Our Great South African Adventure: Summing It Up.

So, that was our adventure in a lot of words. :) But if you looked at that and didn't want to read it all, or if you still want to see more pictures, I have posted some/quite a few of them to my Picasa Web Album. You can get there by clicking here.

Enjoy--we certainly did! :)

Our Great South African Adventure: Days 13 & 14

DAY 13

• Our last touring day! And it was a nice easy one, which we spent winetasting in the Cape Winelands. We visited three different wineries, and along the way also stopped at the Afrikaans language memorial, the prison where Nelson Mandela spent his last few years of incarceration, and two adorable towns, Franschoek and Stellenbosch. Truly a lovely way to end the adventure!
• Once Alex dropped us off and said goodbye, we chilled out for a while and then our group went out for one last dinner together, and then we ventured to Long Street, a nightlife hotspot in Cape Town. Our Irish girls had heard there was a great bar called the Dubliner, so of course we had to check it out! Bryan was fascinated to find a guy there wearing an Eagles baseball cap.

DAY 14

• And finally, it was time to go home. Our flight didn’t leave until later in the evening, so we did have some time to head back to the V & A Waterfront to do some shopping and have lunch and take a few last pictures. By this point I was feenin’ for some real American fast food, so I had to have the closest thing I could find—KFC! Which is apparently very popular there—I saw far more KFCs than I did McDonalds! And surprisingly, it tasted just like our KFC.
• We headed to the airport late in the afternoon and eventually settled in for our lovely 19 hour flight back to the US. Holy crap were my ankles swollen at the end of that, but, trust me, it was totally worth it!

Our Great South African Adventure: Day 12

Note: I'm posting the trip in increments of one or two days, so make sure you start from my first post and work your way backwards--just follow the titles!

DAY 12

• One of the main “attractions” of Cape Town is Table Mountain. I say attractions in quotation marks because it’s a mountain, not man-made, so not sure if that’s the right word for it. Anyway, Table Mountain is known for the amazing views of the area you can get from the top, and we all wanted to check it out. We were incredibly lucky after a week and a half of clouds to have a perfectly clear day! It was gorgeous. You get to the top by cable car. And if you are afraid of heights, I recommend either hiking to the top or wearing an eye mask. Because I am *not* afraid of heights and I was a little freaked out. It was, however, totally worth it when we got to the top—the view really was spectacular.
• After Table Mountain we headed to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope, which is the most southwesterly point of the African continent. Apparently this is THE place to take your photo, and for some reason I did not feel it necessary to hold my hair off of my face in spite of the insane winds. So, truly, I promise, I was there!
• After our photo op we headed up to have lunch at Cape Point, which is in the same general area, it’s just not THE southwesterly tip. And again, with the spectacular views!
• Next stop: Simons Town and the penguin colony! These dudes were so adorable. I could have watched them for hours.

Our Great South African Adventure: Days 10 & 11

Note: I'm posting the trip in increments of one or two days, so make sure you start from my first post and work your way backwards--just follow the titles!

DAY 10

• According to the itinerary we got from the company we booked this package through (a US company, not the one who actually conducted the tour in S. Africa), we were supposed to go on a train ride this morning on, like, the oldest steam train in Africa, or something. We were looking forward to that—not every day you get to ride a steam train, you know? Well, it turns out the info we got was a bit dated—the train has not been running for three years!!! I was bummed, but not as bummed as Bryan, who I had to drag away from the train station…
• We set out fairly early this morning for Oudtshoorn in the Western Cape region. Our first stop was the Cango Caves, a place that was cool but reminded me a lot of Luray Caverns. Of course, Luray Caverns doesn’t have an AWESOME story about a woman who was told she was too large to go on the “adventure trail,” which is comprised of several small tunnels in addition to more difficult terrain. This woman was offended at the perceived size discrimination, so she insisted on going anyway. Aaaaaaaaaaaaand, she got stuck. For ten hours. With 30+ people stuck behind her. My favorite quote from a woman in our tour group (not one of my traveling companions): “I don’t understand, why didn’t they just put a string around her and pull her out?” Right… because string would be strong enough, and also, I’m sure they didn’t think of that, what dummies!
• After the Cango Caves, we headed out for a delicious lunch of ostrich steak. Contrary to what you’d think (or what I thought, anyway), ostrich is red meat, not white meat like most birds. And it was probably my favorite new thing I ate while in S. Africa. Once we finished lunch, we went to the ostrich farm to play with these cutie pies. (Yes, eating ostrich BEFORE meeting the birds was intentional.) Did you know you can stand on ostrich eggs and they won’t break? Cool, huh? There was also an opportunity to ride the ostrich, which I would have done were it not raining (I didn’t want wet ostrich juice on my jeans for the rest of the trip). Instead we got to sit on them. By that time they brought out a blanket, so I would have ridden the ostrich with the blanket on, but our guide didn’t bring it up again, so neither did I. Then it was time for the ostrich race, for which we were the finish line! Luckily their jockeys knew when to put on the brakes so we didn’t get trampled by giant birds.
• We spent the night at the lovely Queen’s Hotel in Oudtshoorn. The afternoon was free for us to wander around, and while the town itself is lovely, everything was closed because it was some sort of national holiday.

DAY 11

• To recap: driving, driving, driving. I think it was like 6 hours from Oudtshoorn to Cape Town. We saw lots of great scenery, stopped at a cute shop for a break, had some S. African fast food for lunch. We arrived at our hotel in Cape Town late in the afternoon, and it was almost like coming home! We had been changing hotels basically every night (except for Kruger and Knysna, where we stayed 2 nights each), so being able to dump our stuff in our last hotel in Cape Town and not have to repack it as soon as we unpacked was GLORIOUS!
• That evening we ventured down to the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront for dinner and to check out the area. Our guide had given us a tip to take the public bus, which basically cost us $.50/each, so getting there and home was way easy. We wandered around (and around and around) while Bryan tried to figure out how to get some of our pictures off of the camera and onto a CD, and then we ate at the S. African equivalent of Applebee’s. At this point, fancy dinners were getting kind of old.
  

Our Great South African Adventure: Day 9

Note: I'm posting the trip in increments of one or two days, so make sure you start from my first post and work your way backwards--just follow the titles!

DAY 9

• Knysna (pronounced nye-zna) was GORGEOUS! In the morning we took a boat cruise over to the Featherbed Nature Reserve, where we got a ride to the top of the hill and walked down one side of the Knysna Heads, two sandstone cliffs that mark the entrance to the Knysna Lagoon. Talk about some spectacular views! Then we had a most delicious lunch of a bunch of things I couldn’t identify but enjoyed immensely. :) I know one of them was kudu, another antelope thingy. I ate a lot of those. :)
• The afternoon was reserved for the Knysna Elephant Park! I had been looking forward to this since we booked the trip. It was something I had discovered on my own, it wasn’t part of our planned itinerary, but our companions decided to come with us anyway. This was great, except I had every intention of paying whatever it cost to ride the elephants, and Bryan was on board. Our friends, however, weren’t as crazy about the elephant friends as I am, so they didn’t really want to pay that much, and it was going to be about 4 hours after we got there until Bryan and I would be done with that adventure, so we decided that we didn’t want to make them wait for us AGAIN. Instead we all did the meet & greet & feed with the elephants. We each got a bucket of food and drove out to where the elephants hang out. We fed them, and got to touch them and walk around with them for a while. Really when it was all said and done, I was satisfied with that, but I told Bryan he owes me an elephant ride at some point in our lives. :)
• We had the evening to ourselves, and we strolled around the waterfront and had a great Italian dinner—we were ready for non-South African grub! Afterwards we had a dip in the hot tub, where we totally overheated, and then had to go back and repack our suitcase, since we had dropped our laundry off to be done that morning.

Our Great South African Adventure: Days 7 & 8

Note: I'm posting the trip in increments of one or two days, so make sure you start from my first post and work your way backwards--just follow the titles!


DAY 7

• I couldn’t get enough of the wild animals, so Bryan and I decided to do another game drive, this time in the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park. The weather had finally cleared up the day before, so this was our first chance to see a beautiful African sunrise (since we left the hotel at 4am!!). We didn’t get to see the elusive leopard, but we did get a lot closer to the buffalo, and we saw more giraffes, zebras, wildebeests and elephants.
• Next it was back in the van for a long drive to Durban, one of the big cities in South Africa. Durban is known to have a fair bit of crime in the city, so we actually stayed a little north of the city in an area called Umhlanga. Linda dropped us off there just after lunch, and then he left us! We were sad to see him go, he was a great guide!
• Durban was the warmest city we had been in, and our hotel was a short 5 minute walk from the beach. Bryan and I grabbed a pizza and then headed down and relaxed a bit on the shore of the Indian Ocean. I was struck by the difference in their sand (if you can call it that) and ours—there it was basically small pebbles and shells. We didn’t change into our bathing suits before going down, but I did roll up my pants legs and get my feet in the water. When else am I going to have a chance to get in the Indian Ocean?! Bryan put his hand in… that was enough for him. :) It was VERY chilly, that water!
• Since the sun was out and our hotel had a pool, we did go back and put our swimsuits on and lounge by the rooftop pool for a bit. That was the only time the bathing suits came out. And, really, it was a little too chilly for them that day, but we were determined to make the most of it. :)
  

DAY 8

• Day 8 was a travel day. We were scheduled to fly from Durban to Port Elizabeth, where we’d meet our new guide who would be with us for the rest of the trip. Somehow our three travel companions had an earlier flight than us, so we got to sleep in a bit while they got to wait for us in Port Elizabeth. :) This was okay when they were only waiting an hour or so, but we encountered quite a debacle at the airport. To make a long story short, one of South Africa’s rugby teams had decided they wanted to go to P. E. that day, and they took over the flight we were supposed to be on. With all of their equipment, they were too much weight, so we got booted. Of course, South African Airways told us we couldn’t go on the flight because there was really bad fog in P. E. and the pilot HAD TO carry extra fuel and that was making the plane too heavy. When we finally did arrive in P. E. 3 hours later, the sky was clear, and Alex, our new guide, informed us that it had been beautiful all day. Nice. Alex would be with us for the rest of the trip, and he provided a whole different perspective from Linda. Alex’s parents were Dutch, but he had been born in S. Africa. His and Linda’s views of their country were similar, but there’s still a distinct difference (from what I could see) between white South Africans and black South Africans. It’s funny, because, as an American, it seems wrong to make that distinction in writing, but for them it’s very natural—apartheid ended just 15 years ago, so the separation is still very relevant.
• Next we headed to Knysna, where we’d be for 2 nights. We were now in the southern part of the country, and boy, is it different from the parts we’d spent our first week in! Equally beautiful, but in a totally different way. We arrived at our hotel in time for dinner, where Bryan and I both tried springbok, a type of small antelope. I liked it, I don’t think Bryan liked it as much.

Our Great South African Adventure: Days 5 & 6

Note: I'm posting the trip in increments of one or two days, so make sure you start from my first post and work your way backwards--just follow the titles!

DAY 5

• We headed out early, but luckily we had about 2 hours worth of driving through the park to spot a few more animals. Saw one elephant up on this rock mountain and watched him for a while—no idea how he got up there! I actually saw him before Linda pointed him out, but after you spend HOURS trying to spot wildlife in the brush, every rock starts to look like an elephant or a rhino, so I hadn’t said anything because I was sure no elephant could be up on a mountain like that. We also spotted a baby rhino with its mother (although it was behind the brush so couldn’t get a good shot of it), and just as we were about to leave I saw a mama elephant and her two babies about to cross the road. Precious!
• Once we were out of Kruger, it was on to Swaziland! Swaziland is a small country that’s landlocked by South Africa. It’s ruled by a king who gets a new wife every year. I think he’s up to 16, and he only turned 40 last year.
• Once we got through customs, we went to the Swazi Cultural Village, where we were treated to some traditional singing and dancing. I really enjoyed this afternoon! We also got to see how they used to build their homes and such, and had an authentic Swazi buffet lunch, which Linda told us reminded him of home. Good stuff!
• Our next stop was the Ngwenya Glass Factory, which was SO COOL. Well, I mean, it was really HOT in there, temperature wise, but watching them making things out of glass was really neat. I could have stayed and watched that for hours.
• We stopped by the Swazi market to get some souvenirs, and I was reminded how uncomfortable bartering makes me. Got some good deals all the same, and then it was to the hotel to check in and get some dinner. A few of us went over to the hotel next door and visited the casino. We played a little roulette, a little black jack… it was fun, but a casino is a casino is a casino, you know?

DAY 6

• On the way back into South Africa, we first visited the Swazi Candle Factory. Cool stuff there, but we were a bit early for the candle makers so didn’t get the full demonstration.
• Driving through Swaziland (and most of this portion of South Africa) was an experience in itself. In Swaziland there are people walking along the roads EVERYWHERE—including children as young as, say, 5 years old. Linda told us there’s no fear of kidnapping or anything, so that’s how the kids get from school to home and such. I was quite surprised when, in one stretch of about 3-4 miles, we passed no less than 6 little boys peeing. Like, right on the side of the road. I guess when you gotta go, you gotta go. There were also tons of cows everywhere—they’re not kept in any sort of enclosure during the day, they just round them up at night. Also, many people in Swaziland still live in thatched-roof, mud & stone huts that they build themselves. It’s fascinating to see.
• Our stop for the evening was St. Lucia, back in South Africa. We arrived to discover that we were sharing our hotel with the Harley Davidson rally! So that was fun. J We had a couple hours to chill out, then we went on a sunset cruise on Lake St. Lucia, known as a sanctuary to hippos and crocodiles. Dinner that night was VERY fresh seafood… so good!

Our Great South African Adventure: Day 4

Note: I'm posting the trip in increments of one or two days, so make sure you start from my first post and work your way backwards--just follow the titles!

DAY 4

• SAFARI DAY! Probably the day we were most looking forward to on the trip. And it did not disappoint! The weather sucked (again)—Bryan tells me it was in the low 60’s, but I would swear it was colder than that. But maybe he’s right, because 60 when you’re in an open jeep with the wind blowing and it raining off and on feels more like 45-50. Bryan had the good sense to make me bring a pair of his socks to use as gloves, and the tour company had plenty of blankets for us to use, so I survived. And seriously, when you’re on the lookout for/seeing all of these animals you’ve only ever seen on TV or in the zoo, being cold is the least of your concerns.
• On the subject of animals: The “Big 5” are the ones that everyone tries to see. They are: rhino, elephant, lion, leopard, buffalo. We saw all of those except the leopard. Which we were fine with, because we got to see a couple of cheetahs instead, and there are only ~200 of those in the whole park!
• We also saw: lots of giraffes and zebras and wildebeests, warthogs, kudu (a type of antelope), impala (another type of antelope, but more like our deer), all kinds of birds, hippos, crocodiles, baboons…
• Our guide was set on us seeing as many of the big 5 as possible. We actually got back about an hour late because we couldn’t find any lions, but then we came upon a pride of about 6 of them, then just a couple minutes later we encountered two females walking down the road right in front of us! They were on the hunt, and our driver hung out for a while to see if we could see them in action, but apparently they take their sweet time attacking, so we had to go. And I have to say, we were all disappointed not to get to see Mother Nature in action. Which was surprising to me, because I hate to watch anything die… but it’s weird, when you’re out there, you WANT to see that!

Our Great South African Adventure: Day 3

Note: I'm posting the trip in increments of one or two days, so make sure you start from my first post and work your way backwards--just follow the titles!

DAY 3

• Plan for the day was to see some of the natural wonders of this part of the country before arriving at Kruger National Park. Weather was worse than the day before—the fog was not making our photo ops look very promising.
• Bryan thought maybe if we gave the sun a little time to burn off the fog we’d have a better chance to see some things, so he “forgot” to turn in the key to our hotel room and didn’t “remember” until we were about five miles down the road. And since it was a real live key, not some plastic card thingy, we had to turn around.
• Bryan’s “plan” worked! We got to our first site, Blyde River Canyon, and we could SEE! We visited one area of the canyon called the potholes, and one called Three Rondavels. Truly a beautiful place, but I have a thing for canyons anyway… Next we tried to go to God’s Window, but it was so foggy that Linda drove past the entrance to it because the sign was hidden behind the fog. Yeah, we weren’t going to see anything from there.
• After a quick lunch in Graskop (at some crepe place, yum!), it was on to Kruger! We got to our camp, Pretoriouskop, around 5pm, and were greeted by a bunch of monkeys, guinea fowl and impalas running around the campsite. We stayed in a chalet, which in this case was a fancy word for “concrete thatched roof hut.” It was simple, but nice. Dinner was at the restaurant at the camp—I had some sort of venison stew (not sure what the meat was, but it was tasty), Bryan had a steak. It was Chris’s 60^th birthday that day, so Linda bought him a cake and a bottle of wine and the wait staff sang Happy Birthday to him in both English and Zulu. Cool, huh?

Our Great South African Adventure: Day -1/1 & 2

It ain't easy to summarize 14 days of adventure, but I've tried! I decided to post it in one or two day increments, but I'm going to post in chronological order, so, just make sure you follow the numbers in the titles. This one starts with Day -1 because our vacation actually didn't start until the day after we left. :)

Anyway, I present to you, our great South African Adventure!

DAY-1/1:

• We left on a Saturday, but didn’t arrive until Sunday evening. My dad was kind enough to drive us to the airport, which made life SO MUCH EASIER. Thanks again, dad.
• Our flight from ATL to Johannesburg was delayed for a couple of hours—probably because no flight out of Atlanta except the one you only have 15 minutes to catch can ever depart on time. Once we got on the plane, we sat there for another hour + because, as we later discovered, there was some issue with someone touching someone else’s leg and one of those people got kicked off the plane. Was dying to know if it was the toucher or touchee, but didn’t feel right asking.
• Arrived in Jo’burg several hours late, but that was alright. Had just enough time to eat and go to bed. Dinner at the hotel was tasty and we discovered that restaurant prices are about 50-75% of what they are in the US. Nice.

DAY 2:

• Met our guide, Linda, a South African guy from outside of Johannesburg. His family lives in the city but keeps ties to their tribal roots, so he was a wealth of knowledge and insight about black South African culture and history.
• Since we were in a tour group, we knew we’d be traveling with others, but didn’t know who they’d be. We met them Monday morning—two Irish girls on holiday together, Lorraine and Susan, and an Englishman doing the trip on his own, Chris. We were grateful that we got along very well with all of them, and they managed to not pick on us too much even though we’re American.
• Quick drive through Pretoria, the capital city. Stopped for photos at the parliament building, that was about it.
  
  
• Headed northeast en route to Pilgrim’s Rest, where we would stay for the night. Encountered so much fog that I had to close my eyes because not being able to see more than 3-5 ft in front of the van was freaking me the hell out. Thank God Linda knew where he was going.
• Arrived in Pilgrim’s Rest with enough time to walk around and check out this quaint village. The town was founded way back in the gold rush days for the miners, and they’ve kept that feel to it.
• Got shit on by a bird. Had to “shower” in a tub with only a shower head, no standing shower or shower curtain, because our hotel, The Royal Hotel, is intent on its authentic Victorian styling. Did not enjoy being shit on OR sitting in the tub that I was rinsing the bird shit into. “Showered” several times in a row until I was sure that pigeon poop was all gone. *shudder*
• A nice normal dinner of steak and some awesome dessert, then joined our traveling companions in the bar at the hotel. Supposedly it was formerly a church and the actual bar was formerly an altar, but we didn’t see it.
• Met JT, a native of Pilgrim’s Rest, in the bar. Apparently his dad Johnny owns the OTHER pub in town, and he came to our bar after he finished his bartending shift. JT looked a lot like Brendan Fraser (the actor), only he was huge. JT bought us several (many) shots to show us what “locals” drink, and a jolly good time was had by all.