I am very lucky to have great friends like Joaquin, who just invited me on a one-week all-inclusive safari trip basically for free. I just had to buy the plane ticket, and boom free safari! How can you possibly refuse that? So, because South Africa is so far from everything I can’t just go there and then go home right after the safari. It took basically two days of flying just to get here. So, I will be spending the next month in South Africa.
The journey to get here was crazy in of itself, as I flew Ethiopian Airlines to get here. I had to go to Newark, then to Lome in Togo, stay on the same plane and go to Ethiopia where I was given a free hotel room for a night, all while enjoying pretty delicious Ethiopian food overall. I will be honest: I am not the biggest fan of injeera, but some of the stews are definitely quite tasty.
So, how was the layover in Addis Ababa? Truly epic. Everyone is so nice, and everything is so cheap. It was Friday night, so I went to basically 5 clubs in one night which were on my hotel street. All had free entrance, but a beer was 200 Ethiopian Birr (which is a bit under $1.50 USD). So, in other words, everything was dirt cheap. My biggest issue overall was that very few people could speak English– overall that’s fine but still, I did have trouble communicating ad meeting locals.
I think the best part of Ethiopia was simply how modern the city felt. The language is crazy, with those strange letters in Amharic. It sounds kind of like Hindi with a hint of arabic and hebrew. The clubs with live music were really fun, but most people mainly just stand around looking at each other. There were not that many people dancing or enjoying truly. That being said, I danced a lot, got to get some fire Ethiopian tunes, and discovered that I truly know nothing about Ethiopia. Overall, it seems like an incredible place with deep history, a place that I need to discover more at some point
Now, we start the South Africa trip. Overall, I heard that this place was dangerous. It is currently winter here right now, and I didn’t bring a sweater. Definitely didn’t plan the best, but to be fair I bought extremely limited luggage to South Africa for a month: one backpack, one small string bag, and my skateboard. Mainly because I wanted to avoid paying a bag fee, I decided to travel extremely light.
My first impressions are that you can sort of feel the apartheid thing that plagued the country for a bit. Maybe it’s just because of the stories I heard about this place, because indeed so far nothing has been out of the ordinary. I am staying at a hotel next to the airport and didn’t really get to explore anything. One good night’s rest before the real adventure of the safari starts
I am going into this safari with absolutely 0 expectations. I just want to see some cool animals and relax. That will be a great trip for me. I can finally not worry about when the next client is coming, or what I will do next. I can just focus on enjoying a supposedly insanely cool country. So, my plan is t eat like a champ, be sure to work out often and stay healthy, and finally try to make some friends and maybe even get involved in the Jewish community for a bit while I’m here.
Sometimes, th timing is not the best, but you must take that leap forward. I am leaving a few things behind in NY by taking this trip, most notably missing a few games in the FIFA world cup, so I truly must make the most of this trip. I will not succumb to stress about money, or get worried about small things. I will just be the best person I can, surf a lot in Capetown, and hopefully get one of my automated youtube channels started. I actually found quite a good resource that I want to try out, so let’s see how it performs in the wild.
This could be the last crazy long adventure for a while, as I will be starting a job once this trip is over. So, I have every intention to make the absolute most of this trip, and discover everything that South Africa has to offer. Maybe even rent a car for a bit, let’s see