw 47 elephants at the waterhole! It was awesome!! John and I headed back to our room then and found out we had no electricity. We went to the front desk to ask them about it and they said they’d look into it. By the time we got back to our room we found out we had no water at that point either....the renovations that surrounded us where closing in! The workers seemed very surprised that we were actually still living there!
We headed back to the front desk to let them know we now had no power or water. We were a little worried because earlier they had told us they were completely booked and couldn’t move us. So...we waited for them to figure something out and they told us we could move to room #34. I figured it would be like any other room until they showed us the map... it was the best room at the entire camp!!! It costs over $6000(Namibian) per night, has two floors with a balcony and overlooks the waterhole straight on! I almost died!! It looked like a friggin honey moon suite!! I’ll try to post pictures soon!!!

We left Okaukuejo the next day and went to Namutoni to stay over night. We’ve been mostly driving the past few days. (Zambia is a loooong way away!)
Namutoni was fantastic! The staff from Okaukuejo phoned Namutoni to tell them a choir from Canada was coming and that we were great so they decided to do something special for us! They made a huge outdoor braai and it was SO much fun! I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much meat in my life! Hahah…it was really great though! We sang a couple of song for them afterwards!

The next day we traveled on our way to Zambia a little further... we had to be split up into 4 separate camps because our contact in Tsumeb was cancelled. I stayed in the Ngepi Camp which was surprisingly really cool but very outdoorsy. Out little ‘huts’ had thatched roofs and bamboo walls. You could see people walking by through the walls. It was crazy! The bathrooms were like that as well but didn’t have ceilings. It was really neat! Some people at the other camps actually saw some hippos!! We just heard them around our camp but didn’t actually see them!

Today we just spent another day traveling! We finally made it to Zambia! We’re staying at the Fawlty Towers Lodge. It’s kind of like a hostel except that some of us are in tents (including me and John) I don’t mind camping when I’m prepared for it but lugging around a huge suitcase and not having a shower in a few days is not making me to happy of a camper. But then again…I guess we’re officially half way through the tour and everyone is kind of getting a little more uptight with things! We just need a day to relax when we aren’t all crammed in a bus with each other!

I’m so excited cuz we’re going on our cruise tomorrow morning and we’re supposed to see hippos! (and maybe crocs as well!!)
Well…I’m going hit the tent now.... hopefully we’ll get internet sooner than later next time….
Hope the weather is good at home! Miss you all!