South Africa - Wedding and Amanzingwe Lodge

Thursday June 21

[BLOG TIP: You can click on any of the pictures in my blog to get a bigger and better blown up image]

We left town mid morning and headed to Amanzingwe Lodge where the wedding was to be held. Amanzingwe translates to "where the leopard sleeps". You may need to click on the image below to get a better view of the map.

Amanzingwe Lodge; north west of Joburg;  just north of the Cradle of Humankind

I think I've said it before on the blog but when I look at the map I realize just how lost I was the whole time. I would have sworn we were headed south east of Johannesburg. I think it is a result of my subconscious tracking the sun when calculating directions. Since we were in the southern hemisphere the sun was in the northern sky instead of the southern sky.

The lodge was a great place with wonderful food. In addition to the chapel where the wedding was to be held, there is a large dining room and some accommodations. All the buildings have thatched roofs, which was interesting to live under. All the buildings have very tall lightening rods. Guess they don't want to risk having lightening hit those thatch roofs.

The lodge and living accommodations. Notice all the lightening rods. 

The vegetation is incredible. There is an arms race between the animals and the plants. The thorn trees sport spikes as long as my little finger.

A thorn tree in our front yard

We got there in the early afternoon and Henriët had organized a game drive at a local preserve. This preserve keeps the predators in fenced areas and the plant eaters can graze unmolested


Angie was our driver; she is an animal lover who has been working at the game preserve for a couple of years. 

Angie; our driver

 Our first stop was a pond with three hippos. They were across the pond when we drove up but they quickly turned our way and swam over for a closer look.
Click the pictures to get better views of the images.

Getting the stink eye from mama hippo

The only animal that kills more people in Africa than hippos are mosquitos. Angie warned us to be quiet and stay seated. If they started to get out of the water she was going to roar out of there. One of the hippos gave us a little warning display; I was a bit slow on the camera.

An open mouth display showing teeth is a warning

A few minutes later we saw a giraffe grazing. It shows why the thorn trees have developed the thorns; but they don't seem to faze the tall grazer.  We saw a large picture ad at the Johannesburg airport featuring this very giraffe.

Grazing and gazing

 Of all the animals we saw on our trip, the giraffes were the ones who actually looked at us the most.

Pretty girl

 Then we came upon a mama elephant with two kids.  They had handlers nearby and the allowed us to got up close and touch them. It was very eerie to be next to an animal this large. At one point she decided to turn around and graze elsewhere. She didn't say excuse me or start slowly; she just turned like we weren't there at all; we had to jump away quickly. The ears are very soft.

Me, Carla, Jeff, Henriët, Jeanette, and Andrew petting an elephant in South Africa!

We went by the areas where the lions, leopards, and hyenas were; the cats were busy patrolling their territory and growling at one another. One of the leopards only had 3 legs. One night it fell asleep with its leg sticking out of the fence. A lion came along and bit it off. I bet that was a loud night.

Friday June 22 - Wedding Day!

The big day arrived! This was the primary purpose of the whole trip. Andrew and Henriët were married! Apparently the bride has to go through a lot of preparation on her wedding day; the father of the groom, not so much. So, Trix, Heloise, and I took off in Engela's baakie (small Mazda pickup truck) to check out the dam that creates the huge lake.

A short distance from the lodge we saw a man selling fish on the corner. We took a closer look on the way back. He catches fish up at the dam then dresses them and hangs them up near a small smoky fire to dry. He said he easily sells 20 a day.

Fish monger , South African style

When we got back to the lodge, Henriët's sister Jeanette (family name Donet) had arrived with her husband Willi, and kids Daniël (pronounced "donyul"  more or less) and Julia. The parents bought Daniël a bald eagle toy for the drive and he spent the weekend playing with it, correctly demonstrating the eagle's call.

Henriët's nephew Daniël enjoying Amanzingwe

And then it was time for the wedding. The ceremony was done half in English and half in Afrkaans and included a lovely message from the minister. Andrew and Henriët have performed at countless weddings so they were pretty clear on what they wanted for everything, especially the music. They hired the Johannesbury Philharmonic Brass Quintet. In 3 words; they were a maze ing. 

I didn't take too many pictures since there was a professional photographer there. For some stunning pictures by Chrisopher Munton, check the link.

Jeanette, Henriët, Andrew, Carla, Howard

Henriët's family:  brother Ben, Jeanette, Andrew, and sister Jeannette (Donet)

Jeanette, Engela, Henriët, Andrew Heloise (auntie), Mia (cousin) Jurgen (uncle) and wife.

South African weddings are very similar to American ones. The biggest difference is they cut the cake immediately after the ceremony. Then they left for a photo session. After that we ate a great meal. Another Afrikaans tradition is that when the groom starts to make his speech he is immediately interrupted by a boisterous song. The words basically translate to "children by the dozen". Carla, Jeff, and I wondered what it was; we had a great laugh after it was translated.

Saturday June 23

The next morning we all packed up and headed back to Johannesburg. As I've mentioned, South Africans are very hospitable. Even though we had just met Adrian and Irien's family they treated us like one of their own. We were invited to LaCell and Heidri's home for LaCell's birthday party. We got to watch a good part of a South Africa v. England rugby match. Given the history between the English and Afrikaans this is an intense rivalry. South Africa won the 3 game series 2-0-1. 

Dinner started with a delicious bowl of squash and bacon soup; the main course was ox tail poikie (stew) which is LaCell's favorite; I can see why.

LaCell's best friends were there and they had a great time hooting and hollering at the game. During dinner his friend (name?) who comes from Durbin told us stories about when he served in the South African / Angolan war. One night when they were in base and bored they made a bet to see who could get closest to a wild elephant (not like the tame elephant we had gotten close to). They dipped their hands in a lime solution, and snuck up on the elephant to plant their hands as high up the elephant's back side as possible. For days after, elephants could be seen with large hand prints on their butts. 

LaCell's best friend and his wife

 Jones, Adrian and Irien's son was also there and showed us the metal work he had worked on since we saw him last. When we saw him at the braai, he showed us the plans. It still needs some finishing. He'll do a set of them for a wall.

Jones displaying his metal work

We went to bed and prepared for our safari!

Exploring Johannesburg and Pretoria

We hit 3 major areas of South Africa during our visit. We started in Johannesburg, went on safari farther east, headed down to Cape Town for some touring, and then headed back to Joburg before our flight home. The map might help give some context.

Henriët's Tannie (Auntie) Engela totally took care of us for our touring in Johannesburg and Pretoria between our arrival and the wedding. On our second full day, Nolls came by in a nicely outfitted van to pick up Carla, Jeff, Andrew, and me.

Engela and Nolls discussing the afternoon's events. 

Nolls is a certified South Africa tour guide. The certified guides have to pass some rigorous tests on general South Africa history, cultures, geology, and geography and specific tests in the area they serve. You can tell the certified tour guides by the green, black, red, and yellow badgest they wear. We had quite a few of these excellent guides during our trip and they were all excellent. We had a great time talking with Nolls about South Africa.

Our first stop was the Cradle of Humankind.

The purple pin shows the Cradle of Humankind. The "A"pin shows the approximate location of Linden where Irien and Adrian live.

A number of hominid fossils were discovered there including "Little Foot" a near complete Australopithecus skeleton which is 3.3 million years old. This is the oldest hominid fossil yet discovered.

In the cave where Little Foot was discovered

The view from the Cradle of HumanKind site.

Another site was a mound that looked like a snowy peak. Actually it is the tailings of a gold mine. I think in recent years they've invented a method of extracting more ore from the tailings so they are going back through it.

Gold mine tailing in the distance. Adrian worked in this gold mine when he was young

 After our tour, we headed to lunch where we met Engela and Trix. Jeff's long term goal has been to eat as many different types of meat as possible. So Engela organized a lunch at Carnivore. We ate chicken, pork, crocodile, impala, kudu, and zebra.  I had some of everything, but couldn't quite get my head around the zebra. It's like eating a donkey. But Jeff was in food heaven.

A nice serving of chicken livers for Jeff and Andrew

Jeff's kind of restaurant!

The next day (Thursday June 21) Nolls picked us up again and we headed to Sammy Mark's historical house near Pretoria. Sammy Mark was born in 1843 and was a very successful business man in the 1880's. He had five children and was set to bequeath his estate to his kids. But he had two conditions. They had to graduate from college and could not marry outside the Jewish faith. Not one of the kids met his conditions so he disinherited all of them. All the better for us I suppose. The house was fully furnished showing how a mansion of the 1880's operated. There was a huge cast iron stove in a very large kitchen and the biggest pool table I have ever seen. On the side of the room there was a raised couch where the participants sat and had their shoes polished. There are spittoons aplenty.

Sammy Mark's historical house

Engela follows my Burger Project blog and arranged to meet us at the best burger joint in Pretoria: Ed's.

Carla, Jeff, Andrew, me, Engela, Trix perusing the menus at Ed's

The burgers were indeed wonderful. An interesting South African touch is that you can order them with "veggies" instead of fries. Veggies in this case meant roasted squash and creamed spinach. I went for a combo of fries and onion rings. Also you dip your fries in "tomato sauce"; however, it's a name thing like "chips" for fries. It's just another name for ketchup

 After lunch we dropped in to visit Henriët's Ouma  (grandmother) Tikkie. She is a wonderful person. She offered us tea but we just visited for a few minutes before heading out on our late afternoon adventure.

Engela, Jeff, Carla, me, Jeanette (Ouma), Andrew, Trix

To cap off the day, we headed to the Voortrekker Monument Voortrekker is Afrikaans for "those who trek ahead". When the English took over the coast lands of South Africa the Afrikaans headed inland and went many different ways. Their wagons looked very much like our pioneer "prairie schooners" (or Conestoga Wagons). Pretoria is about a mile above sea level so they had quite a trek indeed.

The inside of the monument has a series of friezes which depict the trek and the settling of the area.

Voortrekker Monument

I don't have space to cover all of South Africa's history in this space. A nice article can be found here in Wikipedia. It covers prehistoric times of the Bantu people settling and developing into the San people. And continues up through Dutch arrival, the English arrival and the battles between the two nationalities. It also includes information on apartheid and it's ending.

Next article: the wedding!

Burger Project - Humdinger

Visit date: July 21, 2012

So much hope; so much potential; so disappointing. When the Sunset Highway is jammed up in the morning I sometimes take Multnomah Blvd to Barbur and pass this cute little burger joint. And back in the day when the kids were little we'd go to the Humdinger near Sunset High School. But before you can get the question out of your mouth "are the 2 Humdingers related?" you get a curt "No". I guess they've been asked that question a few times. Apparently they were related about 45 years ago, but not today.

It was only three of on this day: Howard, John, and Jay. Jay missed out on our last couple of visits because he was up at Hood Canal. Since he was in town, we wanted to make sure we could get out. Ray and Norm were travelling.

Looks like a perfect burger joint

Just 4 tables inside. More seating outside.

 Everything looked great on first inspection. I like that we got extra root beer for our floats.

Look at all that bacon! Too bad it tasted bad. Greasy fries and notice the cheese that broke in half.

Looks good. But in actuality. Not so much.

The Oregonian Top 10 Classic Burger had this place rated 7th, which is about right; but had them above Stanich's and Dea's In-And-Out. No way.

Ratings

Burger

John

Nothing great about this one. Bad 'american' cheese (two of them.) Not good to start with and not melted. The sesame bun was dry. Skimpy amount of shredded lettuce. Mayo is the special sauce. Tomato was there. The patty was dry. This was a bacon burger and this is where, I guess, the management tries to make up for the rest of it. This thing had a fistful of it sitting on top of all the rest. Usually I wouldn't complain, but there was too much of it, it wasn't particularly flavorful, and it was over-cooked a bit, really curled up, increasing the size of the whole thing. Overpriced mediocrity.

Jay

IThe huge burger was all flash (It looked really good at a distance) and no form. American cheese (or maybe it was Velvetta Cheese) makes better trout bait than burger cheese. The 6 strips of bacon were too much and over cooked. There was no secret sauce and the meat was dry - a solid 3.

Howard

All show, no go. Looked good at first with a huge pile of bacon. But on further review the bacon was charred and hard. The American cheese was poor quality and non at all melted on the burger. Bun was a little stale. All in all just a crummy hamburger. I didn't even finish.

Side

John

Crinkle cut french fries. Nice color. The centers were mushy. Okay taste.

Jay

Just your average tots.

Howard

Okay tots.

Drink

John

Chocolate shake. Soft serve ice cream. Plenty of syrup. Good taste. Overpriced.

Jay

It was a really good soft ice cream root beer float. It came with extra root and adequate ice cream.

Howard

It was nice that I got an extra cup of root beer to add to the ice cream as I made my way through the float. Hard ice cream would have been better.

Atmosphere

John

Kind of a cool, older, roadside burger joint. Homemade, DIY decor. Very compact, yet lots of seating, in and outside. Clean.

Jay

The outside tables, benches and umbrella poles were sticky. The old plates used for baskets were unique.

Howard

Definitely a summer place; just 4 tables inside and a few outside spots. This could have been rated 4 or 5 for ambience, but the tables were totally grimy.

Service

John

Nothing special

Jay

The counter guy was friendly and had a good patter. The service was very slow. It took about 30 minutes for our order to appear.

Howard

Long wait; cashier wasn't rude but had a bit of an attitude

Overall

John

It was a beautiful day. The place was okay. The meal was not.

Jay

The meal was entertaining, but the food wasn't part of the entertainment. It was interesting to check out one the Oregonian's top burger joints. The overall dining experience was average.

Howard

I had such high hopes but they were dashed to the ground like so many helpless puppies. OregonLive had this place ranked 7th. I'd rank it at the bottom of the places we visited, maybe tied with Mike's Drive-In.

South Africa - First Days

Travel

If I was asked to sum up our South Africa vacation in one word, that word would be "hospitality". Everyone, our new extended family, family friends, tour guides, and the staff at the various establishments we visited, were incredibly warm and welcoming.

Our plane was due to take off from Portland early Saturday morning June 16.  We were so excited that we did what we've done one other time: Friday night Starr and Linda dropped Carla and me off at a hotel near the airport. That way we could sleep a bit more and have the shuttle drop us off right at the gate. Jeff met us at the airport Saturday morning. Andrew and Henriët were waiting for us in South Africa

Since it was the first weekend of summer vacation, everybody was flying somewhere. We booked our flights on United Airlines but the flight overseas is operated by South African Airways. We freaked out a bit a couple of days before we left. Even though we selected our seats when we booked our flights in early Spring they didn't show up when we reviewed our reservations. That meant we couldn't check in on-line and resulted in a 1+ hour wait in the check-in line at the United counter.

PDX Airport. First Saturday of summer vacation = 1 hour check in line

Our trip over consisted of 3 legs. First we flew on United Airlines from Portland to Washington D.C. Then we checked it at the South African Airlines counter and to our relief got our originally assigned seats. The South African Airways flight stopped in Dakar, Senegal to drop and pick up passengers, refuel and resupply. We couldn't get off the plane so had about a 1 hour wait. We landed in the middle of the night. Then we flew over the south Atlantic, Namibia, and Botswana to eventually land in Johannesburg, South Africa

The 3 legs of our flight. If the airport in Dakar were any further west it would be in the ocean

Our airport-to-airport travel time was about 27 hours so we were well and truly jet lagged. We arrived early Sunday evening and after making it through passport control and customs we were greeted  by a good sized welcoming party. In addition to Andrew and Henriët, her mother Jeanette, aunt (Tannie) Engela and family friend Trix were there with balloons, flowers, and lots of hugs. We piled into two cars, Jeanette's Mazda and Engela's "Bakkie"(light pick up truck) and headed into town. 

Arrival

Our accommodations were fantastic. Jeanette's best friend Irien Ferreira and her husband Adrian (aka At [pronounced "Ot"]) had a house at our disposal. They have a compound with their house and a guest house. Their daughter Heidre lived there for a few years until her recent marriage. It was so nice to have a home away from home. 

Adrien and Irien Ferreira's compound. They live in the back house
 and had the run of the small house in the right hand side

We found the kitchen larder fully stocked with foods we love. Lots of breakfast things along with bits of biltong, a type of jerky made from kudu.

Kitchen of our house. It was well stocked with goodies

People could tell from the X's in our eyes that we needed sleep! We crashed early in comfy beds and slept late. Monday morning was pretty laid back. We relaxed and in the early afternoon Henriët and Andrew dropped by to say hi. We stretched our legs on a walk around the block and then headed to the mall to get some sun glasses for Jeff.

The Braai

Have I mentioned how welcome everyone made us feel? On our second night, At and Irien organized a braai for us. A  braai is a South African cross between a pot luck and barbecue. It's often an all day affair where people bring food, play games, hang out and generally have a blast. 

Adrian and Irien's kitchen with some of the braai fixins.
Andrew, Carla, Jeff, Henriët, Jeanette, At, Irien.

After having some delicious South African wine in the house we adjourned to the back yard. The picture below doesn't do the back yard justice. Just behind me is a huge covered area with a giant table, the built in braai and dart board. 

Looking at the back yard from the covered area.

Me, Andrew, Henrët, Carla and Jeff hanging out.

Adrian fired up the braai with a full bag of charcoal on the bottom with nice dry oak or similar wood on top. After it burned down a while he put on the meat: beef short ribs, lamb, and pork. That's right 3 types of meat. 

The braai in action

After a bit Adrian and Irien's daughter Heidre and her husband LaCell dropped by with a bottle of champagne.

Le Salle and Heidre

 Shortly after, their son Jones dropped by after work. He's a fun guy. He runs a metal fabrication shop and showed us a design for a piece he is working on.

Adrian and his son Jones.

Irien telling stories about growing up in Namibia

Irien grew up in Namibia which is north of South Africa. Adrian loves going up there to fish on the Skeleton Coast.  Even though the Bushmen called it "the land God created in anger" it sounds like a beautiful country; we talked with many people who regularly vacation there. Irien's family were pioneers in that land. They had a homestead which her mother managed while her father travelled. At one point Irien's mother wanted to raise sheep but were having problems with the local lions making lunch out of them. No worries, her mom just hunted and shot the lions. That is a tough, tough woman.

After enjoying a salad and appetizers in the back yard we adjourned to the dining room and had a feast. It was delicious. Everyone was so gracious and wanted to know about us and America. We had a fantastic time getting to know our new friends.

Burger Project - Rock Creek Corner

I'm late with this posting and I'm late getting my South Africa pictures up. I've narrowed my pictures from our trip from 2,000+ to 74 and will get them up soon. In the meantime I'll get our ratings for Rock Creek Corner tavern up with a minimum of intro.

18515 NW West Union RD Portland, OR

On July 7 Ray picked out the Rock Creek Corner tavern; the burgers were fantastic. It used to have another name back in the 90's when he and I worked at PCC and went out to Rock Creek campus for meeting periodically. We never went in, and now it has changed hands and been revamped. It is really a good place for a burger. Jay was up at the Canal so missed on on the great experience.

Macalya, our server is fantastic

Jeesh; you'd think after taking over 2,000 pictures I could get a snapshot right. I should have had the flash on. 

John, Ray, Howard, Norm - Macayla knows her way around a camera. Nice picture.

My root beer float - no milkshakes available. I love A&W root beer

A b urger with onion rings!

Oh my what a great hamburger. The bacon was perfect; the sauce was perfect. Look at that cheese perfectly melted on the patty.

Ratings

Looks like we loved it!

Comments

Burger

John

Perfection. All the parts and pieces were just the way I like them. Buns really moist and fresh, meat juicy,ample, cooked medium. Lettuce, tomatoes, onions, pickles, all good. Special sauce tasty too.

Ray

I think this was one of the best burgers I have ever eaten. The meat was perfect and the bun was outstanding. There were two large crispy pieces of bacon and melted blue cheese. The sauce was very tasty and not over done. The overall burger was moist, but not overly-juicy. It was just a one-napkin experience. The fixins were on the side - crispy fresh lettuce, tomato, pickles.

Norm

Very Good Burger. Excellent Bun, nice juicy and flavorful Patty. And lots of stuff to go with it. The onion ring was ok too.. but I would not have missed it

Howard

This is a fantastic hamburger. Bacon Cheeseburger is not a standard menu item; I had to order a regular and add the bacon and cheese. The bun was perfect size and texture; the bacon was cooked to perfection as was the patty. The special sauce was scrumptious and the condiments were fresh.

Side

John

The fries were also very good. Crisp, cooked through, browned nicely and not overly salted. The two rings were included with my order and I wasn't expecting them. They were also good. Crisp, not very greasy as some can be. .

Ray

Good fries. Large fat, cooked just right. Firm and brown on the outside and well-done on the inside. Nothing fancy, just really good.

Norm

Good well cooked and seasoned fries.

Howard

Standard fries

Drink

John

I.P.A.

Ray

beer

Norm

Beer from Mac & Jacks in Yakima

Howard

Root beer float

Atmosphere

John

This place is a one-off restaurant, as are most of the ones we have visited. It has an 'old- west' vibe to it. Very comfortable and very quiet as we were the only ones in the restaurant part of it. Tin ceiling, farm tools etc. added to the flavor.

Ray

I like the atmosphere. It appears old but it is clean. There are some tasteful decorations, but nothing too gaudy or in bad taste. We sat in a booth, which was very comfortable. They played old time country music (Johny Cash), which is not my favorite, but it certainly fit the establishment.

Norm

Washington County faux old Tavern. Nothing really stands out.. and since we were the only folks in the place at noon plus 30 on a warm saturday, well you get the picture

Howard

I've found that the places we go to fall into two basic categories: burger joints and taverns. This is a tavern; a nice one. Not many people there; I think maybe only one other set of customers.

Service

John

Friendly, eager to help with our research endeavors. She didn't write any part of the orders down when taking them. I always find that impressive, especially they get it all right.

Ray

We were the only ones in the restaurant part, perhaps there were folks in the bar. The wait person was very friendly and smart. They have regular table service and she was the only one we interracted with.

Norm

Macayla, our server, was energetic, enthusiastic and very efficient. (of course since we were the only folks in the place she didn't have much else to occupy her time)

Howard

Macayla was very fun and enthusiastic. She took good care of us.

Overall

John

To me, this was as close to what I would hope to find in a casual dining experience. Clean, quiet, comfortable place with good fare served by friendly, efficient people.

Ray

We had a very good dining experience. Also, they seem to have an interesting menu. There are a number of things I would like to try next time. The prices were a little high, but this was not your typical fast food burger and, in my opinion, it was worth the price.

Norm

Howard entertained us with tales from his recent trip to South Africa. The food and drink and service were very good.

Howard

A great place to go for a great burger - as long as you want beer instead of a shake.