Aphreaka!!!!
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What do you get when you have 30 days to travel, and travel with 30 people through the southern regions of Africa? Well, a PARTY, or course! This page and it's accompaning galleries record the strange happenings of the Alien Safari on it's journey from Cape Town, South Africa to the Solipse Festival held outside of Chisamba in Zambia. This page was created primarily for my fellow Aliens, and I made an effort to get pictures of everyone on the tour into this gallery. This includes Alien Safari DJ's and tour guides too ... however ... Louis must have been watching for my camera and hid behind something every time. I could swear I found a single picture that included him but now it is strangely ... missing.
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| For those not on this tour, here is a rough itinerary, and you can try to figure what pictures are from where, because at this point I'm not sure if I'll ever get to labelling them all. The tour took us from Cape Town up through western South Africa to Namibia. After a tense border crossing we camped just the other side of the Orange River, where we stayed for 2 nights. The first night was an amazing dinner of Botswana beef that set unrealistic expectations for the food quality for the rest of the trip. The following day was spent canoeing down the Orange River and preparing ourselves for the first party that night. The following day was spent recovering from said party while riding in the busses... um, trucks to the Fish River Canyon, which is the second biggest canyon in the world. Following this we went to Sossusvlei National Park, where we watched the sun rise over the shifting red dunes, then visited a gorge in the park. Then it was off through the Namib Desert to Swakopmund, where the sands greet the incoming swells off the Atlantic ocean. |  |
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Some of us quad-biked and sandboarded the dunes outside of Swakopmund, yum, before heading inland to the most intense place anyone has ever thrown a party, Spitzkoffe (did I totally butcher that spelling?). This was the party to end all parties, the 30 Aliens, the organizers, DJ's and tour guides, and a good showing from some locals and the South African followers that convinced the locals to show them to the spot. Wow, you really just had to be there. After watching the sun rise the next morning we immediately were packed onto the busses ... trucks and headed to Etosha National Park, where the animals run free and the people are kept in a big cage. We saw lions 3 days in a row, which is evidently pretty rare. Leaving Etosha for Maun, Botswana, we had engine trouble which really tested the skills of our guides. The leaking fuel line was cleaned with vodka, wrapped by a condom, which was held in place with an aluminum can, and secured with duct tape. |
| Once in Botswana the next day, we flew over the Okavango River Delta, and the following day were transported into the delta by 4WD trucks and dugout canoes. We sneaked up on some elephants trying to avoid humans in their natural environment. The next day we went to Baobab Junction, where we had our 3rd and final Alien Safari Party, which was quite the drunken affair. From here it was off to Zambia, via the most decrepit ferry boat anyone has ever put a semi on. Never end a sentence with a preposition. Once in Zambia it was another day's drive to the Solipse Festival, where we spent the next week lounging by the campfire and dancing to the psy trance beats. Oh yeah, and right in the middle of all that there was a total solar eclipse, bonus! After the festival we were driven back to Victoria Falls in the bu...trucks, where we spent a couple days sightseeing and avoiding swindlers, then we were flown back to South Africa. Some lucky folks travelled on rather than heading home, to places with intrguing names like Malawi. |  |
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2002© Spench