I like to consider myself a fairly accomplished traveler and working at Projects Abroad has certainly helped that! But Kelsy tipped me off to this cool program which will map all the countries you have been too. After putting in all the countries I have visited into the program it turns out I have only visited 8% of the Earth. It is pretty humbling and it makes you realize how big this world is.

create your own visited countries map

By Dr. Peter Slowe, Founder and Director of Projects Abroad

I just got back from South Africa where we are starting a lot of new projects.

The first place I visited was in the far north where we have leased a stretch of land on the Botswana border. I travelled up with the guy who’s going to be running the programme, Gerrit Prinsloo – Gerrit (pronounced “Kherrit”) is an interesting character, originally Afrikaner but now English-speaking but with such a strong accent that I spent a lot of time saying “pardon?” or “what?” – he’s a fully-qualified ranger and knows every plant, insect, bird and animal, so he’s a good companion and exceedingly enthusiastic.

The reserve itself, called Legodimo (pronounced “Lekho-deemo”) has plenty of wildlife, particularly when you get near to the Limpopo river – Rudyard Kipling’s “Great, grey, greasy Limpopo”. There are zebras and elephants which apparently you mustn’t get too near or they get very nervous – I startled Gerrit by jumping out of his jeep and going towards one to photograph it. In fact, one thing that struck me about wildlife in the bush (technically this is “bush-veld”) was that most of the animals are nervous wrecks because there’s always something around who wants to make a meal of them. The particular elephant I approached had a baby, which was bigger than me anyway, so it lifted up its trunk and waggled its oversize ears – these are apparently preliminary to a ten-ton charge at 40 mph, so I got back in the jeep. One of the most spectacular sights was a pair of fish eagles sitting on a dead tree in perfect sunlight – enormous and very impressive. An eagle owl ate a guinea fowl and a crocodile was just surfacing in the water. There were also masses of Marabou Storks, rare kingfishers and hornbills and a magnificent Goliath Heron.

More photos and information about accomodation and barbecues after the jump

The accommodation is a bit rough at the moment but we’re going to paint it, put in new beds and add a few cheerful decorations to make it homely. Once they’ve been tarted up, the facilities will be really good – and include a swimming pool which is occasionally shared with elephants and ostriches (which are really dumb).

Gerrit is a specialist in camp-fires. He is a great believer in the South African barbecue or “brai”. Personally, I’m not all that keen on strange South African sausages and tough raw Biltong, a kind of salty meat snack, but apparently they’re popular with many people. He assures me he can cope with vegetarians, although I guess the vegetables are all barbecued too.

Later on, I went down to Cape Town – fantastic new projects of which more will come.

By Catherine Stidston, Assistant Country Manager, Sri Lanka

After a 10 hour flight, I couldn’t wait to leave the airport and catch a glimpse of the country that was going to be ‘home’ for the next 6 months. I wasn’t disappointed.

As soon as I walked out onto the street with huge backpack attached, I was hit by a wall of humidity and greeted by an array of taxi drivers and tuk tuk men who seemed unbelieving of my “I’m meeting someone here, thank you”. With the beeping of horns and the buzz of people milling around me, I knew I’d arrived!

On the drive to my hotel I couldn’t help but stare at everything. The first thing that struck me was how tropical it seemed despite being in a city. Lush palm trees, market stalls of fish, fruits and vegetables of all colours, shapes and sizes lined the streets along with scratchcard sellers, street food vendors and a stray dog here and there. This was combined with buses, cars, bikes, lorries and tuk tuks chaotically dodging and weaving and breaking and beeping around one another.

Since arriving in Sri Lanka I have passed rice paddies, rubber plantations, salt mines, banana plantations, grazing water buffalos and a comical elephant cruising down the highway in the back of an old truck. I’ve spotted monkeys swinging on telephone cables and caught glimpses of huge lizards, little geckos, beautiful birds, cheeky squirrels and even shared the bathroom with a frog!

I’ve sampled the amazing delight that is Sri Lankan cuisine. They really do know how to make a good spicy curry with delicious accompaniments of dhal, roti, sambol, hoppers and much more! I’ve seen the beautiful stretch of palm tree lined coastline that extends over the West side of the island and I’ve been touched by the kindness, friendliness and happy smiles displayed by the people of Sri Lanka.

All of this I have seen in just two weeks. There is so much more to see, do, learn and experience and I really can’t wait to explore and discover more of what this beautiful island has to offer!

Reading Will’s blog piece about lost parcels brought to mind lost luggage. Did you know that 5.6 million bags went missing last year? British Airways came top of the tree losing 2.3% of bags. It was interesting to see that Virgin Atlantic, BMI, Ryanair and Easyjet decided not to release any figures!!

One story I remember is of a lady who was queuing up at check in behind a particularly obnoxious character on his way to Melbourne from London. He was being more and more unreasonable with the check in staff over nothing. Eventually he was checked in. The lady in the queue behind walked up and said how impressed she was with how the check in attendant had kept her cool with this idiot. She said the customer service training must be good. The check in attendant said that what kept her calm in these situations was the knowledge that she was sending his bags to Taipei “by accident”. Apparently Taipei is a hole where many bags disappear into. She assured the lady that hers would be taking the direct route to Melbourne. Take care when you are at the check in desk!!

Another occasion was returning to Southampton from Dublin from a careers fair. The display stands I had checked in didn’t arrive so I was filling in the paperwork so they would be delivered on the next day. Two guys from Dublin had come over to a motorbike festival for the weekend and their rucksacks hadn’t turned up. The girl behind the desk was very apologetic and said not to worry they would be on the next flight tomorrow. The guys were asked where they were staying so she could deliver the bags. They replied we are staying in the tent which is in their rucksack!!! With typical Irish good humour they found the whole event rather amusing and we headed off to have a few consoling beers before they looked for a bed and breakfast to stay in.

Any interesting experiences anyone else has had?