A belated win & a new adventure

with the

sky above me
the earth beneath me
and the fire within me

I want to say a big THANK YOU to all my friends, family members and strangers who supported me through the Big Blog Exchange competition... Your efforts were truly remarkable, and landed me a spot as one of the 16 winners.

I am off to Iceland, where I shall be writing as a guest blogger under my fellow winner 

Auður Ösp's blog I heart Reykjavík - a one person guide to Reykjavík, ICELAND.

As a part of my prize, I am graced with a flight to Iceland (from Cape Town via Heathrow), free accommodation with Hostelling International (HI) Iceland, as well as £500 (£50 p/day) as spending money on food, drink and small travel expenses.

HI Iceland has also been  kind enough to provide me with a few free day tours, as well as cover the costs of a rented car for part of my adventure. 

I have been liaising with a wonderful woman by the name of Birna at HI Iceland, who has been taking really good care of me by helping to construct an itinerary for this upcoming trip. 

This is not the first time I have visited the areas so high up in the Northern hemisphere. In 2006 at the tender age of 15, I embarked on an excursion to visit my best friend Marie in Norway. Together we travelled parts of Norway, Sweden and Denmark - my first time travelling on my own between airports! 

I had spent my entire summer selling chocolate brownies during my school lunch breaks to save up for my air ticket. 

So on the 7th of June I return to the Northern hemisphere on a 10 day journey to a country which is home to the Northern Lights, a series of volcanoes, some of the cleanest and clearest waters to snorkel and dive in... where the air is crisp and the land maintains an average of 10' C in its summer month of June.

However, this time I return on a budget.

After much contemplation and brows of confusion, I have decided that I want to try and cut the budget that I travel on from £50 p/day to £25.

After chatting to Auður yesterday evening with regards to tips on exploring Iceland, she told me how she had just sat down in a restaurant for a bite to eat. £12 later, she had settled for a beer and a burger.

Obviously I have to bear in mind that many of my travel expenses are already covered by HI, but I welcome the challenge. I do not know what this means for me - whether I return super-skinny from not being able to gather my food - or whether I (wo)man-up and make things happen for myself, Bear Grylls style!

In the meanwhile, I sit in Cape Town trying to tie up the last of the loose ends before my trip:

* travel insurance

* international drivers licence

* international bank accounts

* buying some warm clothes!!! (I will definitely be bringing a hairdryer on this trip)

* and working on my fitness levels. Iceland is a breathtaking country with surreal landscapes which I want to try to explore to the fullest, and if I am on a budget - I am going to be relying heavily on my own 2 legs to go adventuring.

So with an open mind and an open heart, I welcome Iceland from a distance.

With deep gratitude to you, dear reader,

Ali.

Better things ahead than we leave behind

Thursday, 28 February 2013

(Recommended song choice for this entry: 'Hold My Hand' - Sean Paul (Feat. Keri Hilson) 


Well hello there Johannesburg. It has been quite the journey - you seem to be in quite the jam, and I seem to just be playing in traffic, hah!

After a mostly peaceful stay at Sani Lodge, besides being bitten behind the ear by some form of mutant spider, I left early this morning with a swollen right gland to Soweto, where I will be staying at Lebo's Backpackers spending my 22nd birthday on the 1st of March (forever alone). Priceless.

I had spent most of the day in the Baz Bus counting the numerous gas stations which passed us, until hitting the immense traffic which characterises Johannesburg. But it wasn't just the traffic that took me by surprise, but rather the shear size of this city! I later found out, that Jozi (one of the city's many nicknames) is also the world's largest city not resting on a river, lake or coastline. 

People of all shapes, sizes, colours and strides walked with conviction up and down the side walks of this metropolitan beast. I kept having to remember to close my mouth as I gaped around. I was definitely in shock by the loud hum in the air, which I had lacked over the past few weeks - being on the Wild Coast and in the crevices of the Southern Drakensberg. 

I have travelled in and out of Johannesburg before, but only when I have had a connection flight to catch out of the country. Cape Tonians do not leave much to be desired from their comments of Jozi. I think it was time to check it out for myself. 

The Baz Bus dropped me off at Brown Sugar Backpackers, where I was to wait for another taxi driver to come and deliver me to Lebo's Backpackers in Soweto.

When he fetched me, this friendly black man with one grey eye gave me a driving tour of this city by night. He dropped me off at Lebo's and I was ushered into a private room with a comfy double bed. 

After dumping what little luggage I had in the corner, I joined a few guests to a hearty help-yourself dinner, where I met a man whose field of expertise is ants.

We hit the sack quite early after sitting around the bonfire in the outside courtyard chatting for an hour, but after returning to my room I was restless. 

I eventually gave up trying to count sheep after a couple of hours, and made my way back outside to the courtyard, settling for a hammock. It was overcast above, and the weather was muggy - almost electrical. Reggae was still coming out of the speakers in the bar, but between that and the hum from the life in the township outside, all around me was still, quiet. 

My mind is not racing as it usually is, but it is rather drifting in and around my thoughts.

I found myself thinking about what this trip has meant to me - what have I realised about myself?

Nothing really ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. 

And here I am, recognising all this momentum which I had been given to ride the high crests of this beautiful wave... of this beautiful journey.... 

 and then my mobile started vibrating, as an automatic social-networking alarm reminded me loudly -

Ali Karp's 22nd birthday. 

It was 12am, and I had just kissed 21 of my precious years away. 

It is weird how dramatic we get over these things, but believe it or not, it started drizzling within a few seconds of the surprise alarm interruption. I remember my heart pounding softly, and I shed a few happy tears on my own, curled up in that hammock. This was weirdly the second year in a row where I spent my birthday on my own, away from family or friends.

It is a lot easier to come about something that you are searching for as opposed to letting it go. We are all hoarders in nature, maybe some are more than others. But in this moment I felt full, and not empty. I felt surrounded by life, and not alone. 

A couple of minutes later, the ant expert who had been camping in his tent around the corner popped up, and with a few sighs and grunts switched off the softly thumping reggae. 

I staggered out of the hammock on queue, and tiptoed back into my room crawling under the warm covers.

There are better things ahead, than we leave behind.

- C.S. Lewis

Happy birthday me, I am proud of you.

Pain in the neck

Thursday, 28 February 2013

(Recommended song choice for this blog entry: "Love Love Love" - Of Monsters And Men)

I woke up today cringing.
What am I saying... I hardly slept.
I sat on my allocated bunk bed with my right cheek pressed against my right shoulder.
I was sore, and not even the house cat could console me.

I had finished the last of my painkillers on a silly (but deep) cut on my foot. I had acquired it two weeks earlier by stubbing the ball of my left foot on a rusted nail (I had not mentioned this as it boiled down to my own stupidity).

I realise (now that my right gland is sticking out like like a small pregnant belly and I have to keep my neck tilted at an odd angle to minimise the throbbing) that I must have been bitten by a spider while walking down the mountain from the Bushman paintings two days ago. I vaguely remember itching behind my ear furiously as we crossed the golf course back towards Sani Lodge.

I managed to get my driver to stop off at the local pharmacy for anti-biotics as we left Sani and made our way to Howick, where I would once again hop on the Baz Bus all the way to Soweto, Johannesburg. Luckily I had made sure my GP had given me an emergency anti-biotic prescription before embarking on this journey.

It was still a long way to Howick. I lay in the back seat of the taxi stretched out as comfortably as possible, clutching my travel pillow to my neck, trying to catch up on the rest which I had managed to evade the previous night.

I thought back to the Basotho people - a proud people, and simple. 
I say this not in a degrading way, but more in an envious way. They were so proud - proud to be the new owners of those grey and white striped blankets with the Sani Lodge logo sewn on to the side - flashes of white smiles as their brothers jeered at them on collection.

A different culture. When was the last time I was this proud of something, let alone a blanket?
Out the corner of my eye I remember seeing one shepherd take out his mobile phone and snap a picture of me while I was busy photographing some of his friends.
I suppose we were both tourists in that moment.
I must admit that it took me by surprise that he had a mobile phone to start off with. But then again, why wouldn't he? How ignorant or naive am I to have thought that technology had not made its presence known in this corner of the world.

I don't know what is worse: me thinking it hadn't, or me wishing it hadn't.
And to whose benefit?

Ali.