Wise lessons from a land far away
- I want a pet cheetah. No, I want two pet cheetahs... and a baby elephant... and a zebra foal
- Popping your head up through the roof of a jeep with the cold morning wind smashing flush against your numb face whilst the driver fangs it at about 100km/hr down a lonely Serengeti trail could possibly be the best thing ever
- Don't buy drinks when baboons are around
- Lions spend about 90% of their day sleeping or lying around. They are my true idols
- I don't think I could ever enjoy a zoo anymore
- Passionfruit Fanta. It needs to come to Australia, now!
- Don't be a female in the Maasai clan, unless you like having to do everything (including build the house) whilst the man sleeps around and does basically nothing
- Be a man in the Maasai clan if you like sleeping around with several wives and doing basically nothing
- Hotel safe lockers aren't always safe
- End-of-med-school trip (med schoolies?): Thailand? Bali? Fiji? Vietnam? Hell no. ZANZIBAR!
- The dish that Jack Black was referring to is clearly a Zanzibar seafood pizza from the night market
- I like camping in tents, but clearly not for 20 days
- My name is "China" according to every tout in Tanzania. If not, then apparently my name is "Japan"
- This tends to happen a lot:
"Raffiki (my friend), where are you from?"
"I'm from Australia."
"Really? You don't look like it."
(In my head): No shit, genius - Diamox is the greatest drug ever. Pity that it forces you to take a piss on the side of a mountain about 17 times a day
- Life's biggest dilemma: Stay in your warm sleeping bag for the next four hours holding off the biggest urge to go pee, or cut your losses and go outside your tent and into the subzero temperatures to answer the call
- My knees clearly don't like racing downhill for three straight hours
- In order to distance myself from them, my Australian accent turns extra bogan whenever a large group of loud, obnoxious Chinese mainlanders annoy all the Africans at the airport (and yes, it's ok for me to say this!)
- I will probably come down with malaria at some point within the next six weeks
- Larium anti-malarials give you crazy dreams, such as the one where you wake up in the middle of the night panicking and trying to find your way out of your dark tent, because you think you are trapped in a hot air balloon and the pilot is lighting the fire under you....
- Irishmen don't tan well. Actually, they just don't tan at all
- Carabiners and bandanas - the greatest travel accessories ever
- When I don't shave for five weeks, my face looks like it just came off the set of a really bad 1970s D-grade porn movie
- Never be away from the internet again when uni results are released
- Tanzania could be the greatest all-rounder of a destination: world-class beaches, unrivaled wildlife, unique people, crazy adventure, and most importantly, excellent beer!
- Not getting phone reception for five weeks is actually pretty awesome
- The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is the best novel I've read in ages. Admittedly, yes, I don't read much anymore except for medical journals (abstracts only!), newspaper sports sections and whatever words pop up on the screen of the playstation game that's on
- Five hours of flying is made all the better when you're served by an oh-my-god-you're-the-most-beautiful-thing-on-this-planet stewardess. It is made even better when the next, torturous 15 hour flight sees you being looked after by a you're-so-hot-I-love-you-even-though-we've-just-known-each-other-for-3.6-seconds stewardess
- People need to stop listening to the negative media and go to Africa more. Just avoid those ones with the civil wars and genocide...
- They really do say Hakuna Matata a lot!
- If you have a roof over your head, food on the table, and a job, then you have nothing to complain about. If you wish to complain, then I dare you to do it in front of these African children....
- Africans (well, Kenyans and Tanzanians at least) are the friendliest people I've come across
