Vacation from Sanity

We had a great vacation to Sao Tome. We spent much of our four days lounging by the beach. Between my shaky French and our recognizing Spanish cognates, we were able to survive without knowing Portuguese, the official language. We got caught up in a celebration of a soccer victory in the capital. We went snorkeling and kayaking on the ocean. We visited a botanical garden and cocoa plantation. And we drank palm wine, which really isn’t so much wine as it is sap. Sao Tome has got it goin on, too bad it’s so remote…

The LCD display in my camera was broken when we arrived, so I was just sort of aiming the camera and hoping for the best!
Check out the pix:

Sao Tome

 

Equatorial Guinea is co-hosting the Cup of Nations and we got to go!!!

The opening match was held in Bata. Equatorial Guinea vs. Libya and EG won. It was completely surprising so I’m extra excited for them.

The opening match in Malabo was Ivory Coast vs. Sudan. Ivory Coast won which was less surprising, but we were there. It was a lot of fun. There are a ton of Ivorians who live in EG so they were out in full force. We decided not to stay for the second match (Burkino Faso vs. Angola) because we are leaving for vacation to Sao Tome tomorrow.

One last closing thought: a link to the song that’s been stuck in my head for the last two weeks. It’s the official song of the Cup of Nations and I love it.

A new highway around the island also brought new bridges.  Many of the old bridges still exist, overgrown and accessible only on foot. We took Sophie the Dog on her first real road trip to explore these bridges.

Bridge Visit

Just got back from a long and needed vacation to Kenya and Zanzibar. Check out the pictures…

My sister and her husband have recently decided that they want to adopt a baby from the Congo where my father was born. I couldn’t be more proud and excited for them. They are currently giving away a new iPad to help raise money for the administrative costs of adopting a baby.

Check out their blog (on the side The Enns) or click below to participate.

Our friends at the Bioko Biodiversity Preservation Project took us on a hike to the waterfalls in a valley in the southern part of the island. It was beautiful and diverse scenery and a perfectly challenging hike. We were able to see the waterfalls just a few minutes before the daily cloud bank rolled in.

Las Cascadas (The Waterfalls at Moka)

The Agama lizard is everywhere. The biggest ones are about 10 inches head to tail, and they’re very active. The other day, I saw one being eaten by a cat, and that cat looked both happy and healthy.

We spent Easter/Matt’s Birthday weekend on the tiny island of Annabon, 400 miles south of our current island, but still part of the same country. Annabon is an extinct volcanic island 2 miles by 4 miles big. About 2500 people live there, and though Spanish is the official language, the vernacular is called Fa D’Ambu, which is a Portuguese/African creole. On day 2, we took a great hike up to a crater lake, and were caught in a rainstorm. Sunday, we had the opportunity to take a boat tour around the island with a team of French surveyors. The surprise bonus of the day was our encounter with four killer whales! Check out all the pix here:

Annabon Island

One of the great things about living overseas is that you are much more likely to do something really cool when you are in the right place at the right time. I was at Trivia night, an island ex-pat institution and the group next to me called me over. A group of helicopter pilots needed a few passengers for a test flight. I immediately said we would go and then realized that Matt was busy the next morning volunteering at a local orphanage. But Matt had already been in a helicopter before so he graciously encouraged me to go without him.

Malabo is generally fairly cloudy, which is good because it keeps the overall temperature down, but usually when I fly in and out of the island, I can’t really see anything until you’re so close to the ground that it’s just a few trees. For this ride, we flew at a low altitude and hugged the coastline. From the air, it was incredible. I got to see just how much of the island is covered in jungle and how little of the coastline has a beach. I realized that the mountains weren’t exactly where I thought they were. It was breathtaking.