In which I travel the world in a weekend, go big egg-hunting and am guarded by the Masai.

This has been a pretty busy week- seven airports, tens of interviews and many sleepless hours but I’m finally back from my Africa trip. I’ve been off researching an article for The Guardian’s International Journalism competition and it’s been both brilliant and stressful. Things kicked off badly when three days before my departure date I got an email saying I’d no longer be going to Nigeria (having done a lot of research and interviews already) but instead was off to Kenya. After much swearing I got over the panic and started hard on Kenya research. Then the next called to check what we’d be seeing and found out now we were going to Tanzania. If I’ve learnt anything this week it is that I apparently am relatively adaptive, but I may well be developing a stress ulcer I don’t know about.

An ulcer that no doubt would have been fed by the stress of a delayed flight from Dallas which meant I missed my transfer in London. I never thought I’d be one of those pathetic, emotional idiots from Airline tearfully begging the check in desk to please let me in. Anyway begging didn’t work and I had to book another flight (argh!). Good news was I got to nip into central London and have lunch with Ciara, although after 24hours without sleep I was a gibbering wreck. Managed to buy a cheap guitar though so good news for my poor flatmates.

Finally flying into Dar Es Salaam I was all a blur of sleepiness but as we drove precariously close through the busy, dusty streets there was no question we were in Africa. We pulled up to our hotel only to find it was above an Irish pub (that served mash and Guinness!) and out the front a group of Masai kept guard (I never asked from what- perhaps better not to know.) We were right on the beach front so sunsets brought beautiful views of the dows and fisher boats coming in to shore.

I spent most days at a disability hospital in the city as well as some other interviews. I guess it should have been a pretty depressing place to be (especially as the airport arrival zone thrust shiny images of safari, Kilamangaro and the Serengethi in my face), but actually it was an incredibly positive place. The staff and women I met there were all thriving even in less than ideal circumstances and everyone was so welcoming and warm. Plus their hospital food was pretty good, including what I was assured was a traditional Swahili dish but was in fact a chip omelette.

Snapshots from Dar es Salaam:

We’d eat breakfast up on the roof of the hotel and without fail would end up surrounded by big, fearless crows (Dar is full of them), the cook would come out and chase them off with a coathanger. I was exactly like a scene from Birdemic (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy-9YLpC5uM).

While I didn’t see any elephants or giraffes I did see a guy on a bike with a stack of eggs in large cardboard cartons towering six feet above the back of his moving bike. You can keep your rhinos, that was pretty impressive.

There are no streetlights in Dar Es Salaam so whizzing around in a tuk-tuk at night is pretty exhilarating experience.

It was awesome to see loads of Masai walking around in their amazing tribal dress but with mobiles clipped to their daggers.

On my birthday we ventured out to this kind of beach side club restaurant. It was a Tuesday so very quiet but we had good food, cocktails and I got to paddle in the dark, Indian ocean.  Another day we went out on a dow for a sunset sail- sat their with a Serengheti beach, watching the gentle waves and glowing sunset I was filled with happiness and a distinct feeling of sea-sickness.

We got a professional photographer for two days which was great and he told me I had a good eye for photos! That pretty much made my week.

And so I return... 2am start an flights via Nairobi, Amsterdam, London, Miami and then finally San Jose.

Arriving in London I got pretty homesick, or more just overcome with love for the city (it may have been the sleep-hazed emotions, or maybe there was something in the hot chocolate I’d had in Amsterdam). This was all augmented by the fact a lady actually talked to me on the tube, this may be the first time this has ever happened and to be fair was prompted by the fact I was carrying half a Tanzanian orchestra back with me (note to self- ze-zes and djambes are good conversation starters). She’d just been to see the Pope and in my dopey sleep I almost said oh yes I just read he’d met with Archbishop Rowan Atkinson. Ciara and Chinese food sobered me up and got a few hours sleep before heading off to Miami and San Jose again.

it's been really lovely to get back to UPEACE and see everyone again. Very silly seeing as I've only known people a month but is such an intense little environment being away for a week seemed like a long time!

Lessons learnt:

I now have some basic Swahili (though turns out I knew most of it before from The Lion King. I actually heard someone say Hakuna Matata! And it was a warthog.)

I am now an expert in the study of airports andand being the culturally sensitive person I am I learnt o adjust my behaviour in them accordingly:

Dallas-  read classic American-lit and ate corn-on-the-cob and mashed potato

Nairobi- rushed right through the busy corridors because I was already late and had missed one plane already

London- got lost as it was toobig, is full of stuff but unforgiving on the unorgainised

Amsterdam- too cool for words, resisted the massage (actually who know how euphemistic that was?) drank hot chocolate, relaxed

Miami- ate dunkin donuts and pizza, drank lots of coffee and watched American football on all the tvs

(In my Rough Guide to airports of the world Amsterdam comes out on top no question.)

In which I go once more unto the beach, perv on some sloths and forget to fast

I've been meaning to write something about day-to-day life in Ciudad Colon/ UPEACE but the weekends just keep rolling round and bring with them more crazy travels.

Last Friday we finished our classes at 12.30 and Marion (a French version of Katharina F.) and I jumped on the bus and headed to San Jose aiming to head on for more adventures beyond. We caught a 4 hour bus to a town called Quepos which is South-West of San Jose, on the Pacific coast. We stopped there that night and escaped the torrential rain in a Caribbean/Mexican restaurant where I had enchiladas and we drank delicious cocktails (my first Costa Rican White Russian- I raised it in Shona's honour).

Early next morning we took another bus for 30 mins to Manuel Antonio which is a little village on the coast and on the edge of a beautiful national park. We got off the bus too soon but the corrective taxi-ride was broken by an impromptu stop at the side of the road because there above us were a group of red-howler monkeys. I had a staring contest with one who had her tiny baby wrapped underneath her, she was about 2m away and bold as anything. I blinked first.

Once we'd dumped our bags we found a great guide and headed into the park. Gustavo our guide had a telescope thing so we got to see loads of tiny bugs, frogs and lizards really close up, including a lizard which he didn't have an English name for, but in Spanish it was Dinosaurio! I managed to take lots of photos using the telescope and my SLR, you can see my budding wildlife photography attempts here: http://www.facebook.com/#!/album.php?aid=2491814&id=199709787&ref=mf

Suddenly we spotted a group in front of us who had stopped in their tracks and were pointing into the canopy- there in the trees were about 5 white-faced monkeys swinging and running in the trees. It was amazing to see them so close... little did I know we'd soon get a lot closer.

The thing that made me happiest though was that we saw four sloths (two of which were 'reproduciendo' as Gustavo delicately put it- everything you'd imagine about sloth-sex seemed to be about right!) Our attention was diverted from the lethargic lotharios by a group of white-faced monkey that were suddenly walking down a wire, down to the beach right next to everyone. We followed them down to the most beautiful beach in this little cove. There the monkeys tried their best to steal everyone's food and generally made mischief. I'm no good at judging the size of crowds,but I'd say there were around seventeen million of them. They were soon joined by some fearless raccoons who wouldn't leave people's bags even when they were being whipped with towels.

It was a strange experience sunbathing with one eye open looking out for animal thieves. Swimming in the sea was even worse, it was gloriously warm and calm but we kept having to run out to chase off the monkeys with sticks. Brilliant.

That evening we climbed a hill and found what has to be one of my favourite bars in the world. There on the top of the hill was this 1954 Fairchild C-123 (a massive fighter plane to the lay-person). It had been sold by the US to the Nicaraguan Contras in the 80s but had some how ended up in San Jose airport where it was bought for $3000 shipped piece by piece to Manuel Antonio and then made into a bar! So there we sat: on the top of a huge hill, amazing views out over the bay, next to an abandoned fighter-jet/bar, eating nachos, sipping yet more cocktails and watching the sunset. It was all we could do to not just keep saying 'How AMAZING is this!?' over and over again.

Sunday involved a bus journey back, an attempt to write some essays (researching the English Defence League is one way to bring your mood down). Then in the evening our Vice Rector Amr (from Eygpt. He is a total legend- soooo many brilliant stories) had invited us all to come and break fast with him as it is Ramadan. About 80 people turned up with pots of food and treats and we met at Amr's friend's house. Luckily Amr's friend happens to be a millionaire with a huge ranch and lovely pool-house/bar which is perfect for housing a load of greedy students. I obviously faux-pas'd by sitting down and immediately scoffing the bread on the table right before Amr announced we'd all now symbolically break the fast by eating dates.Anyway soon we were all tucking in and chatting. In my Mrs Doyle way I spent most of the night forcing cake on the poor guys who'd just arrived from Africa and really didn't want any cake, but got to hear some interesting debate on the idea of an Africa Union along the way.

So another action-packed, wildlife-club-pioneering weekend. Hopefully next weekend I'll be in Nigeria (either that or crying at the Nigerian embassy). Pura Vida!

Lessons learnt:

Have had some great lunchtime chats- everyone here has soooo many interesting stories. One lunchtime involved hearing about the South Korean and Bolivian military services (neither sounds that fun) another went from one girl explaining Solomn's Ring, a physics phenomenon, to discussing the welcoming traditions of Inuits.

If you put food in front of me, even if part of me knows I'm meant to be respecting religious practices, I will still eat it. This is probably why I was never an altar girl.

Sloths are the weirdest looking things in the world, but they still get lucky now and then.