Living It

Easy on the eyes, ethically consious and well travelled - Ewan McGregor just got even better ... as if that was even possible

Living It: Ewan McGregor

Thailand

Here's a glimpse of what lies ahdead for me in Thailand:

Beach Travellers | Thailand 2009 | www.beachtravellers.com from Beach Travellers on Vimeo.

My GF Melissa is also going to be my tour guide as it works out (one of the many cute blonds in the video) and I cannot wait to be able to spend a few months exploring not just Thailand, but also Vietnam and Cambodia with her.

Afrika Adventures

The plans are coming together and I am soooo stoked. We will be travelling for a month starting in Namibia and ending in South Africa. The time in S.A. will be focused on the World Cup events that we are attening, as well as a few days in Jo'burg and the rest of the time in Cape Town and Port Elizabeth.

To start off the adventure, this is the trip we are booking next week:

GAP Adventures: Delta and Falls Experience - 10 days

Introduction: For Africa enthusiasts Botswana is the place to be. Explore the wildlife meccas of Okavango and Chobe, and finish off at the magnificent Victoria Falls, Mosi au Tunya "the smoke that thunders" - a natural wonder of the world

Trip style - Overland: Get back to some old-school adventure travel and hit the open road in one of our all purpose overland trucks. Our trips provide the best of both worlds. Stay in hotels and enjoy the cities and towns, while roughing it on the road
in an overland truck. Expect a real hands-on experience as you set up camp, help out at meal times and team up with your fellow travellers as you cross rivers, plains, plateaus and mountain passes. You could be sleeping out in the open wilderness, or within earshot of a lion’s roar and elephants trumpeting, and waking every morning to a new adventure

Day 1 Arrive Windhoek
Arrive in Windhoek at any time.

Day 2 Kalahari
Cross into Botswana and travel to Ghanzi in the Kalahari Desert region. Take a walk with a local San Bushman to learn fascinating wilderness survival skills.

Day 3 Maun
Head to Maun where the Okavango Delta beckons to be explored. Here you can pick up any supplies and prepare for your unforgettable 2 night/3 day journey deep into the "Delta".

Day 4-5 Okavango Delta
The Okavango Delta Excursion is an experience not to be missed. While based at a bush camp within the world's largest inland delta, enjoy game walks and traditional mokoro (dug-out canoe) excursions, marveling at the wide variety of wildlife that calls the delta their home. This is truly an African experience!

Day 6 Gweta
Wake up to the African sun rising over the beauty of the Delta. Today we stop in Maun, and continue to the village of Gweta, located near the salt pans of Makgadikgadi. You will get a feeling of the local environment here as you camp under ancient Baobab trees.

Day 7 Chobe River
Journey to the Chobe River, your base for a visit to Chobe National Park, home to one of the largest elephant populations in Southern Africa. The best way to appreciate Botswana's largest national park and its thousands of resident elephants, crocodiles, and hippos, is on an afternoon boat cruise on the Chobe River. You may also choose to embark on a game drive in search of lions, antelope, and of course elephants.

Day 8-9 Livingstone, Zambia
With time for a morning game drive before departing, we cross the mighty Zambezi River by ferry as we enter into Zambia. Spend the next day exploring the breathtaking Victoria Falls, a natural wonder of the world. Adventure activities abound - go white-water rafting or canoeing on Zambezi, take an elephant-back safari, bungee jump over the Zambezi River.

Day 10 Depart Livingstone (B)

!!!!UNREAL!!!!
From Zambia we will be flying to Jo'burg (and YES, we are more than aware that crime is a serious problem in Johannesburg - we get the daily emails from P's fam to remind us) to spend 3 days in town visiting family, taking in a Game and visiting the The Apartheid Museum and The Constitution Hill .

Then its off to Cape Town.

I am eager to take in Table Mountain,

Robbin Island, where former South African President and Nobel Laureate Nelson Mandela and former South African President Kgalema Motlanthe, alongside many other political prisoners, spent decades imprisoned during the apartheid era.



The Cape of Good Hope & Boulders Beach: home to the fabulous jackass Penguins (ok for real, how much do I love that they are called Jackass Penguins beacuse the sound like donkeys - OMG hysterica!),




Add in some serious eating and partying with all those crazy football fans (400,000 are expected to arrive for the event!), and it's gonna be an amazing week at the end of the Earth.

Then for the last part of the adventure, its off to Port Elizabeth, 800 km north east of Cape Town.

P.E. is where we have our second and last game and time to flake out and relax.



Then I'm off to ...

Winged Goddesses with Serpent Hair and Eyes Dripping Blood

My Mom sent this to me today - Never hear of these gals before, but now I am intrigued:

The Erinyes

Three daughters of Gaia were the spirits of conscience, punishment and retribution. The three Erinyes

They are often represented in graphical form as winged goddesses with serpent hair and eyes dripping blood. The relentlessly pursued their victims until the guilty died in a furor of madness and remorse. So devastating was their power, the Ancient Greeks dared not speak their real name for fear of provoking their wrath.

Their names were;

Megaera – the jealous

Tisiphone – the blood avenger

Alecto – the unceasing

So I hit up the good old Wiki and this is what else I found:

In Greek mythology the Erinýes (Ἐρινύες, pl. of Ἐρινύς, Erinýs; lit. "the angry ones") or Eumenídes (Εὐμενίδες, pl. of Εὐμενίς; lit. "the gracious ones") or Furies in Roman mythology were female, chthonic deities of vengeance or supernatural personifications of the anger of the dead. They represent regeneration and the potency of creation, which both consumes and empowers. A formulaic oath in the Iliad (iii.278ff; xix.260ff) invokes them as "those who beneath the earth punish whosoever has sworn a false oath." Burkert suggests they are "an embodiment of the act of self-cursing contained in the oath".[1]

When the mighty Titan Cronus castrated his father Uranus and threw his genitalia into the sea, the Erinyes emerged from the drops of blood, while Aphrodite was born from the seafoam. According to a variant account, they issued from an even more primordial level—from Nyx, "Night". Their number is usually left indeterminate. Virgil, probably working from an Alexandrian source, recognized three: Alecto ("unceasing," who appeared in Virgil's Aeneid), Megaera ("grudging"), and Tisiphone ("avenging murder"). Dante followed Virgil in depicting the same three-charactered triptych of Erinyes. The heads of the Erinyes were wreathed with serpents (compare Gorgon) and their eyes dripped with blood, rendering their appearance rather horrific. Sometimes they had the wings of a bat or bird and the body of a dog.

And this was what I found on http://www.theoi.com/Khthonios/Erinyes.html

THE ERINYES were three netherworld goddesses who avenged crimes against the natural order. They were particularly concerned with homicide, unfilial conduct, crimes against the gods, and perjury. A victim seeking justice could call down the curse of the Erinys upon the criminal. The most powerful of these was the curse of the parent upon the child--for the Erinyes were born of just such a crime, being sprung from the blood of Ouranos, when he was castrated by his son Kronos.

The wrath of the Erinyes manifested itself in a number of ways. The most severe of these was the tormenting madness inflicted upon a patricide or matricide. Murderers might suffer illness or disease; and a nation harbouring such a criminal, could suffer dearth, and with it hunger and disease. The wrath of the Erinyes could only be placated with the rite ritual purification and the completion of some task assigned for atonement.

The goddesses were also servants of Haides and Persephone in the underworld where they oversaw the torture of criminals consigned to the Dungeons of the Damned.

The Erinyes were similar to if not the same as the Poinai (Retaliations), Arai (Curses), Praxidikai (Exacters of Justice) and Maniai (Madnesses).

They were depicted as ugly, winged women with hair, arms and waists entwined with poisonous serpents. They wielded whips and were clothed either in the long black robes of mourners, or the short-length skirts and boots of huntress- maidens.

These sisters sound BADDASS ... I think I am liking my name even more now ;)