Lesbos

pics: lesvos harbor,
Elle on our street
don't know what they sell but probably good stuff
delicious snacks prepared by the chef on our cruise








A couple of days after Joey left Athens we decided we should start making our way towards Turkey where we planned to meet up with our friends Dawson, Genevieve and Senor a.k.a .Paxson Revel. There were three choices train, bus or ferry. The train was supposed to be slow and when we went to check on tickets they said the tracks had been wiped out due to rain. The time when they would be fixed seemed to be unknown. The bus sounded nice but long and boring compared to the third option which was a ferry to the island of Lesvos and then a short ferry to Turkey from there. I'm sure there's a good joke involving ferries and Lesvos but I don't know it. Anyway Elle and I have never been on a cruise together so we dubbed the ferry a cruise and booked the sleeper cabin for the 12 hour trip. It was mostly overnight so we didn't see too much but it was a nice trip nonetheless. Elle made us gourmet Greek snacks for dinner which we enjoyed with ouzo purchased from the cruise ship gift shop.


We didn't know too much about Lesvos island when we arrived so we just searched around for a place to stay that morning. It turns out that unlike most Greek islands which are very seasonal Lesvos has year round residents and a vibrant cafe and bar scene.
The island is also famous for it's olive oil production and is reported to be some of the best in
Greece. The food was amazing and the people were really friendly. There are also some famous spas and historic ruins on the island. Unfortunately we did not get to explore as much as we would have liked. Due to the low demand for travel between Turkey and Greece in the winter time the ferry we planned to take was cancelled. Luckily for us a group of Turks visiting for the weekend had a ferry booked for the next day which we were able to hop on.

Greece: Athens

Acropolis Joey Elle and I

Acropolis view from apartment at night.

From Tanzania we flew to Greece via Dubai. We didn't have enough time to do anything during

our layover in Dubai because it was during the middle of the night but it was pretty cool to see the craziness of that airport. We were there all night and there must have been about 50,000 other people there all night also. It kind of looks and feels like a Vegas casino without the gambling.

Anyway from there we flew to Athens where we met up with Joey a friend of ours who studies the classics at the cleverly named American School of the Classics. We arrived on Thanksgiving day and Joey somehow arranged for us to have Thanksgiving with his school. Thanks Joey! The chef is Greek and I'm not sure if he has made thanksgiving dinner before but he nailed it dead on. Amazing food. Then Joey showed us around some of the major sites in Athens it's pretty fun to go with an expert you get some more insight than you probable would just reading the plaques. Joey had to go to Crete to do some learning and one of his friends offered us her apartment while he was away(Thanks Cher and Anne). The place had an awesome view of the acropolis and was in a cool part of town so we stayed on for a few more days exploring Athens and some areas nearby. Elle was offered a job cooking at a little cafe where we had some drinks with some of the classical students. She probably would have taken it if we weren't so broke by this point in our trip.

Zanzibar

Sooooo ,

After four long hard days of safari action we all felt that we needed a vacation. Zanzibar seemed the ideal place for us to kick back during the remainder of our time in Africa. Zanzibar is a group of islands off the coast of Tanzania. Zanzibar has seen it's share of foreigners over the years and many of the locals now make there living in some way or another off of tourism. The main island has beautiful beaches, coral reefs and Arabic architecture in the plus column. In the negative column it also has very persistent touts know as "papasi" or ticks in Swahili. Elle and Jamie had fun shopping the markets for souvenirs but I couldn't handle the aggressive sales people. Sometimes you can sometimes you can't. I didn't. I had a small meltdown. It's amazing what 90 degree heat and humidity do to your patience level. But since this is retro-active blogging I can say everything was perfect. We stayed for a couple of days in Stone town home of the world's record number of self proclaimed tour guides and then went to the north for some beach lounging.

In the pictures is the white washed buildings and narrow streets of Stone town.

And rancho relaxo in our Italian owned beach villa northern beaches.

Not pictured is the Italian George Clooney who was spotted by Elle and Jamie in the villa lounge. He wasn't that good looking.

We are back!

I received a few emails asking if we were still in Africa so we decided we had better finish the blog. Sorry to all of our loyal reader(s) we just kind of ran out of internet options (within our budget that is) near the end. Since arriving home I am happy to say that after looking for a month we have found the perfect home and are mostly moved in. We could not have done it without Mike and Jayne who let us surf there couches for the entire month of Jan. We love you guys!!! Also thanks to everyone who let us keep our various items at there houses. We will now attempt to recap the final days of our trip through the rosy glasses of retrospection.

Serengeti Pictures

The Serengeti does not disappoint.

More Hot Safari Action

These ones are pretty self explanatory.


Very large chicken.



















The road to the Serengeti.

Elephant

Female lion early morning mist.

Safari Pictures

We took a bus from Dar es Salaam north towards Kenya to a town called Arusha to start our safari. On the way we passed Mt. Kilimanjaro which you could barely see the top of with just a little patch of the glacier peaking through the clouds. It was pretty cool though. Our book said the glacier is predicted to disappear by 2020. So hurry.





Our safari was divided up into to parts over four days. First we would camp on the rim of the Ngorogoro crater and drive down in to see the wildlife.


Then we would travel to the famous Serengeti park where we would camp for the next two nights.


As you can probably see National Geographic isn't going to be calling to borrow my 3X zoom digital camera for any upcoming wildlife shoots. Luckily we got pretty close to the animals.



Photos: our camp on the crater rim
peak of the snow Kilimanjaro
wildebeest crater floor
zebra and wildebeest derriere