survivor africa : the winter edition

the teams were chosen. (natasha/danielle/ashley = team 6) the purpose made clear - hit up each of the stations and don't get frost bite... try to win at each station - but no one's really counting - so decide for yourself what that means... natasha, danielle and i discovered pretty quickly that they should have taught us how to actually follow a GPS rather than just how to turn the things on.

step 1: team 6 needs to lead lynn to the mine fields -- we fail miserably - 45 min later - we find the small field in the opposite direction --
result: lynn gives us top marks for eventually getting there.

step 2: lynn gives us her GPS system (we now have 2) and we make our way to the "helium stick" station... it was much easier to get to - and although we weren't the first group there - we DID win the challenge --- lower a stick to the ground with each member of the team having 2 fingers with direct contact on the stick --- harder than it sounds.

step 3: task -- build a fire that is sustainable enough to boil a pot of water so you can make hot chocolate. since the fire was in the snow we knew we had to build a base - we then made a pretty little teepee and lit the birch bark --- jeff let us do what we wanted until our fire went out -- then he taught us how to make a fire in the snow (get rid of the teepee... have a base / then birch bark / then small sticks / then add the big stuff later) our fire was made - we boiled our water - and drank our hot chocolate -- ash and all.

step 4: we had to make a shelter - as this was our last station and we were competing against ourselves - we won... mostly cuz we could steal everyone else's materials - and the points don't matter anyways :P but it was fun... we even managed to squish the 3 of us into the shelter for a picture - snowshoes and all...

step 5: hot dogs and campfire stew as a big group... lots of fun - got to know people we're going with --- i have the names down pat at least... well - as much as you can have names down when everyone is in winter gear :)

apparently we really like polar temperatures... preparing for the kenyan heat by playing in the north bay winters... all in good fun :)

some of the people going to kenya with me...