It's been too long.....

[CurlyOne]

Oh man, oh man, oh man, I haven't been on here in ages! I'm so excited to see this place again! What's even more exciting....I remembered my password! Logged in on the first try, true story. :D

The short version of where I was, living in Africa for two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer and lost most of my hair! Eeek! I never had much to begin with but the marvelous combination of poor nutrition, stress and antimalarial drugs really made my hair fall out. I had to wear a hat almost all the time to keep my scalp from getting burned. Pretty depressing. Especially the stress part, me: "Why is my hair falling out?!" Doctor:"Stress" Me:"What do I do about it?!" Doctor :"Try and relax." Me: "But my hair is falling out!!!!" So that was fun.

After about a year, most of the stress subsided as you adjust to life in a new place and I finally got on a different antimalarial. Nutrition was a bigger problem because you can't eat what you don't have. Mom was a star and sent me bottle of biotin and I basically ate the pills. I was so happy when I saw little fuzzies coming in all over my head. :) I was so careful with them, I used a head band when they got longer to keep them safe while traveling and I babied them as much as possible. After getting back to the States, I started eating really well, veggies, fruit and meat while cutting out the grains. You know what? It paid off. I actually had to go out and but new hair clips today because the baby fuzzies are now long enough that my old tiny clips weren't holding them anymore! Best feeling ever!!!

My hair is past my shoulders again, after being so short in Africa, my hair is back and so am I! Now I am trying to overcome that itchy, flaky scalp I have always had but for some reason has gotten really bad and actually is affecting the skin on my nose and cheeks.

Anyway, I wanted to say Hi and I missed everyone!

[Vanilla]

Welcome back! What was Africa like? I have always wanted to go there.

[CurlyOne]

After living there, I can safely say that Africa is an amazing, beautiful, complicated, hopeful, abused, frustrating fantastic place. It was a hard two years but I loved it. You should absolutely go, get out of the touristy places and don't give handouts (there are plenty of good development organization to give to if you feel like it) and you'll have a great time. I was fortunate enough to live very close to a game park and we had elephants and monkeys around a lot. My dog loved chasing the monkeys and I loved her so she came back to America with me. Dora the Explorer.
http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o216/1_morejump/0f826e75-eb32-4db1-9e1e-79ef84b2303a.jpg (http://s121.photobucket.com/user/1_morejump/media/0f826e75-eb32-4db1-9e1e-79ef84b2303a.jpg.html)

[Vanilla]

Your dog is adorable! Thank you for sharing your experiences in Africa. :)

I am going to have to make going there a priority in the next few years. My late husband never wanted to go there. Is there specific places you'd recommend for a single woman traveling by herself to go to?

[CurlyOne]

Your dog is adorable! Thank you for sharing your experiences in Africa. :)

I am going to have to make going there a priority in the next few years. My late husband never wanted to go there. Is there specific places you'd recommend for a single woman traveling by herself to go to?
First off, don't be scared of traveling by yourself, use common sense (no drinking late in strange places, don't go walking around at night) and you'll be fine. I lived in Malawi and travelled to Zanzibar Island and Zambia, the people were always great. Malawi is a great place to just chill out. Lake Malawi has some nice lodges, I recommend Mayoka Village Beach Lodge, it is beautiful. The snorkeling in Lake Malawi is great, over 800 species of cichlids to see. People will tell you to stay out of Lake Malawi because of Shistosomiosis, I never got it. In my opinion the northern part of the Lake is better than the south is.

If you want to see animals, Liwonde National Park in Malawi is decent, as far as Malawian parks go. You'll see stuff. However, if you really want to see stuff, go to Zambia. I went with my aunt when she came to visit and it was great, we were in South Luangwa with a safari company and saw absolutely everything (except rhino). We even went all the way to Victoria Falls, beautiful! While you're in the area there, you can do a bunch of stuff like elephant rides, a walk with lions, helicopter rides over the falls, and a walk with rhino. The rhino are literally under armed guard 24/7 so they're used to people and you can get pretty close.

If you want an island getaway then Zanzibar it is. I really really loved Zanzibar, the scuba diving, the people, the food, the spice plantations, the water, it was all amazing and the combination of African and Middle Eastern cultures makes it truly beautiful and unique.

If you have never done any traveling before and are nervous about it, I would start with a safari company. The only one I know is Land and Lakes safari out of Malawi, they do trips to Zambia and Victoria Falls. Zanzibar isn't scary, it is very tourist friendly, lodges all over, good buses, and very friendly people. You can book rooms on line in many places and to the island is small so getting there is a short ride on a bus. The lodges can also organize tours of the spice plantations which I highly recommend, you get to see where all those things in your spice rack come from and it is pretty cool. There is a nature reserve on the island where you can go to see Red Colubus monkeys and I believe there is a butterfly garden. Man, talking about it makes me miss it. I will say that to get there you have two options, 1) fly into Dar Es Salaam and then fly to Zanzibar. I didn't do this, a friend and I took a bus from Malawi. It would be faster but I don't know about the cost. Option 2) Fly into Dar and spend a night or two, poke around the city and then take a ferry to the island. There are several different ferries, do some research on this. When you get to where you buy tickets, people will come up and try and get you to go to certain windows, they get a commission for bringing in customers. Figure out which ferry you want before hand and then go buy your ticket. We took a nicer one, I think it was $40 for the hour or so ride to the island. To get back to Malawi we flew off the island but you can take a ferry off. A brief word about Dar, it is a big city, don't walk around it at night, it isn't the safest at night, but not many cities are. During the day it's fine, we didn't think there was a whole lot to do there so we just window shopped for a day and drank coconut water. We didn't stay in Dar either, not because of safety, but because we found a lodge south of town we liked. This was a bit of a hassle, mostly because we got in at night and had to take a taxi much farther than we thought. If I had to do it over, I would have found a nice place in the city and stayed there.

That's all I know. All my experience traveling has been in Africa so I don't think it is complicated, but I lived in Malawi where, if there is a fuel shortage, it can be a long day of travel so it takes a lot to phase me. That doesn't mean it can't be done, Zambia and Zanzibar Island, especially Zanzibar, are great for tourists with lots to do. You'll love it!

[Vanilla]

Thank you so much for detailing the places that you went to. Victoria falls sounds lovely, as do Zanzibar. You have given me so much inspiration and I am really looking forward to booking a trip there soon!

:)