Out of the box!!!

Dear listeners and friends. I’m sorry to disturb my peaceful and honest chain of posts, but I just have to share this and make it public that everybody knows what is going on there…where? In Africa!!

If you ever receive an email like this:

DEAR “put your name”,

Praise our almighty God who has given me this chance to talk to you this day ,and who has also give you heart of good samaritan to stand with me .so be blessed my brothers,and sisters.yours in Christ, I PRAY YOU ARE FINE

How is everything now and how is every one at home? i believe you are getting along because i keep you in my prayers dear. How is family? i send them my love 

Now am in  needly of help yesterday i was  traveling in tax going in Uganda for conference but i got accident i broken my left leg, and my left hand even one of my eye are dameged and my 2 left rib broken .And we got robbed all our thing and phones so by now i dont have phone so dont bother calling i dont have phone lets use email for all cominnication.

Am in Mulago Hospital Kampala Uganda in  room 12 bed 14 and i dont know how much it will cost me becouse now its 2days but the bill rising now it is $450 i dont have even a coin,.
The big problem is here in uganda the the tretment is so expensive i dont know what am going to do becouse am adimeted now its 2day,   they are asking for money.the Doctor told me that if i get $2,450 they can take me to South Africa or to India for a better tretment that is the advise given by my Doctor i know God is there i will be helped

Now With your heart, I truly understand how painful my problem is to you. The Lord Almighty will always reward you people for all good things you do for this world. I imagine how your attention have been drawn to the suffering people like me now.

I cannot die if I know you might have a medicine to treat me. This is because I now you will help  me God Bless you.
Now let  me wait for your support .let me ask you if you are sending me some thing let me tell you to use thise details becouse me i can't walk as am sick but i got here  my best friend like  you who is helping me here in hospital he will go to bank and pick up the funds you are going to send to me i trust him so much as i trust you ,you can use thise details Use Western Union or Money Gram is better  safe and farster in Uganda where i am  now.OR you can use bank transifer if posible i will get the funds safely

Details for western union blow:

RECIVER NAMES    SEKALO MUHAMAD  SEKALALA
qstn             money for?
ans              BROKEN HAND

MTCN NONBER:

sender's names : 
Amount sent   :
Now for bank transifer is blow
Account name is           :MEDI  SSEKALALA
Account number           :5800118443
Bank and Bank address

                          Barclays Bank of Uganda Ltd
                          Plot 16 Kampala Road
                          P.O. Box 2971 , Kampala
                           LUGOGO Branch
Swift Code:              BARCUGKX

If you need

Correspondent/ Intermediary Bank if needed

                        Barclays Bank PLC New York
Swift code:             BARCUS33
ABA:                    026002574
Its good that here in hospital i got a friend he is a doctor MEDI SEKALALA  is working on me  he have a laptop connected on internet he is giving me  to send you email. I cannot die if I know you might have a medicine to treat me thank you.
-- 
Mr. “Whoever you might have met around Uganda or Kenya”

Or like this:

Dearest one,
I am more than happy in your reply to my mail, How was your day today?. Mine a little hot over here in Dakar Senegal.
My name is Miss Vero Murphy (23) years old,but age differences matter not. single and never married.i am from Sudan,in Africa and presently i am residing in the refugee camp here in Dakar Senegal as a result of the civil war that was fought in my country last two years.
My late father DR NATHANIEL MURPHY (names vary) was chairman managing director
MURPHY INDUSTRIAL COMPANY LTD, in Sudan the capital of my country,and he was also the personal adviser to the former head of state before the rebels attacked our house one early morning and killed my mother and my father in a  cold blood.
It was only me that is alive now and i managed to make my way to a nearby country Senegal where i am living now as a refugee.
And our region is not safe at all because of the rebel soldiers who are rapping women everyday and i escaped through the help of the unicef and red cross and i am now registered with the united nation high commission for refugees Dakar Office here in Senegal.
I choose to come to Senegal because i came once to Dakar three years ago with my late father because he was in oil business  I will tell you more about my family and everything about me when i am sure who you are and that i can trust you with my life as true friend and guardian,
My hobbies are reading and watching sports event like football. and I would like to know more about you. Your likes and dislikes,your hobbies and what you are doing presently,
Attached here is my picture I will tell you more about myself in my next mail.

Hoping to hear from you soonest!
Yours love
miss vero. 

Never send them anything and don’t waste your time communicating with them!!!

Although in the first case is kind of smartly done, because they somehow stole address of somebody else you know, so at the first glance you actually believe it…I was lucky enough that I ran a simple Google search and uncovered everything before I went too far and luckily they are dumb enough to use the same trick and even wording all the time.

So if you have some way how to put this online that all those poor westerners can Google for help, please do it…other blogs like this saved my ass J

Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge: World's toughest training?

Once we paid the entry fee there was no way back…only forward. And how to make the race the most enjoyable possible? Easy answer as per an old wise proverb “Tough on the training ground, easy on the battlefield” J

I consider myself as an OK fit guy, but this is not an OK competition!! I needed to get much further. And I couldn’t have possibly been in a better place for quality training than in Qatar, because here, disturbed by nothing and no one I could dedicate all my free time to training, because there is nothing else to do anywayJ

So how an average guy without any experience in such focused training does his best to prepare himself? First I read some basics about nutrition and need for regeneration after exerciseJ How to eat a lot of protein and carbohydrates or how to drink and feed during training and after. That was an easy part. I started cooking tuna and salmon, drinking milk, eat tons of bananas and sleep 8 hours a day!!

For the toughest part of the race, for the desert crossing, I just needed to extend the amount of running I was doing before to keep some shape for yearly Dubai 10k race. So instead of running twice a week 8k I started doing every second day 15km or two hours to reach 50km a week, which according to some literature should be the base for starting with 12 weeks marathon training plan. Running was also the most pleasure part out of the whole training. Rushing in the cool night under the full moon through the emptiness of the Qatari wasteland being pushed forward by rhythmic trance music beating exactly 12km per hour. So tranquilizing, healing, rejuvenating…ahhhh…J

I wanted to buy a mountain bike before, to be able to explore and look for hidden Qatari treasures and now I got the right impulse. And after couple of unsuccessful attempts to reach the Inland sea I felt badly that I haven’t been riding bike for two years!! Biking section is short in the race but I needed to get better at least a bit, so I started to do once a week 30km night ride to Messaieed along the lid highway and a longer weekend ride towards the Inland Sea.

For kayaking I could only add abdominal twist machine and more rowing to my usual three times a week gym workout and hope that it would be enough. Swimming I could exclude completely, because I immediately assigned myself as the weakest swimmer, therefore as a designated carrier of the equipment when the others will be swimming J And for Jebel Hafeet mountain scrambling run? I did nothing because running stairs would be too retarded and Qatar has no high building anyway!! Finish J So I had one day a week rest on Zikreet kitesurfing beach with 16 knots from 9am till dawn!! That was until six weeks ago…

But as it is always…nothing is idyllic for long and the inevitable started happening…I was being stationed in Qatar for good!! That means cancelling UAE visa, enter endless application process for Qatari residence, find own apartment, transfer Tiguan from Dubai, buy something into the empty apartment, etc…and with all the work in the office my training peace and routine was slowly being ripped apart!!!

Fortunately my training plan has not been stopped or destroyed, but only transformed. On the weekend of 22 & 23 of October the Challenge organizer prepared a two day training session in Abu Dhabi and Liwa desert. We had a presentation followed by answering questions about race details. After that we had a chance to touch and ride our double sea kayaks with sails. It was great fun because it was quite windy so my sailing spirit showed up when I was more trimming our tiny sails, than paddling J

At the evening we moved to Liwa, camped and Saturday early morning we did desert orienteering. There were 6 checkpoints around the base camp and we were supposed to collect as many as possible in six hours with one condition, that after collecting two checkpoints we had to return to the base. Full of energy we took first the easiest 9km triangle and completed it just below two hours. We were first back to the camp so with even more optimism we took another 9km one, but just after the start of running uphill in soft sand and emptying the sand from our shoes every few hundred meters we knew that this would be our last J We finished it in three hours and had a lot of worries going in our minds, especially about the sand in the shoes!! And those not running in the sand every week also “Where the heck can I find some asphalt!!”
But it got quickly suppressed in a chilling pool in Liwa hotel followed by wonderful buffet lunch. Definitely it was a fruitful weekend and a big help in our preparations. We knew more about the race details and could focus our training the right way and get proper equipment.

I got back to Doha and my settling down circus started in full speed. So I ran less, biked less, even to gym I was going less regularly. Instead I was going to see various apartments and fix car shipping paperwork. All that went painfully slow I started to feel that I’m losing what I gained and falling behind again. Until one day when I went with Envac colleagues including our Dubai general manager Graham for a beer. I knew that few people from the company were quite excited, when I told them what I’m going to do and were supporting me, but I didn’t know that it was that much!!

“Jiri” said Graham, “Envac would like to support you somehow in your race”. “That is very kind, but unfortunately our entry fee is paid and we got all equipment already also” I sadly replied. “Hmmm…and what about that we buy you a kayak, you will train on it and after that anybody from the company can use it and have fun” Graham suggested and I had to fight not to show too much excitement “Wow…that would be awesome!!” Although I didn’t believe it at the beginning, in a week I got beautiful orange double sea Q-kayaks Wanderer and because I managed to find a peaceful penthouse apartment in villa on the desert edge of Doha, I was ready to kick off the training full speed again. And this time in full quality also, thanks to the more than generous sponsorship of ENVAC Middle East J 

So how looks my training now? One month before the race? Every three days kayak. After office 15km and weekends 30km. Really feeling that my paddling style is improving every time I go and this is essential for paddling economically those endless hours we will have to.

Every three days running between 15-20km. Twice a week gym still including abdominal twist machine and 30 minutes of rowing and twice a week short bike ride 30km.

 I feel now quite ready and when I finish the training session I think that I could do twice as much. But when I look at the race schedule, I have to admit that I have no idea what is going to happen there. Six days in the row doing three times as much than I do now!! And faster than I’m doing now, because the racing spirit will come. But…signing up for this was definitely NOT a mistake. It will be fun, big experience and getting to know myself from a different side…I cannot wait J

Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge: World's toughest challenge?

Question on you now OK? It’s the end of August 2010 and somebody asks you “We do one six day extreme endurance race in December in Abu Dhabi. Some running, mountain bike, sea kayak and climbing. Couple of hundred kilometers. Do you wanna join our team?” What would you say? ;)

This exactly happened to me while sitting comfortably on the beach after relaxing kite session and it was one of my very good Czech friends Jaro who asked. I also knew the other two who were in already and they needed the last guy, another Czech and an Iraqi. Tough decision? Not really J “Wow…it looks amazing!! Count me in” I responded almost without thinking. I just saw a great fun with friends and some physical challenge, which I always wanted to prove to myself!

Easy to get in, but usually just few days later when you start doing some research, you realize that there is much more behind and that it might hurt ;) So what is 2010 Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge about?

Day 1: Short sections of running, canoe and swimming around Abu Dhabi Corniche and Emirates palace. Around 20km total. Transfer to Al Ain by bus followed by another 30km on mountain bike and more 6km running to the Camp 1

Day 2: 20km bike to Jebel Hafeet. Run & Scramble & Climb up and down the 1000m high mountain through dry valleys on the sides and finish in Camp 2

Day 3: Bike 50km on sandy tracks to Liwa Empty quarter and start running & hiking through the desert for around 50km until you stop for 8 hour obligatory rest and camp self-sufficiently in the sand

Day 4: Finish the desert section with another 50km to Camp 3

Day 5: Board a double sea kayak with small sails and go between the islands from Mirfa direction Abu Dhabi for 60km until it gets dark and camp on the deserted island

Day 6: After sunrise finish after another 60km in Abu Dhabi and get medals J

Whole race is also a navigation challenge, because using GPS and compass you have to be collecting checkpoints on the way. Some with given coordinates and the optional ones with just point in the printed Google Earth map!! There are strict time limits and everything is penalized.

Didn’t look that bad on the paper. Especially when I remembered myself doing some hiking with almost 3km of elevation and some 60km long. Running half marathon is also not a problem. I know nothing about kayaking long distance, but I felt pretty confident after I started going to the gym on July this year J So with the next three months of training it would be “Piece of cake” J

But when I considered it deeper and tried running 20km in the sand, I realized that I signed up for something I have basically no experience with. Extreme distances without rest for six consecutive days, team psychic, proper race nutrition…and when I added tons of strictly required and specified equipment which will be checked in technical verifications and when I also saw that this is not a fun challenge at all as I thought a bit, where people go to finish, because of all those professional athletes, iron man world champions and world record holder competing for 230000 US dollars in price money…I felt that I might have done a mistake!!

Luckily we got a sponsor Abu Dhabi Environmental Agency who paid the 2500EUR entry fee for us, so there is not that much at stake apart from our health and pride.

So this is us, ECO-RACERS (from left to right: Milan Seman [Czech], Jaro Prokop [Czech], Yasa Wadhai [Iraq] and myself J)

and only the race itself will tell if we did not take a bite too big to swallow J

Jan's visit Volume 2

There are two types of people. The first ones like “passive relaxation” which is supposed to make you body and mind rest by doing nothing or only by doing little physical and mental demanding activities. I found out that this just doesn’t work for me. After a day of doing nothing or little I feel even more tired physically and with feeling of wasted day in my mind.

Therefore I belong to the other group of people who like “active relaxation” which makes your body even more tired and your mind even more focused, but all this in a different way than in the everyday office life. So you return back refreshed for duty after days of not sitting on a chair and not thinking about who you have to chase today! Not mentioning that you can spend couple of hours showing pictures to your colleagues and have an additional break ;)

My brother Jan has the same opinion about resting, so when I made him come to visit me to UAE by giving him flight ticket voucher for Christmas, we had to get busy J And in UAE and Oman there plenty of places where to “relax”!!

So on Wednesday 8 of September I left Doha office at noon, quickly finished packing my 32 kilo bag full of climbing, kiting and outdoor gear and flew to Dubai. I almost met Jan in Dubai airport, because we landed both there at 6pm, but in different terminals and with different following destinations. He continued to Muscat by plane and I took my car from the airport, filled it with even more gear that was left in my Dubai apartment and headed to Muscat by road to pick him up J We finally met at 4am at Muscat airport and our 13 days pumped with adventure up to the edge could begin!!

First thing on the program was climbing and hiking in Wadi Bani Auf with famous Little & Big Snake canyons. Because there were public Islamic holidays together with weekend, so my friends from UAE could join us. But on Thursday we were there only with Robin, my friend from Qatar who was by chance on business trip in UAE. After only three hours of sleep we went up the wadi, refreshed ourselves in Little Snake canyon pools and headed up for La Gorgette rock climbing area for some afternoon stretching. Nicely tired we went back to Little Snake campsite and waited for the rest of the expedition with a can of cold one.

They arrived at 2am so after a while whole team was already gearing up for Friday action – Big Snake Via Ferrata with five Tyrolean crossings 100m over the canyon bottom.

It started very well when Jaro dropped his pulley down to the canyon at the first crossing, but fortunately Jan brought one more from Czech. So we had to continue 8 people with one pulley. At least we had more time for enjoying the stunning scenery below J Ehm…not that all of us welcomed this opportunity. After we finished Robin told me that he was whole way scared to death and that he hates heights. If this was true he was really brave, because we didn’t notice. But we all had a great fun day of riding the cables J

After the evening in typical camping fashion “All inclusive” with wadi Jacuzzi pools, three more people joined us and we drove back up to do the famous Big Snake canyon trek. Snake canyon is about 5 kilometers long, narrow and deep gorge with a stream flowing between huge boulders and creating pools. The trek goes simply at the bottom of the canyon following the current, jumping boulders and swimming through deep pools, even caverns!!

The fun part about the trek is, that once you jump down from the first boulder down to the pool at the beginning on the canyon, there is no way back and the only way out is the other canyon’s end J

So our group of 11 people headed into the more difficult version of the trek where you need a rope to climb down one section. And just at the start everything what we heard about the Snake Canyon’s beauty and the trek attractivity came true. Swimming in and jumping into crystal clear pools, fun climbing dry waterfalls and boulder formations or warming up lying on sun heated stones. Awesome!! For some of us it was even more thrilling because of no climbing background, but it was certainly outbalanced by the rest. But that just happened when somebody goes somewhere with me J

Only few people stayed until Sunday, so we went for climbing again to La Gorgette. Nice 6c climbing in the shade made a pleasant point after a relaxing weekend. And me with Jan, we moved on J

Around 4pm we drove up the winding dirt track out of the Snake Canyon up to the mountain pass and then down through the night desert to our new destination Masirah Island, Omani kitesurfing paradise. We arrived around midnight to the ferry port and slept hidden from wind behind the car. Good signJ But what was not a good sign was a crowd of cars trying, like animals squeeze onto the first morning ferry. We tried also, but we were not experienced in “vehicle mob” behavior, so we missed. Bit smarter and more aggressive we luckily fit onto the second which came right after the first, so after 2 hours on the boat we stayed at noon at the beach.

Wind was blowing 20 knots, but was quite gusty. We tried anyway, but soon we packed up and came looking for a Masirah kite camp. We found it easily and after a quick discovery that Alex, the camp’s owner, confiscated the best kite beach on the Island, we paid his fee and concentrated fully on kiting.

And that’s how it went for next three days. Sleep under the sky full of stars behind camp wind barrier, quick breakfast and at 8am already pumping kites. Beautiful strong wind until dawn, still a bit gusty but nothing major, flat and shallow water for kilometers rounded by sand banks. Perfect playground!!

Jan demonstrated that kite is like bicycle and you don’t forget it not even after a year of not practicing and was bravely riding on his own and successfully fighting the strong wind. And me? I was in heaven!! Doing bigger, higher and longer jumps, practicing grabs and other tricks…having loads of fun!! We were leaving tired, sun burnt, scratched everywhere, but happy and so relaxedJ

We cleared 1000km to Dubai in 8 hours, so the next day we could have met Jaro and company on my secret Yas Island kite beach. There was not much wind, but enough for 60kg Jan to have a couple of runs. “So much easier in this kind of wind!! Everything works by itself” happily added Jan when we were rounding on Yas leisure drive. It was nice to be back on Yas after a while and see that after one year from official completion date, it is really getting finished, working, nice and useful!!

Time was flying fast and we had so much energy left, so on Sunday early morning we drove to Wadi Tawiyan to climb famous route Jebel Jebel (60m, 6b). Nice, exposed and sharp climb, but I would rate “attractivity-wise” higher one double pitch overhung 6a just next J Question of personal tastes!!

After that we moved to dry Wadi Bih as last year. This time it was one month later, so it was quite pleasant climate down there. We did one easy 90m traditional route, for Jan to get taste of real trad climbing and drove back up to the pass where there was 10 degrees colder and camped. Grill, chairs, cold beer, star-lid sky…UAE classic J The next day we did one 3 pitch 6b+ sport route “Generous Americans” and Jan led another long traditional route on 90m crag. Awesome relaxing two days high on the cliffs…

Unfortunately our loyal and reliable towing car provider Rune, got problem with his vehicle, so we had to shift our UAE desert trip to the last possible day and hope that Asian engineers keep their promises. So instead we made a backup plan and went to Aquaventure waterpark and Lost Chambers. This was also one of the activities which was for a long time available to me, but I’ve somehow never found time to go J We have not expected anything, but after 5 hours flew by we had to admit that that riding on a tube through lazy rivers, rapids, slides and spiral chutes was superb fun. And with a break in dark aquarium exhibition Lost Chambers we went nicely tired home and enjoyed a cold beer looking on shiny Dubai towers.

The last day we were lucky enough and did what we planned, the UAE crown free time activity, quadbiking in the Empty Quarter of the Great Arabian desert. We rented two 700cc Yamaha Raptors in Abu Dhabi and drove another 200km to the desert for 5 hours of sandy fun.

As a motorbike rider Jan quickly got used to motorbike on four wheels and tricky shifty dune terrain, so we could challenge the highest dunes in the area including famous Moreeb dune. “Amazing point after even more amazing holiday” sighted Jan on the top of the dune overlooking Moreeb. I had to agree. We watched sunset coming and dunes casting shadow over our second vacations in UAE.

I had to fly back to Qatar at 2am to be back at work at 7am and Jan stayed one day more, drove by metro to the tallest building in the world, saw Dubai from 134^th floor and flew back home also. We were sad that it is over, but happy about that everything went even beyond expectations and most importantly relaxed despite being in action every day of those two weeks…and also full of plans how to continue with our new tradition of holidays in adventure style, because that is our way to be J