we made it....finally

first of all...we feel as though you should be warned. This entry is going to be extremely wordy and devoid of pictures. Sorry sorry.

where to begin??

After gorilla tracking we headed to Kampala to try and figure out our next plans. In true Emily and Bryony fashion our plans consisted of, 'going to Angola'. How?? who knows. When?? wouldn't our parents like to know. But instead of making travel arrangements, we instead joined the boys and headed to Bussi 'island' ie. peninsula. Good times.

Back to reality. We spent several hours at numerous travel agents and airline offices. We found out that getting to Angola was going to be a) difficult and b) expensive. No matter.

6 days later we were on a Kenya Airways plane headed to Joburg, South Africa. Sweet. The plane departed from Entebbe at 5am, making a 3am check in time. How convenient. So, we spend our last night in Kampala with Tanessa and her housemate Lindsay and then took a cab to the airport. Needless to say, when we finally arrived in Joburg - it was a bit of a gongshow. We stumbled around the airport, changing money and trying to find a place to stay before we headed on a 24 hour bus ride to Namibia the following morning.

Diamond Smugglers hostel provided free transport from the airport - sold!! Nice place. Napped. Ate delicious BBQ for dinner. Slept. and were dropped off early the next morning to catch our bus.

Compared to any other bus we'd been on in Africa, Intercape was luxurious. But, 24 hours on a bus is trying at the best of times. Needless to say...when we finally arrived in Windhoek, Namibia at 6:30am the next morning, we were toasted.

But, we managed to read a map and find a hostel in walking distance from where the bus dropped us. Later we found out that walking around Windhoek with your luggage and guidebook open was a bad idea. Apparently muggings are quite common. No matter. We arrived safely at Chameleon City Backpackers.

The dorms were full, so we got a double room. Fancy hostel. Nice. Once we settled in, we headed in the direction of the Angolan Embassy to apply for visas. Unfortunately Angola recognizes Easter Monday and was closed. Hmm. Okay. I guess we'd return the next day.

Little did we know...we'd be in Windhoek for a week...with the privilege of visiting the Angolan Embassy daily.

Day 2 at the Angolan Embassy we were told that it wasn't even possible to apply for the visas - we had to apply from our country of residence. No problem, we'll just fly to Canada, get our visas and come back. Or not. We were so stunned that we couldn't think of what to say. Regroup.

To keep a long story short, after many visits to the embassy, a few visits with important people in the 'back room'´- furnished with pink pleather couches, paying three times the price of a visa and walking in with our letters of invitation by hand - since the fax never came through to the embassy....we FINALLY got our passports...and yes, they contained Angolan visas.

The week in Windhoek was unexciting. Namibia is very developed, so we were quite stunned by many things...especially our trip to the mall to watch a movie. Wow.

The same afternoon that we received our visas, we headed to Tsumeb on a bus. 5.5 hours later (we just love taking buses now...) we were dropped in a deserted residential neighbourhood, with no idea where the hostel, who wasn't answering their phone, was. No problem, we'll just follow the two random local guys who say they know where it is down the unlit streets....oh my.

Luckily for us we soon found ourselves at Mousebird Backpackers and they had an available room. Sweet. The next morning we went on a hunt for food...having missed dinner the night before. We ate a delicious breakfast at a hotel nearby since the hostel wasn't serving breakfast yet. we couldn't wait.

After breakfast we organized our own safari to nearbz Etosha Park. We headed off in our rented white VW Polo and promptly got lost. Darn, we're paying by the kilometre!! After being set straight by some locals we eventually found our way.

We spend a wonderful afternoon driving around the park. The scenery is stunning and the wildlife is abundant. We saw zebra, giraffe, kudu, elephant, springbok, wildebeeste, hyena, guinea fowl, gemsbok, jackals, antelope....amazing. We were especially happy to see a giraffe running and also to watch many giraffe drink awkwardly at various waterholes. Just before sunset we were lucky to come across three bull elephants right by the road. Incredible.

We camped the night and visited some waterholes the next morning before driving back to Tsumeb. We returned our car and arranged a taxi...of sorts to the Angolan border.

The taxi was a truck with a trailer, called by a random guy with a cell phone at the gas station. It picked up and dropped people off all the way to the border. Quite an efficient system. No trouble at the border. Thankful for a little Portuguese.

Once in Angola we caught another random taxi to take us to Ondjiva, about 40 minutes away - where we would fly the next morning. The taxi dropped us off at the 'SOS Tropical Motel'. Sweet. Actually, we were suitably impressed by the air conditioning, mini fridge and satellite TV that came in our room.

The following morning we found a taxi to the airport...in the rain. We booked our flights to Lubango, checked our baggage and sat waiting in the lounge for our plane. Which was late, of course. It finally arrived, but as we tried to board we were told we had to go through customs. For a domestic flight?!?!?! What?!?!? So we ran back to the customs booth, where the official proceeded to copy all the information from our passports by hand. Meanwhile, everybody else had boarded the plane and had shut the doors. Classic. But, all ended well and we made it on the flight. Sketchy plane. The take off felt like it was at about a 60 degree angle and the engines were SO loud and pulsating. Oh dear. We weren’t sure they’d be able to keep the airplane in the sky. Landing was also a little rough…and they seemed to have difficulty slowing down the plane. We were glad to get off.

Peggy Foster was there to meet us – we were thankful to have finally reached our destination…after many hours on a bus, many hours waiting for visas and several flights. So, we’re in Angola now.

After lunch the day we arrived we headed up to the hospital with Steve. Steve Foster is a general surgeon, who has lived and worked in Angola for the past 30 years; he has recently opened a hospital, which is where we will be spending most of our time shadowing him and two other doctors.

Mondays and Thursdays are consultation days, and Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are operating days. It keeps us busy! We’ve seen some interesting cases and have been learning a lot already from this experience.

An interesting case that we saw in these last couple days was a young boy, aged 6 who aspirated a 5 cm nail. That X-ray was a shock! It had been a few days before the boy came to the hospital, so by the time Steve was able to go looking for the nail, he ended up having to take out the lower left lobe of the boy’s lung. The boy’s family was happy to see the nail retrieved.

This past weekend we had the opportunity to travel to the coast with friends of the Fosters. We stayed in a beautiful old Portuguese house in Namibe and spent our days visiting a rural clinic, searching for the Welwitcha, a prehistoric plant in the desert, eating delicious fresh fish, relaxing on the beach and swimming in the ocean. Sweet.

This coming weekend we are headed to a small rural village called Kavango for the inauguration of a new clinic. There had been a bush hospital in Kavango which had been destroyed during the civil war. Most of the social and health infrastructure had been destroyed during the war which ended in February 2002, and is only now gradually being restored. It will take us about 12 hours to reach Kavango due to the terrible conditions of the roads. We are leaving at 4am Saturday morning so that we still have light to set up camp when we arrive. We will be there nearly a week, then back to Lubango for another week at the hospital.

The country’s internet provider is down, so we are not able to access internet often, except through a satellite connection. So, we probably won’t update again or writing any emails until we’re back in Uganda on May 15th.