The Adventures of Bra Grylls 3- Moving too Fast

When I first started thinking about writing a blog for my trip to the Okavango Delta, I thought it was going to be similar to the one I did in Zanzibar... Updates every couple of days, with tales of what I had seen, heard and felt.
The difference, I soon discovered, is that in Zanzibar, I had days of sitting and spending a lazy hour at breakfast, a leisurely lunch, and chilled dinners.
The Delta doesn't do lazy, or leisurely..... Wake up calls at 5:15am, quick breakfast in camp, out by 6:15am and on a game drive until 1 or 2pm... A half hour stop for lunch, and out on the drive again until 7pm..... Return to camp around 7:30pm, showers, then dinner at 8pm....everyone exhausted and hitting their tents by 10pm.
No time to really absorb what we saw, let alone blog about it!!!

So instead I'm going to focus on the "magic moments" something we all took in turns to talk about every night at dinner.

The Okavango Delta is indescribably beautiful. Botswana gets no rain for 8-9 months of the year (March-Sept ish) during which the entire landscape dries up. The Delta 
 itself recedes to virtually a desert, save a few lush green water filled havens. As the Delta dries up, animals slowly follow the watering holes, congregating together to survive not just against the big predators, but also the harsh conditions- 30+ degree heat and no moisture. 
So the landscape changes drastically- from the yellows and browns of the mopane tree forests broken and reduced to small "sapling" sized trees, damaged by the elephants and other animals needing the moisture from the trunks and leaves, to lush, vibrant waterways filled with the most incredible blues and greens you have ever seen.
Yellow, dried out savanna grasslands filled with umbrella thorn trees, straw-like grasses and dead skeletal trees, to thick brown and dark green bushvelt. 
And the different smells in the air are overwhelming! Wild sage grows in parts, filling the air with lush herby scents, other more arid areas smell dusty and ancient, yet the waterways fill your lungs full of moist, rich air- full of the scent of leaves, dampness and rivers.

Everyone says how blissfully quiet the bush is compared to towns and cities.... I thought that too, but we're so wrong!!! Ok there isn't the roar of cars, planes, bustling noises of people and beeping horns, but the sounds are there all the same.
 During the day- birds singing their individual stories, jackals barking, lions roaring, impala and kudu barking, monkeys and baboons chattering and chuntering. Hippos laughing their deep bellied laughter, elephants squealing or trumpeting or rumbling.
By night, the orchestra changes..... The buck are silent, trying to remain hidden, unless they bark out an alarm call. Cicadas and crickets chirrup away in time with the multitudes of frogs and toads. Owls hoot and hyenas whoop. Lions call out their hunting cries, and the hippos continue to laugh.

Our guide was an incredible guy called Ofentse, originally from Gabarone. He's been guiding for 15 years, and specialised in birding. This guy has the most incredible tracking talent.... Spotting individual tracks from a path full of vehicle, animal, and insect tracks "The bush Internet tells me what has been happening" he laughs as he reads the road.
Listening to animal calls and immediately picking up on alarm calls, following them to see what kind of predator has caused the bird/squirrel/monkey/buck to sound the alarm.

I can honestly say that if he hadn't been our guide, the whole trip would have been a lot less interesting. He has a deep rooted passion for what he does, an infinite amount of knowledge on wildlife, flora, fauna, and the cultures within Botswana. He was compassionate, being involved in various research projects to help balance the ongoing scales of farming vs conservation, and he taught his 3 passengers (me, my photography tutor Stuart, and my new bush-friend Kath) with humour and excitement. I challenge anyone to be that excited after 15 years in the "same job"!!!

So this is where I found myself. I remember, about a week into the trip, standing on the edge of a river, with my camera mounted on a tripod, knee deep in grass, taking photos of an elephant bull of the other side of the river.
It suddenly hit me. 
If you'd told me 10 years ago that I would one day be doing a wildlife photography workshop in Africa, sleeping in tents with a short-drop for a toilet, I would have laughed you out of my nice London apartment and carried on booking holidays to 4 or 5* all-inclusive resorts.
If you'd asked me 3 years ago, I would have laughed at the very thought of me sleeping in a tent full of bugs and scary crawled, and would have laughed at you for suggesting it!!

But there I was, and I was loving every single second of the experience.......

The Adventures of Bra Grylls 2- it's all about the Lions

2 days in and. I am still alive, and WOW what a bloody adventure this is going to be!!! 

Day 1, we check out of the Sedia hotel and spend the entire day travelling to our camp in Xakanaxa (pronounced Kakanaka)

On the way to camp, saw a battleur eagle, very cool... Red beak and talons. Took several photos of a saddle billed stork, and watched the endangered ground hornbills walking around.

Then we heard it. The sound of a male lion calling. We followed his bellows u til he could have been sat in our laps. Instead, he was maybe 15 metres away, lying flat out on his side. Every bellow we could feel through the vibrations in the floor through the Land Cruiser. I can't even begin to describe how powerful that was. 

So we drove a little further only to find the rest of his pride, 3 lionesses and 9 cubs of 2 litters, one maybe a month older than the other. 

The lionesses had to cross a small channel of water, maybe 6 feet wide, but we're clearly not happy. Like you would expect your own tabby to do, she tiptoed, dipped, stressed and changed her mind about a dozen times before finally leaping across the strait, only to fall short by a foot. She was not impressed at her dunking, came out muddy and cold.

She then chuffed and called to the cubs to do the same, but o my they weren't as keen. Half an hour later, they eventually swam, leapt, kitty-paddled across and all 12 of them strolled muddily over to their next adventure- an elephant carcass (of which we smelled that sickly sweet stench long before we saw it) in the watering hole, until the 3 suspicious mothers realised there was crocodile hiding behind it, waiting for unsuspecting opportunists to fall off, and they dutifully called their cubs back to safe dry land.

We arrived at camp later that evening and I had a tour of the shower (1/3 of a bucket per shower) and the short drop toilet which was essentially a hole dug in the ground with a frame and a toilet seat over it. You do what you need to do and use a trowel to cover your "do" with soil.... But please don't use too much toilet paper.

("I'm sorry what????")

So the first day was amazing but emotional- saw lions as I've never seen them before and slept in a tent for the very first time.

The next morning I woke up wondering how I managed to sleep through the cacophony of the bush.... Cicadas, scops owls yowling at each other, a hippo down the road laughing hysterically at us  all, hyenas barking. But (possibly aided by a few alcoholic beverages I was out like a light.

 

The Adventures of Bra Grylls- panic stations!!

So here I am, in a hotel, waiting to leave for the Okavango Delta, for 2 weeks of camping in the bush.

I've got such a roller coaster of emotions flying around right now. I am beyond excited, I'm nervous, and if I'm totally honest, a little scared too.

Why am I scared? Well let's see. My safari experiences to date, although have been many, have involved a 4/5 star resort and a relatively small private game reserve.

This is a whole different kettle of fish. 

We are camping in the wild.... The team with us set up camp while we are on drives, and they dig us long drop toilets, and put tents up around them.

There are no fences, so some of the group I'm with have spoken about hyenas trotting through camp looking for scraps of food.

So very cool but also (let's have a reality check he) very flipping scary!!! 

There are a myriad of things that can (and probably will) bite me.

On the last day we're going on an open-door helicopter to swoop and fly over the Delta to get a birds-eyed view!!

I've never camped before, what if I don't like it!?

What if I get sick?

What if I fall over and make an ass out of myself?

What if my stomach decides to rebel?

What if I don't get on with everyone in the group?

What if I get bitten?

What if I break out in a rash?

What if I have a panic attack in the helicopter as it dives down to swoop across a river?

What if what if what if???

Deep breath.

The whole point of this journey is that it's something I've wanted to do since I was around 10 years old.

It's going to be incredible. 

I am going to experience sights, sounds and smells found nowhere else in the world.

If I am really lucky, I am going to get some incredible wildlife  sightings- wild dogs, hyena, leopards.... 

It's coming to the end of the dry season in the Delta, so all the plains game converge on the remaining watering holes.... Predators know this and lie in wait.

All in all, this in going to be an incredible trip, and I know I am going to love it.

I can't spend my life worrying about fears, and what ifs.

Life is for living and I'm grabbing it by the horns and saying "Come on then, let's go!!!"

Defining a hero

Yesterday, tragedy struck Denver, Colorado in America. a 24 year old man walked into a cinema, threw a couple of tear gas canisters and whilst people ran screaming for the exits, he opened fire on them with his assault rifle, which had been bought legally.
14 people were killed, including children, and another 50 were injured.

Reaction around the World, on tv, radio, the web were obviously that of shock, heartache and sorrow. This wasn't the first time something like this had happened in Colorado- 13 years ago, 2 students opened fire in their high school, killing students and teachers alike.

And underneath all of the sorrow, the discussions around gun laws started, and America's obsession with the right to bear arms.
Before I get into this, I found a few facts on gun-law in the paper this morning:
- In Colorado, any resident can buy a handgun providing they are over 18 and do not have a criminal record.
- Residents do not need a permit and do not need to register their weapon.
- Colorado is one of the few states that allows openly carrying a firearm in public. (Yes, that's right. Not concealed, openly)
- Proposals for more stringent controls were defeated before the new state legislatures in 2009 when the NRA donated $16950 to the legislators (bribery anyone?)
- The 2nd amendment (giving people the right to keep and bear arms) was adopted in 1791, influenced by the English Bill of Rights of 1689.

In regards to the shooter:
-This guy had no criminal record and was over 18 so all his guns were legally obtained.
-He was studying for a PhD in Neuroscience, with courses specifically in "the biological basis of psychiatric and neurological disorders"
A young medical student with no criminal record. Sounds great doesn't he?

So, yesterday afternoon, there was outrage, and some Americans on Facebook and Twitter were stating they were going to go and buy themselves a gun.
One particular comment which really fired up my emotions was this:

"Thoughts go out to the family and friends of those murdered in Colorado. This is exactly the reason we should allow guns to be carried by law abiding citizens. Had someone had a gun in the audience, even with body armour, someone could have shot the attacker, but this will be used as an excuse to take away gun rights because randomly crazed individuals manage to get one and do something of this nature"

Now obviously, this was meant to be inflammatory. And it worked.

"One person shooting back at the guy firing into the crowd could have easily saved a dozen lives- or at least distracted him long enough to let a few more escape unharmed...." was one response.

I argued back that if one person joined in the shooting, how could we trust that person to fire accurately? Or if another had the same idea, how would that 3rd person know who was the criminal and who was the vigilante?
There is a reason cops do not fire into crowds of fleeing people- and if the legally trained armed forces know that firing into crowds is dangerous, how can anyone expect an untrained civilian to do the same?

I put a scenario in the mix and asked the question "if your 18 year old daughter had a gun in her purse and was in that situation, would you want her to flee/hide, or stand up and shoot."

Remarkably, the response I got from one individual was "this guy had time to reload several times, and if my Daughter had been able to save the lives of any of the 50+ who were shot? Yeah I would be very proud of her for taking out the shooter." and went on to say that as soon as she is old enough she will be trained to use a firearm intelligently, safely and lawfully.

And this is where the problem is for me. It's about what makes people heroes.

For me, the real heroes of this tragedy will be the people who do something about it. Who go to schools to educate the next generation about the dangers of guns. The ones who despite their own personal tragedy will go and find ways of being able to provide training for teachers to allow them to recognise any sort of instability in teenagers or children.
The families who lobby government to tighten gun laws to ensure that anyone who has shown any form of uncontrolled anger or depression is never, ever allowed to get hold of a firearm, and give stricter penalties to those who flout the law.
The people who see youths in the street with illegal firearms and decide that as a community they will stand up and refuse to allow this by calling the police.
The friends of victims who decide they want to make a difference and join the police force to be able to legally protect their community.
The unarmed guy who knew unequivocally when faced by crazed gunmen on a plane that he was going to die, and decided to stand up and ensure as few lives as possible would be lost, shouting "let's go!!" before leading a rush against their attackers.

These are the real civilian heroes.

Another guy on this FB feed made a comment about being an advocate of peace, love and compromise, but added that if he saw a rape in progress his first move would not be calling the police, and I totally totally agree with him..... But it depends on the circumstances.
If that rapist had an accomplice who held a gun to the victims head, would I rush in? No, because that's putting the victim at even more risk.
If it was one guy who had physically overpowered the victim, I would absolutely find the biggest brick, stick or rubbish bin lid to brain him with.

Do I think that people who live in remote farms and are at risk of being stormed by gunmen should be allowed to have guns in their home? Yes- but keep them at home.

The importance here is understanding what the most appropriate response is to any given situation, and what you do afterwards to try and make your community a better, safer place, intelligently.

One of my heroes, and inspirations is a girl called Jess Foord, in Durban, who at 21 was walking her dogs with her father. She was jumped by a gang of men who beat them both half to death, tied her father to a tree and gang raped her in front of him. The 5 men were armed with guns and knives, and not only did she suffer this horrific crime, she had to endure the fact that her father was forced to watch.

Did she have the right to go out afterwards and buy a gun? Absolutely. Any jury would find it hard to convict a woman taking revenge after an ordeal like that, so would probably have got away with killing her attackers if she wanted to.
But that's not the avenue she took. She looked at the system and realised the entire process was geared for women to fail at getting a conviction against her attackers. Only 7% of rape cases in South Africa result in a conviction, so she took a stand and decided to make a difference.
It worked, and a year after her attack, 4 or her 5 attackers got life imprisonment. The 4th was sent to a youth correctional facility.

She learned that the men may have done this as part of a culturally accepted initiation practise, and the more she researched, the more she wanted to make a difference.
She started her own foundation within that year, with the aim of helping women be survivors and not victims.
The foundation provides educational support in communities where rape is commonplace and "normal" to teach boys that rape is not acceptable.
They provide support to women in these communities to stand up against rapists, and have the courage to prosecute.
The foundation provides support for training police on how to deal with rape victims. They raise money to build rape crisis centres to provide support to allow victims to become survivors.
They ask women to provide "handbags" filled with shower gel, shampoo, combs, clean underwear, and a message from the heart which is provided to survivors at these centres, to give these women hope that they can and will survive.

That's the right way to go about these type of issues, and this girl (who is not yet 25) is absolutely inspirational, yet we don't shout about people like this anywhere near enough.

My point throughout this entire stream was that allowing more civilians to carry guns does not solve the problem. We need to be tackling the root cause of gun crime if we are to ever reduce gun crime.

The way forward cannot be to "give more people guns" The 2nd amendment was written in virtually lawless times. Surely we have made enough advancement to be able to stop the problem before it becomes a problem, and it just shoot it dead afterwards?

We need more people like Jess Foord and less that want to shoot problems away.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Spring Bridge Mews,London,United Kingdom

The man on my flight home- (or War, and our Atttudes)

Something a little more (ok a lot more) somber than my usual blog.
I will apologise in advance to anyone looking to read something lighthearted!!


On the flight home from London recently, there was a man on the flight, sat across from me on Upper Class.
He had lost both his legs- the right just below the knee, the left just above. He had minimal movement in his left hand- his thumb could grip against the side of his hand, but his fingers were immobile, and he couldn't rotate his wrist. A large scar was gouged out of his forearm.
The fingers and thumb on his right hand were all severed at the 2nd knuckle.
He was a large guy, and would have stood well over 6' in height, based on the length of his arms and the sheer size of his torso. His friend was in Premium Economy, also injured with a neck brace and arm in a sling.
It made me wonder if they were in the armed forces and got their injuries in the line of duty.

I don't actually know how these guys were injured, or what they did for a living, and I don't know their story, but it did get me thinking.

Whenever we think of Remembrance day (or Armistice day) we always focus on the dead. The heroes who fought primarily in the 1st and 2nd World Wars. The Wars that most of us have romanticised over time.

But what about the soldiers serving now? Or the forces who have fought wars over the last 60 or 70 years? With war becoming more and more political, the general public are less and less supportive- which for one reason breaks my heart.
The people who serve in our Forces do not have a choice in which war they go to fight in. It's not like project work in school, or in the office. Their commanding officer does not enter their barracks and say "right chaps, we need 4000 soldiers to fight in "x" country against the "y" people who have/are suspected to have committed "z" atrocities- hands up if you want a piece"
They don't get to fight the wars they want to based on their beliefs or opinions, they signed up to protect their country at every order, and don't have much say in the matter.

So when I read people's opinions of whether a particular war or another should have happened, or I hear people condemning actions, and slating the men and women who choose to join the armed forces, I don't just think about the servicemen and women who have died in combat, or the families who wait at home wondering whether their loved ones are coming back- I now think of these unsung heroes.
The gravely wounded. The ones whose injuries are so severe, they have to make radical lifestyle changes. The ones who literally have to learn how to live all over again. We hear so little about them. When the media tells us about the injured, it's about the innocents. The civilians caught in crossfire. No one really speaks of the people injured in the line of duty- after all, they signed up for it, right?

And then I got thinking some more.

If I was a serviceman or woman and I overheard someone talking about how my country had no right to be fighting in a war, or guessing what the true reason behind the war was, making uneducated assumptions, no matter how passionate the belief, or if I opened the paper to read a story about the few who tarnish the reputations of the many by dishonouring their service- clouding the public's judgement, it would probably leave me bitter and angry. It would hurt. In fact, that's an understatement. I would be raging at the hypocrisy- after all, if it was our country that had been threatened or invaded, these people would be the first to cry out for help.

I will never pretend to understand what it must be like to actually be called to serve our country, and I will never understand how governments come to decisions about whether to take action or not. It's way too complicated and beyond my comprehension while I sit in my nice house, with my safe, good life, and my friends and family around me. I can't make any judgements- I don't know the facts, I just read what the media choose to publish.

Irrespective of our views of any particular war, or war in general, so many people are injured horrifically, doing a job that takes more commitment than most of ours combined. They don't ask to be revered, or honoured in any way, they just want to do their job and come home.

Who are we to belittle that?
To me, these people will always be heroes.

L

Zanzibar days 8, 9 and 10- I'm gonna shoot a cockerel.

Days 8 and 9 were spent chilling and sunbathing, either by the pool in the gardens, or on the deck over the sea.
Really got me thinking of all the random things I learned, or that have happened over the last week or so!

Firstly, I have had the pleasure of company every morning at around 5:30am. My new friend is destined to wind up on my dinner plate by the end of the trip, I promise. The incessant "cockadoodle-dooing" from 5:30am til around 7:30am has made me realise that if push came to shove, I could kill my own food.... It just needs to annoy me every morning, and it's history. I hate that damned cockerel. It lives in the gardens outside my room and I swear it has a perch right next to my head. KFC anyone?




Food in Zanzibar is pretty awesome, although there are some weird combos. I had fruit salad last night for dessert, and it had pieces of cucumber in it.....should have been awful, but it actually worked. The cucumber cut through the sweetness of the rest of the fruit with a clean, crisp flavour. Who would have guessed?
I've discovered I love grilled octopus. They take the fat tentacles and slice them lengthways before grilling them. On the plate, they kind of look like halved bananas, but with the suckers on the outside instead of banana peel. If you've never tried octopus, and you like prawns, chicken or meat, you will love it. Not fishy at all, it has the texture of pork or chicken, but the taste of calamari or prawns. Yummy!!!
And Zanzibar spiced potatoes.... Wow!!! Boiled potatoes with coconut cream, chilli, onion and spices, like an exotic but warm potato salad.

Salum told me a lot about Kiswahili village life. About how as a boy he would make toys and games with his friends from things you could find lying around, or from the forests. How he loves Arsenal (after being a staunch Man U fan for the first 10 years or so) and how the regular power cuts means often his tv doesn't work.
One time, Zanzibar island had a power cut that lasted 3 months. Getting food was relatively easy (fresh fish is in abundance) but keeping food fresh was not easy with the 35 degree plus heat.




There are basically 2 straight ways to earn money in Zanzibar- you go into the Tourism industry, or you become a farmer/fisherman. Other than that, people will do whatever is necessary to earn money. The Beach Boys live off tips for taking tourists to book excursions, or just to walk with them to show them around. Women generally don't work, but if they do, they become teachers (where they are respected highly within their community), work in hotels as maids, masseuses etc, or the latest addition- the Police. Salum tells me that men fear police women, because they are "too strong and powerful" he would never marry a policewoman because he "cannot control them"
His views on marriage are archaic, but at the same time has an innocence you can't ignore. He wants his wife to be "soft, and gentle". He tells me that it is customary for the women in the family to prepare the "marital bed" with white linen.
If there is no blood on the sheets in the morning, or the following morning, then the bride's parents must pay a fine to the groom for not protecting their daughter. (eg letting her go out and run wild with boys) He is incredibly nervous that the woman he eventually decides to marry won't be "innocent".
In his culture, women are to be treated gently, and protected from the big bad world. They are cherished because they look after the home and look after the children (Salum is one of 9!!)

At one point, Salum asked me if he thought a European woman would marry him. I had to laugh- and explained that European women generally didn't want to be "controlled" by their husbands, and had a level of independence that Salum would struggle to accept. He then confessed that European women generally freaked him out as they are powerful to him- too strong to be controlled. Bless him, he would never survive!!! (not to mention the chance of finding any European woman over the age of 18 who would bleed on the marital bed is about as likely as him becoming the next US President, but hey ho.)

Back to village life- watching women come out on mornings where the tide was out to catch octopus was really cool. They brought out buckets and long sticks, and a sharp knife. They used the sticks to poke under rocks and coral to encourage the octopus to grab hold of it, before pulling it out like an Octopus lollipop, and killing it swiftly.


Sometimes the men would come out to check their wicker fish traps- I once saw a guy cycling down the road with a 4' reef shark strapped to his saddle bags.
Some of the fisherman sail right across the channel to mainland Tanzania to sell their catches in Dar e Salaam. A 3 hour sail.... Pretty incredible. On clear bright days you can see Dar e Salaam city rising from the horizon like Atlantis.

In the villages, the further out from the city you go, the more bicycles you see. The closer you get to the city, the more motorbikes. Oxen are used to pull carts, sometimes at quite high speeds with young guys standing on the carts like chariots!!



The roads were lined with cloves drying out... From green to yellow to brown and finally the almost black colour you see in the packets on the supermarket shelves. The smells on the roads are incredible. Warm, heady and spicy, smelling like Christmas in the roasting red heat.

Day 10 was spent with Safari Blue- a tour company specialising in snorkelling safaris and island hopping.
With the huge variation in low and high tides, areas we walked on in the morning were 6 feet underwater by the afternoon.







The islands were like something out of "Lost" with lush deserted forests and steep rock faces.
Snorkelling was amazing- every coral you can imagine and more with huge shoals of fish. The guide would point a fish out, then explain to us what it was (yellow fin barracuda for example)
What was sad was to see sections of completely destroyed coral where boat motors have chopped up the reef and killed it dead. These vast desolate sections serve as a reminder of how we act before we think of the consequences of those actions.

We also saw the mangrove forest from the ocean side, as opposed to the river side in Jozani forest. The water so thick with salt, nothing grows apart from the mangroves. No coral, no seaweed, nothing.



I could go on forever about all the sights, sounds and smells, but I think the best way to do it is for you to visit yourselves......

Zanzibar, thank you for an incredible 10 days, I only wish I'd stayed the full 2 weeks.

Lakota xx






- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Zanzibar, Tanzania

Zanzibar day 7 dolphins, monkeys, and crabs.

Thursday- the trip I'd been waiting for. Swimming with wild dolphins, and a tour through Jozani forest to see red colobus monkeys. On a scale of 1-10 I was about a 18 on the excitement scale, hence why I've given this day a whole blog entry to itself. I've always loved dolphins, super intelligent, full of life, they epitomise grace and beauty in the water,and can soften the hardest of hearts. I've swam with captive dolphins before in Cancun a few times, which was great because you get to interact with them close up, feel the cool rubbery texture of their skin, and feel the power in their tails as they propel you through the water. This was going to be different- wild dolphins, who know no "tricks" and can come and go as they please. I wasn't even sure that I would see any dolphins... But Salum assured me that the 3 schools that live in the area we were going to were almost guaranteed to be around. I was expecting to go with a group, in a catamaran or large speedboat, but surprisingly, Salum introduced me to our "guide" who was going to take us in a small, single motored boat, and I was the only passenger. I was starting to get used to this personalised trip malarkey!! The water was so shallow, the boat guy had to push the boat out for a good 15 minutes before being able to drop the motor and scoot off. Salum explained that we could have gone out on a traditional dhow (wooden boat with a sail) but this way was much quicker. Who was I to argue? The first thing I noticed was how crystal clear the water was. Even going out where the depths were up to 20 metres, you could still see the corals on the sea bed. All of a sudden, the guide shouted "There!!" just as a pod of around 15 dolphins breached the surface for air about 5 metres alongside our boat. Camera at the ready, I started snapping like a madwoman. (I'm always after that money shot!!) There were already 3 or 4 boats around, and people were jumping in the water with their snorkel gear on, desperate to experience this once in a lifetime opportunity. So it worked like this: you jumped in, snorkel in, and swam as close to the dolphins as they would allow. When they moved too far off (it's not like dolphins can sit and chill with you) the boat would swing by, pick you up and slowly catch up to the pod again, before dropping you back in the water. The boats kept a respectful distance, and always killed the motors when the dolphins were close. So I took my first jump in. Wow. Looking down, about 4 or 5 metres below me were about 30 bottlenose dolphins. Paddling above them, I watched as they swam in formation, the babies inside the group or under the adults. One calf started to do a roll, and stopped "upside down" swimming along casting his beady little eye on me as we went. After about 3 minutes, the pod was away, and I had a mouthful of seawater. The bloody snorkel had a leak, and I didn't have a spare. It was also at this point I discovered I had the upper body strength of a 5 year old. The boat guy slapped the tiniest bit of ladder (2 rungs) over the side of the boat for me to climb up. No frame to pull myself up with, just the side of the boat. 2 exhausting minutes later, I needed help getting up. Emotional was not the word. Anyway, I was too exhilarated to care at this point, I wanted another swim! This time, the guide took us in front of the pod so they would swim past me, and this time, they had come up for air. I literally swam alongside the dolphins for what felt like 5 minutes but could only have been 1 or 2 at the most. One dolphin swam with me side by side, while the rest slowly went past. So close I could almost touch him. I moved out my right hand slowly, and just when I thought he would let me, he rolled downwards, out of my reach. I think that was his way of saying "Hey, you can look but you can't touch, ok?" What a rush! Oh wait... I had to get in the bloody boat again. This time I was a little more tired, so getting in the boat required more of an effort. Skinned my knees, conked my shins. For those of you that know me, that won't be a surprise. On the 3rd drop, I gave up on the snorkel and decided that holding my breath would be easier than swallowing half the ocean whilst trying to breathe at the same time. Swimming behind the pod, I took in the differences between the individual dolphins. Some had notches in their tail fins, others scars. Some were darker in colour than others, and the calves had very white undersides. And then, they started "talking" to each other. Even with my head under the water, I could hear the clicks, cackles and whistles as they sent each other messages (probably "are you guys bored of these tourists yet?") Jokes aside, it's one thing to hear dolphins communicating at a captive dolphin show, and another to actually hear them out in the wild. Such an amazing experience. So this time, getting out of the water and into the damned boat was a mission. I was knackered from continually holding my breath, and swimming, and climbing into the boat, so ended up needing both Salum and the boat guy to haul my ass out like a dead fish. Ah well, it's not like anyone else actually saw me floundering....... A this point I realised that there were about 6 boats and maybe 30 people in the immediate area, and I started to feel a bit guilty about what we were doing. Was it right to be following these dolphins around trying to get close enough to touch them, or see them up close? If it had been a school of sharks, would anyone have been as keen? I decided I had seen as much as I needed to from the water, and wanted to spend the next 15-20 minutes taking pictures before heading back. I explained to the boat guy I had a decent zoom on my camera so didn't need to be too close. Watching up to 10 people jump in the water, and swim right in the middle of the pod made me feel incredibly guilty all of a sudden. What right did we have to intrude on these animals in such a way? The boat guy explained that the dolphins are friendly and if they are not in the mood to be with people, they disappear pretty quickly. I don't know if that eased my conscience or not. It was an exhilarating, magical experience that I will never, ever forget, but I would have to think very carefully before doing it again. So we headed back to shore, and back into the car before heading off to Jozani forest to find monkeys. The geek stuff: Jozani forest has 2 distinct Eco systems. A coral rock forest, where huge red mahogany trees and other plantlife grow. They can't grow deep roots due to the coral rock found very close to the surface of the ground, so instead have wide, far reaching shallow roots. The mangrove forest, on the other hand, has a sea water river running through it, so although plants and trees and grow deep roots, its only specialised plantlife like the mangrove trees that survive due to the saltwater. There is a clear line where one finishes and the other starts, visible by the clear, distinct change in trees and plants. My guide showed me at least 6 different palm trees in the coral rock forest, each of which has a different use for local villagers, down to what was made from the leaves. Some were used for fishing baskets, others were used for raffia mats, and others used for roofing. Almost every plant on Zanizibar has its own use- medicinal, functional or for cooking. All of a sudden, I heard strange, squeaky chattery noises. I looked up, and a small troop of about 6 or 7 red colobus monkeys were sat in the trees eating almond leaves (apparently their favourite). With their black leathery faces and big brown eyes, you could almost be forgiven for thinking they were primates. A couple of them had young who played and jumped around. One was clutching at its mother, too young to let go. Red colobus monkeys are only found on the island of Zanzibar, nowhere else naturally in the world. As a result, they are classified as endangered, with less than 2500 left in the wild. It was great to watch them in their rightful environment, free to do what they want. They do however, have their own "monkey crossings" - rope bridges strung between trees on opposite sides of the road that goes through the forest. This stops them from getting hit by cars or taxis. The monkeys learned to use their crossing very quickly!! In amongst the colobus monkeys, a couple of blue monkeys sat, watching us warily. The guide explained that they were a lot more fearful of people as they were not a protected species like the red colobus monkeys. The reds had no fear as they had no predators on the island. Zanzibar leopards had been made extinct decades ago, and its illegal to hunt or capture them, so in turn, they were curious, inquisitive and brave. Sure enough, I only managed to get a couple of photos of the blue monkeys before they shot off chattering in disapproval. Moving off to the Mangroves, it was like going from a scene from Lost, to a scene from Star Wars. I almost expected to see Luke hanging upside down with a little Yoda saying "try harder, you must!" on one of the banks. Instead, I saw crabs. Loads of them. No really..... Too many to count. In and out of the mangrove roots they scuttled, doing whatever crabs do in such a hurry. Green ones, red ones, large and small. Some with one huge claw, others with two tiny ones. I don't think I have ever seen such a huge variety of crabs in one place (enter your double entendre of choice here___________) One geeky fact I learned: no mosquitos in these mangrove swamps. Apparently they don't like saltwater much, and the river here was a very salty one. Hurrah! Must remember to live nearer to saltwater next time I move. I got back to my hotel a very happy bunny. Crossed a couple of things off my ever increasing bucket list, knowing that I'd taken at least one "once in a lifetime" opportunity. Now for 2 days of sunbathing and people watching...... L xxx