roamancing - Roamancing

Roamancing South Africa – Swimming with Penguins!!!

March 9, 2013 by Megan Ho 11 Comments

Part 2 of Megan Ho’s Adventure Roamancing South Africa. Read Part 1 here: Roamancing South Africa – Shark Cage Diving

The next day, we had yet another wonderful animal encounter, albeit a much lower adrenaline one than swimming with sharks. We headed to Cape Point for the day and stopped at Boulders Beach to visit some African Penguins.

Being quite crazy about penguins already, I could hardly contain my excitement upon seeing a whole colony of them. I had never seen so many penguins at once! We viewed them from the boardwalk, and afterwards hustled down to the adjacent beach to get closer.

Penguin colony

The adjacent beach was open to the public for swimming as it wasn’t the home of the colony. However, some penguins had made their way over by water and were swimming and walking around the beaches. Here, we were able to get up close with the penguins. We couldn’t pet them though. As one member of our group found out the hard way, penguins bite!

African Penguins

The beach was full of people, so we made our way to another, less accessible beach between the colony’s beach and the main public one. We climbed over boulders and waded through water to reach it. At one point, I got hit by a rogue wave and was soaked! When we reached it, everyone dove in to go swimming with the penguins. I had unfortunately forgotten my swimsuit. “But… but… swimming with penguins!” said a little voice in my head. Well, I was already wet, wasn’t I? So I peeled off my clothes and went swimming in my underwear.

It was the best decision. Not only were there penguins swimming nearby, but the water was beautiful and warm. The penguins were so quick in the water and kept darting around and popping their heads up. We swam out to huge boulders sheltering the bay and with a little teamwork, manoeuvred everyone onto them where we looked out towards Antarctica. Afterwards, I didn’t even have a towel, but it was utterly and completely worth it.

Lone penguin swimming

Stay tuned for more adventures roamancing the wildlife and wilds of South Africa!

*Photos by Morris M.

Filed Under: Africa, All Aboard!, Around the World, Beaches, Megan Ho, Our Travelers, South Africa, World's Best Soaks Tagged With: african penguins, boulder beach, Cape Point, Megan Ho, penguins, roamancing, South Africa, south africa penguins, south african penguins, swimming, swimming in my underwear, swimming with penguins

A Roamancing New Year!

January 3, 2013 by Emme Rogers 10 Comments

Wishing you, our wonderful community, a year filled with …

Moments of Utter Delight

Lori Yearwood jumping with utter delight!

Interesting Perspectives

Plaza de Bolívar in Bogota, Colombia from a pigeon eye view.

Good Music

Tasty Eats

Some seriously tasty eats in Bogota, Colombia.

Smiling Faces

Welcomed by a warm smile from a boy in the market in Hurghada.

Welcomed by a warm smile in the market in Hurghada, Egypt.

Dancing

New Friends

Daniel Noll, Audrey Scott and Erica Hargreave in Marsa Alam after their talk at the UNWTO Conference on Partnering with Media in Challenging Times.

Annelise Larson getting set to dive into her first Lobsterblast at the Yorkton Film Festival.

Our two newest Roamancers: Hannia Curi and Megan Ho.

Jaime Tenorio, Steve Peters, Caitlin Burns and Lina Srivastava in Plaza de Bolívar, Bogota, Columbia.

Old Friends

Enjoying a sunset stroll at Point Roberts with Andrew.

Lucy Duck simply quackers for the lovely ladies of Yorkton, Saskatchewan.

Ken, Cam and Erica waiting to be charioted to the Golden Sheath Gala.

Erica and Caitlin exploring Bogota, as photographed by Lina Srivastava.

Furry Friends

Erica and Satchmo having some red boot adventures in the Canadian wilds.

Cato Cat and Lucy Duck road tripping across Canada.

New Experiences

Me and Audrey Scott quad biking in the desert near Hurghada, as photographed by Daniel Noll.

A Bit of the Ridiculous

Love

Alley Cat Amour in Hurghada, Egypt.

Laughter

Quad Biking Cat in Hurghada, Egypt

Unexpected Beauty

… and of course, Good Health!

Happy New Year!

With Love from all of us Roamancers.

xoxo

Filed Under: All Aboard!, Around the World, BC, Canada, Colombia, Down South, Egypt, Emme Rogers, Erica, Hannia Curi, Lori Yearwood, Lucy Duck, Megan Ho, Middle East, Our Travelers, Roamancing, Saskatchewan, Satchmo, South America, The Red Boot Diaries, Travel TV, Tunes from the Road, US, West Coast Tagged With: Annelise Larson, Audrey Scott, bogota, Caitlin Burns, Cam Bennett, canada, cato cat, colombia, Daniel Noll, Egypt, emme rogers, Erica Hargreave, Golden Sheaf Gala, Hannia Curi, happy new year, Hurghada, Jaime Tenorio, Lina Srivastava, Lobsterblast, lori yearwood, Lucy Duck, Marsa Alam, Megan Ho, New year, Plaza de Bolívar, Point Roberts, roamancers, roamancing, Satchmo, Steve Peters, UNWTO, wishing you a year filled with, yff, yorkton, yorkton film festival

Roamancing Egyptian Satellite TV in Marsa Alam

June 5, 2012 by Erica Hargreave 2 Comments

Loving this episode with handsome and witty Mohamed A.El Monem in Marsa Alam on Egyptian Satellite TV. Especially excited about it as we (and Audrey and Dan of Uncornered Market) were in Marsa Alam when Mohamed and his production team were there filming this and had the opportunity to hang out with them both on and off camera. They were fun to debate politics and world issues with, in addition to dancing with (you can see some of Mohamed’s dance moves towards the end of the episode).

Enjoyed my time with this lovely group of people.

You can also catch Mohamed interviewing me on Egypt and Roamancing towards the end of Episode. I encourage you to watch the whole thing though, as much of it is in English, in addition to Arabic (for the non-Arabic speakers amoung you) and the content is interesting, including interviews with the Egyptian Minister of Tourism and people involved with some of the fun and fascinating eco adventure opportunities in Marsa Alam.

All I can think after watching this, is how very well Mohamed pegged our interests, as he suspected the eco dive lodge he visited would be up our alley and tried to get us to join him for the day there. Right he was, as I now want to go back to check it out. He may not have understood the appeal of being taught by specialists in marine biology and underwater photography, but I certainly do!

Filed Under: All Aboard!, Around the World, Egypt, Erica, Middle East, Our Travelers, Roamancing, Travel TV Tagged With: eco dive lodge, Egypt, Egyptian Satellite TV, Marsa Alam, marsa shagra, Mohamed A. El Monem, red sea, roamancing, uncornered market

Audrey Scott: Egyptian TV Star

May 31, 2012 by Erica Hargreave Leave a Comment

Audrey Scott: You know her from the Uncornered Market speaking team of Daniel Noll and Audrey Scott, but do you know her as the Egyptian TV Star? I do!

I was sitting just off to Audrey’s left snapping shots of her while Mohamed A. El Monem was interviewing Audrey on our time in Egypt this past April.

I got my time in front of the camera too, but I suspect it is on the cutting room floor, as ‘roamance’ and ‘looking for love and romance’ translates a little too literally in Arabic. I found myself saying, “It’s not about me finding a husband.” and then realizing how that may have translated to me being a tart, so trying to explain that we had married people involved too, which then sounded even worse. Hopefully Mohamed at least got in the end that ‘roamancing’ is about finding the beauty and (love) in the places, people and cultures we explore around the world.

Mohamed & Audrey on Egyptian Satellite TV

As an aside to that, Mohamed interviewed us for a couple of Shows on the Egyptian Satellite Channel, as well as hung out with us. He is an excellent interviewer and translator, and a fun and interesting person to spend time with. We had a good debate or two.

Despite Audrey’s new stardom and being the kind sole she is, she is still keeping Daniel Noll as her speaking partner (really, she is such a humanitarian . You can catch the two of them tonight (May 31st, 2012) in Vancouver speaking about their adventures exploring cultures around the world at the Future of Tourism talk that G Adventures and Planeterra are hosting at the Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts. The Talk starts at 6:45 pm. Here is where to get your tickets!

Hope to see you there!

PS. In Full Disclosure: As always, the opinions and thoughts shared here are our own and honest ones. We are bought out by no one. In the spirit of disclosure, it should be noted that on this trip, our expenses were paid by Egyptian Tourism, as a guest to the country and the UNWTO Media and Tourism Conference.