Cape Town, South Africa

Okay so this is way overdue and I apologize. This week was midterm week and I just never found time to post anything. South Africa is interesting. I didn’t spend my time there very wisely. There were all sorts of trips and interesting things to do but I spent my time being a tourist instead of doing the adventurous stuff. Most people went skydiving and parasailing and things of that nature. I had fun but I just wish I did more exciting things. Cape Town is super touristy. There is so much to do and so much to see. Most of the time I forgot I was in Africa because it was such a big city. Right next to the ship there was a huge mall and a quick taxi ride away there was “Long Street” which is basically a street full of clubs, bars, restaurants, shops, and all other kinds of places to spend money. Another little situation down the street from the ship was an fascinating craft market. I went back to it almost every day in South Africa just in case anything new might catch my eye. All along the port there are dozens of restaurants and bars with such good food. If you ever go to South Africa try to be a little daring and get some ostrich, game, or crocodile when you go out to eat. I also had sushi almost every day. I can’t wait until we get to Japan because I am going to feast on sushi as often as possible.
The first trip I attempted to go on was a trip to Robben Island which is just off the coast of Cape Town. It’s an island with a prison on it, sort of like Alcatraz. It’s where Nelson Mendela was imprisoned for most of his time in penitentiary. Unfortunately the winds kept the ferry from going and my trip was cancelled. The first trip I actually got to go on was a trip to the tip of the Africa. I went with my roommate, Kurt. There weren’t many people signed up and I was the last person on the bus. I actually had to run to catch the bus because I was originally in line for the wrong daytrip. First we went to see the Twelve Apostles; a group of mountains that actually count up to something like eighteen. Then we stopped at an ostrich farm. After that we went to the Cape of Good Hope. The picture got whitewashed but that is Kurt and I. The Cape of Good Hope isn’t the farthest south part of Africa but it’s a few miles away and it’s way more “dramatic” as our tour guide put it. It’s the most south-western part of the continent. Then we went to Cape Point which is where the Indian Ocean meets the Atlantic Ocean. There’s a lighthouse way up on the mountain that has some great views. After that we went to see penguins and then to an enjoyable local restaurant.
The next day my roommate went to go pet cheetahs and I sort of bailed out to hang out with a girl that lives next door to us. Cheetahs were one of my two favorite animals growing up so I’m still shocked that I did that but I ended up having an entertaining day. We attempted to go skydiving but they were all booked so we spent the day around Cape Town doing tourist things and eventually went on two mini-cruises around the harbor. The rest of the week I spent mostly enjoying the nightlife but one day I went with my roommate and a few other people to hike Table Mountain. When you go to Cape Town the first thing you see is Table Mountain. It’s huge. It ended up being one of the scariest things I’ve ever done but I’m still alive so I feel good about it for the most part. The entire hike offered amazing views but I only have one or two pictures to show off. A couple we met on our way up directed us to a path that wasn’t exactly an “official” path but we decided to try it out and as a result we all almost died a few times. I don’t completely regret this because I know that what we did was completely unique. There was one view that I don’t have a good picture of but it honestly might have been the most captivating sight I’ve ever come across. Basically there are two mountains with a little miniature gorge between them and if you could climb through the gorge, which was not the least bit safe, the other side dropped straight down to a beach where the ocean on the other side of Table Mountain met the mountains. I took a picture with someone else’s camera but I haven’t been able to track down the picture. Eventually our goal was simply to get back to the ground. We made our way down after a while and then we just wanted to get back to the ship with our bodies in working order. So technically we never got to the actual top of Table Mountain. It might sound lame but I assure you I had a more exciting hike than anyone else on Semester at Sea.
As I mentioned before everyone spent a lot of time enjoying the nightlife of Cape Town. Long Street has more bars and clubs then I’ve ever seen in one place. My favorite night in Cape Town was when Kurt and I went to this Cuban restaurant called Cape to Cuba. There was a lounge singer doing mostly Frank Sinatra classics and I had the most amazing seafood pasta. After that we went to a few bars and clubs. At one point I’m pretty definite we were in a gay bar. The only girls in the place were the ones that came with us. Yeah so that’s something interesting? The club I ended up staying at had pretty good music and I was so happy to finally be able to just dance! Just a little factoid about myself for you all: I love to dance! When you’re not in high school you never get the opportunity to dance unless you get to go to a wedding or something. I mean there are clubs everywhere but usually that’s just not my scene. I don’t know maybe that’s just me? Anyways… Cape Town was so much fun and there was almost too many things to do. On the last day I went to a restaurant that was open to the beach and I got ostrich steak. I recommend doing that. It was a picturesque, relaxing way to end my time in Cape Town. So we just arrived in India this morning and I’ll be leaving for a three day trip called “The Art of Living.” There’s a website that I haven’t looked at (www.artofliving.org). Leave me more comments! It makes me feel good.

Namibia

Hey readers. I apologize for not posting this earlier. I’m in South Africa now. There were only two days between Namibia and South Africa but I had absolutely no time to post an entry with the amount of readings and work I had to do for my classes. I have yet to explain how the curriculum works on this ship. There are A-Days and B-Days. My schedule has two classes on A-Days and two classes on B-Days. The program offers maybe 75 classes or something close to that. Everyone has to take at least one global studies class and everyone is required to take at least 12 credits. My classes are The Rise of New Great Powers (my global studies class), Communication Across Race and Culture, Positive Psychology, and International Management. Doing the work is easy since you have a lot of time on the ship. Every class has field work that requires you to go on specific trips or analyze the effects of a country’s history, politics, or culture. The reading gets heavy sometimes but my experience has been that the work is easy because the stuff you’re learning about is interesting, which is refreshing. The extra curricular activities on the ship are interesting, too. One that I have been involved in that I can’t wait to see pan out is the Sea Olympics. Every room belongs to one of ten “seas” and after we leave South Africa we’re going to have our Olympics. My sea is the Adriatic Sea and we’re going to own it. Hell yeah.

So Namibia! Most people signed up to do safaris in South Africa which, I think, is a big mistake. Cape Town alone has so much going on so I’m real glad I did my safari in Namibia. Namibia has plenty to do as well but it’s not as easy to get around to the different cities as it is in South Africa. Originally Namibia was colonized by the Germans and even now it seems like everywhere you go is owned or employed by German people. Namibia has got three main cities that I spent time in. Walvis Bay is where the ship was docked, Swakopmund is a smaller town that is all commercial with plenty to do, and then there’s Windhoek which is the capital so obviously there is a mess of things going on. Namibia is mostly sand and desert so there is a lot of space between cities. It’s one of the least densely populated countries in the world. It’s kind of sad that all anyone knew about the country before getting there was that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie adopted one of their kids from there. I saw where they stayed in Namibia, it was real nice. Anyways, back to my trip. The first day I went to Windhoek and stayed at a enjoyable guest house with a few people. We went out to dinner with a Swedish couple who were on vacation in the area for a few weeks. Dinner was incredible. While eating with them it kind of hit me that growing up in Europe no one really has a choice but to know a plethora of languages. With all of those countries so close together it just comes natural for them. I never really cared to learn any other language besides English but when you’re with people that know a number of languages it’s straight up impressive. The next day was our safari. This safari wasn’t through SAS, it was an independent one that was much cheaper then any SAS offered. Something like 40 SAS kids ended up doing the same safari. We slept in tents and every day went to see animals. Not much to explain. The first day we came across three families of elephants all gathering at a water hole. The guides said it was a big deal and it never usually happened.

I don't have a picture of it but there was one elephant in the middle of about 20 other elephants that was colossal. There were loads of spring buck and zebra.

I’m one of the only people in my group that actually saw the cheetah. The lions we came across didn’t move much and our guide informed us that lions actually spend something like 20 hours a day resting. The only time I saw a rhinoceros was late at night. There was a watering hole next to each camp site we stayed at and the first night two rhinos came out really late at night. I couldn’t get a good picture of it but it was such an awesome thing to see. No one really cared about the wildebeests but I thought they were gnarly. Every time we passed them I got excited. Giraffes were fascinating creatures to see. I was eager to get a picture of one drinking water for you all to enjoy. At one point we stopped at this huge empty spot that used to be all water but now it’s just a big space of nothing. I know that just sounds stupid but it was actually an extraordinary sight. It was kind of depressing to see the environment unable to sustain itself. My roommate and I have all kinds of sick pictures but most are on other people’s cameras so this one will have to do. The last night of the safari our campsite was in between a bar, a pool, and a shop with a restaurant. It was some girl’s birthday and she reminded everyone all day and night. Besides that the most annoying thing for me was that everyone pointed to animals and would say the names of Disney characters instead of just being excited that there was a lion in front of them. Please, if you go on a safari, don’t stand there pointing at an elephant or lion saying Dumbo or Simba. Sorry for that outburst, back to the blog. This kid Mason who I met in line the first day taught a bunch of us how to play this game called Mao. It’s hard to explain but if you’ve heard of it then we must play together. It’s a card came where you have to get rid of your cards in the same way as Uno but there are all these rules that cause you to pick up cards. Some of the funny rules are that you can’t ask questions without calling a “point of order” and every time you get penalized you have to say thank you to the person who calls you out, being that it is a gentleman’s game. It was so much fun I can’t even put it into words. Everyone spent the last night at the bar having a good time. There were people from Switzerland, Finland, and Germany on the same safari and everyone was having a blast with them. Our tour guide, Lombard, was a character far before anyone spent a dollar at the bar. The guy from Finland was absolutely hysterical all night. For the entire 3-Day safari he was this quiet, polite guy and then all of a sudden he was super loud and outrageous, making everyone laugh. I slept on top of the safari bus that night because stargazing in Namibia is celestially unrivaled. If you ever go there try to spend at least one night stargazing. A good amount of people camped out in the desert to stargaze but sleeping on my safari bus was great for me. I saw more shooting stars in one night then I have in my whole life prior to Namibia. The food on the entire safari was cooked over open flames and for some reason it was always better than the food we eat on the ship. I hardly felt like I was roughing it. The last day of the safari we stopped at a wood carving market on the drive back. Each shop was real tiny but full of all kinds of African art and woodcarvings. I feel like I spent that entire day in the back of a van to get back to the ship. I actually thought it was awesome because we were driving towards the sun so any time I wasn’t sleeping there was a beautiful landscape and usually a sunset in front of me. I would just like to add that African sunrises and sunsets are breathtaking. There was one more day in Namibia and I spent it with my roommate exploring Swakopmund. We went to a bunch of different shops and ate good food and went 4x4ing through the desert! That was one of the coolest things I have ever done. I’ve never been interested in riding a quad before but having a desert with the largest sand dunes in the world to ride a quad in is straight up enlivening. It was only my roommate, the guide, and I, so we were able to go real fast. There was one point where we were all going full speed up this gargantuan dune and I was expecting a huge slope on the other side but when we got to the top it was this unbelievable view of the desert meeting the ocean. The sun was setting so it was just insane. I didn’t have my camera for some reason so that was one sight I can’t share with any of you and I apologize for that. We were already cutting it close on time before we drove the quads so we had to get to the ship in a hurry. I was the last person to swipe my card that day but it was the perfect way to end my time in Namibia. (I should probably elaborate on “swipe my card.” Everyone has I.D. cards and every time you leave or return to the ship you have to swipe your card so they know if you are on or off the ship. If you come back late on the day of departure then you get “dock time” for the next port. If you get dock time it means you have to spend time on the ship while everyone else is out having fun so dock time is not good times.) Namibia has a lot going on and I loved my time there. I should be writing about South Africa by the end of the week. Leave more comments!

The Bahamas to Brazil

Today we arrived in Namibia. In a little while I’ll be leaving the ship and tomorrow I start a 3-day safari. This entry will be a summarization of everything that has happened thus far…
The SAS voyage officially started on August 29th. Along with many other students I had been staying in the Bahamas since the 27th. Most students decided it would be a good idea to get together before the ship set sail to get to know each other and get two days of fun in before any schooling could start. The hotel I stayed at was the Paradise Island Harbour Resort.It was all-inclusive and something like 30 other SAS students were staying there so it was definitely a good choice for a hotel. My roommates were all girls who I’d never met (prior to the Bahamas I didn’t know anyone going on SAS). The Bahamas were amazing, I’m proud to say I actually got out of my resort and explored for a good amount of time. The first night I went to a bar called Señor Frogs which I would recommend to anyone visiting the Bahamas. The second night I went to the larger hotel on the island that had a casino. An older couple (late 20’s) I met at my hotel took me to the casino and gave me money to gamble with so it was a win-win situation, good times. The Bahamas in general was just good times. On the 29th I was actually the last person from SAS to leave my hotel. The line to get on the ship was long and everyone had to carry their bags in 4 foot intervals every time the line went up a little. I was one of the people that had all duffle’s with no wheels… good idea, right? So the first day was exciting. Everyone was just trying to learn names… even 20 days later everyone is still having trouble with names. I was kind of nervous about meeting my roommate because I’m always more likely to get along better with a girl then a guy but I definitely lucked out. We get along really well even though we probably don’t have anything in common, his name is Kurt. The first week was all about classes and learning how to live on the ship and blah blah. I’ll skip to Brazil. Of all the places on the itinerary, I was most excited for Brazil. It always seemed like a beautiful place to me and I was stoked to finally get to see it. The first day was mainly an exploration day. The beach was by far the best beach I’ve ever been to. My biggest regret about Brazil is not spending more time at the beach. The second day was my first SAS trip. My trip was called Lençois. It was a 4-day mountain climbing/hiking adventure. Lençois is actually the name of a village we stayed at in the center of all of the mountains.It’s in Bahia, Brazil. If you ever go to Brazil I definitely recommend it. To date, Lençois is the most beautiful place I’ve ever been to. If I don’t live there at some point in my life I have to make sure to at least visit regularly. If the word Lençois translates to anything I’m pretty sure it would translate to “heaven.” All four days consisted of hiking and mountain climbing and then chillin’ in the village or at our amazing hotel at night. The hotel had buffet breakfasts and buffet dinners that were absolutely perfect. My friend Kelsey quoted me in her blog because I said something was made of “cinnamon and angels” haha. I’ll recap the best parts of the hikes. The first day we stopped at a pool that had something like a 10 to 15 foot cliff over it. The pool was so little that the scary part was avoiding the rocks more than the jump. It looked like a 4 foot wide black hole that you had to jump into from an unbalanced 15 foot jump. Good times. The rest of that day was all nice views and clean, beautiful air. The second day we went to a huge pool with a waterfall that had two cliffs you could jump from. The first one I ran up to was about 15 to 20 feet high and it was really cool to just fling yourself off of it into the pool. The second cliff was something like 40 to 50 feet high.
That one wasn’t as easy. It took me a minute but I jumped and it was epic! Oh and by the way, a professor that went on the trip that we all started calling “Papa Rosey” (his real name is Armin Rosencrantz) jumped from all of the cliffs and it was unbelievable. I don’t want to be insulting and guess an age but it’s safe to say he’s an old guy. After this pool the groups got split up a little. Myself and two others, Kress and Kelsey, tried to figure out how to get to the next stop which is noted as the largest natural rockslide in the world or maybe the largest one in Brazil.. I can’t remember. We got pretty lost and ended up bushwacking for a while but eventually we got there and no one died so yay! The rockslide was pretty sick. I fell down it the first time but it just made it more fun.

There was a cool little outdoor café thing that the three of us stopped at to get a drink. There was a guy playing guitar and stuff... it was real chill.
The next day we climbed a mountain. It was really high so the wind was pretty forceful but there was immaculate views. The last day we went to another huge natural pool with all kinds of waterfalls and cliff jumping. The nights in the village were just as cool as the hikes. My favorite place was this bar we went to on the last night in the village. You go in the bar and there are stairs to a section that’s more like a restaurant with a tree in it and above the tree there is no ceiling, just the stars. We spent all night in the bar playing music with the locals and just chillin’ with them for hours. I spent a lot of the time laying out on hammocks and getting to know people. I swear I contemplated not going back to the ship because I just wanted to live in Lençois. I miss being there. The people who did that trip with me are all real cool and I still hang out with a few of them. Kelsey, Kress, and Emily more than the rest. Kelsey is a first year to college and she doesn’t hang out with many other people than me because her sense of humor is beyond the capacity of most people but she’s good times. Kress is super modest but if she isn’t considered a pro skier then I’m going to just say she’s semi-pro, she’s pretty chill. Emily is super sporty and the ultimate social butterfly. There are other people I chill with on the ship like these girls Alissa and Nina who go to New Hampshire University and they’re both good times. So that was Brazil and since then has been a ton of schooling and a whole lot of fun. I’m in a few groups and clubs. In one of them we planned an open mic night that was a lot of fun and last night there was a “So You Think You Can Dance?” event that was really fun. I’m going to go explore Namibia now but I’ll be back to post in a few days. Thanks for reading!

First Entry

I’ve never had a blog or journal before, or at least not one that I tended to regularly. My thought is that the best way to start one of these is to briefly introduce myself. My name is Vincent Laliberte, Vin or Vince for short. Currently I am a student at the University of Connecticut. I attended the Waterbury campus last year and now I’m studying abroad for my second year of college. The study abroad program I am currently enrolled in is called Semester at Sea (check it out at semesteratsea.org). SAS is a program in which you take classes on a ship while the ship makes stops around the world. My trip started in the Bahamas and visits 12 ports total: Salvador - Brazil, Walvis Bay - Namibia, Capetown - South Africa, Chennai - India, Penang - Malaysia, Ho Chi Minh City - Viet Nam, Hong Kong - China, Shanghai - China, Kobe - Japan, Yokohama - Japan, Honolulu - Hawaii, and Puntarenas - Costa Rica. To date I’ve been a commuter for college, so going on this trip is a huge transition for me and I hope it turns out to be an interesting story for you to read.