South Africa - Western Cape

June 28 - June 30

On our final morning safari ride we saw a herd of rhinoceros. When we returned to the camp our ride was waiting to take us on the 2 1/2 hour drive back to the airport where we flew across South Africa to Cape Town in the western cape area.

We flew from the north eastern town of Nelspruit to Cape Town

The western cape was so different from the Kruger national park area yet so beautiful. We explored a number of areas on our few days there. My impression of the Western Cape area as we flew in was a large multi-fingered hand lying in a pool of water. There are many spiny mountains jutting out into the ocean with little towns and villages in the coves. We were looking forward to visiting some of these little seemingly isolated towns in our few days there.

A few of the places we visited in the western cape

Cape Town was originally settled by the Dutch East India Company in the 1650s as a resupply point for the ships sailing between the Netherlands and India. They provided inducements for the Dutch to settle farms in the regions; eventually the community grew to a point where they expanded from the original needs.

We had a little thrill when we got to the Cape Town airport: our driver was waiting for us holding up a sign that said "Thompson".  We've seen folks like this at airports during our travels but we've never been the ones waited for. We had about a 30 - 45 minute drive from the airport over to the coast where our hotel was. One depressing part of the drive was passing by an enormous shanty town. It was a vivid reminder of the poverty there.

Our home base for this part of the trip was Winchester Mansion, a fantastic hotel right on the coast in hotel row. Andrew and Henriët were honeymooning in Cape Town and transferred to our hotel the next day.  Everyone was so friendly and helpful; it was a delightful place to stay. It looks out on the Atlantic Ocean where there is a lovely wide walk way along the sea wall. We took walks up and down the sea wall every day of our visit.

Our hote, Winchester Mansions,l with the mountains in the back ground

View of the sea from Winchester Mansion (Google Map street view)

Everyone we talked to about Cape Town told us if it's a clear day scrap your plans and go to Table
Mountain. Luckily our first day there was brilliantly clear and it was the day we had planned to visit the mountain overlooking Cape Town. Our tour guide Chris picked us up and gave us a brief tour of parts of Cape Town on the way up to the mountain. We purchased tickets for the tram ride and got in line. In Portland we have a nice tram ride from the Willamette River waterfront up to the OHSU hospital. This tram was much, much bigger; I figure at least 75 people could fit inside. Plus the floor rotated 360 degrees on the way up the mountain.

I'm not a big fan of heights and was pretty jelly legged as we approached the cliff and got an idea of the immense scale of the mountain.

Aerial Tram up to Table Mountain

The nervousness was replaced by awe when we got to the top and walked around. The view of the city and coast was amazing. I agree if you go to Cape Town and a clear day presents itself, go directly to Table Mountain

Looking down on Cape Town from Table Mountain

Chris drove us around other parts of Cape Town on our way back to the hotel. Being Colored (multi-racial), Chris had interesting insights into the racial divisions in the country. His mother (about Carla and my age) was affected by the resettlement acts in the 60's, 70's and 80's. His mother's family was moved from their home in Cape Town and moved outside of the city.

One ramification of the resettlement was the development of an interesting public transit system used by the Blacks and Colored. Lacking a true metropolitan mass transit system, a plethora of small white van taxi/busses sprang up. We saw them everywhere. They don't have route numbers on the front and no published schedules or routes (as far as we could determine by our questioning). A driver will rent a van from a company each day and head out to pick up rides. As the vans would go by, a walker would hold his arm up/down/sideways and hold out a number of fingers. The driver would know from that code whether or not to pick up the pedestrian. On the corners of  major intersections we would see dozens of vans parked in the afternoon waiting for the rush hour commute. It's not an exaggeration to say we saw hundreds of these white taxi/vans.

We found a bottle of South African champaign and a basket of fruit and cheeses awaiting us when we returned to our hotel room. We opened the bottle and enjoyed the snacks. As we toasted each other we read the card to "Mr and Mrs Thompson" and it dawned on us that maybe this was meant for the other Mr. and Mrs. Thompson; the ones celebrating a wedding, not just an anniversary. Oops. We called down to tell them of the mistake but they assured us the gift was for us. Andrew and Henriët would have their own when they arrived.

The next morning we headed out for a group wine tour with Andrew and Henriët and a group of strangers who were soon to be friends. It was a bit cloudy and a good day to hit wineries. South Africa has a robust wine region; I recommend picking up some bottles if you are lucky enough to find them. We have found more and more in the past few years here in Portland.

The other Mrs. and Mr. Thompson enjoying the fireplace at a winery.

We took a break from wine tasting to visit the little town of Franschhoek about 30 miles east of Cape Town (on the right side of the 2nd map above). Henriët and Andrew had lunch with her Pa who lives and owns a business in nearby Paarl. Franschhoek was settled in the 17th century by French Huguenot's. At that time the area was inhabited by herds of elephants and was also known as "Elephant Corner".

The next day Andrew and Henriët headed out to attend a wedding of one of Henriët's cousins. Carla and I headed out on a tour of the cape. Our tour group was very international. Carla and I from the US, a couple from Italy, three women from Japan, and two women from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

We drove about an hour down to a couple of stops at cape point.

At the ... well you see where we are. South western most part of the continent

 We took a long hike up a paved path to get to the look out point.

Looking back north from our hike up to cape point 

 Cape point is not actually the post southerly part of Africa, but it is the "traditional" mark of the cape being the most south and west. It has a dramatic change between the Atlantic on the west and a large bay on the east

Big surf on the Atlantic side of the cape

Much calmer on the east side of the cape

This calm bay was known as False Bay or Skeleton Bay. Back in the day sailors would think they had reached the turning point around the continent and would get stuck in the very calm waters with little wind. Being unable to get out they'd have to abandon ship; the resulting ribs of the decomposing ships gave it the impression of skeletons, hence the name.

We headed back north to go to lunch. On the way we scouted for baboons. We found a couple. Baboons can be real pests in the neighborhoods. They can get into anything; even figuring out how a door knob or window works. When you leave your house you have to lock everything.  Baboons travelling through town usually have a group of volunteer monitors who helped keep them out of houses and such. This guy was just munching on the grass. As we got close our guide warned us to keep the windows rolled up and the doors locked.

Foraging baboon

At lunch we sat down at a table with the three women from Japan from our tour group.  One of the women, who spoke a little English, was working her way through the menu trying to tell the others what was on it. We joined in and read the offerings and described them. They were all interested in eating spaghetti so we found that part of the menu and explained the ingredients as best we could. The English speaking women is a nurse on a volunteer mission of some sort. Unfortunately, because she speaks so little English she can't work as a nurse in South Africa, but she still has opportunity to help. Her adult daughter and her best friend had come out from Japan for a visit. Like us, the first place they went when they arrive was Table Mountain.

Enjoying lunch with our new Japanese friends.

Our lunch companions from Japan

Interesting, the two groups of people we had the best interactions with were adventurous Japanese women. The other couple I may have mentioned in the safari post was a flight attendant for Dubai Air Lines and her mother. 

After lunch we walked up to a penguin colony. There was a nice little beach that was taken over by penguins a few years ago. They can't be disturbed, so people were displaced by penguins

Looking across a little cove. Notice the walkway to take for penguin viewing.

Penguins take over the beach

 We had one last stop before going back to the hotel: Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens The gardens are on the east side of Table Mountain, across the mountain from Cape Town. The grounds are festooned with walking paths. There were a couple of creeks that had very red water; I imagine from the minerals in the nearby mountains

Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens  = looking toward the eastern slope of Table Mountain. Yes it really is that green.

In the middle of the grounds is a large glassed in climate controlled building with a Baobab. These trees live for hundreds of years. Henriët tells stories of climbing in one on her sister and brother-in-laws property to the north west of Johannesburg.

Baobab Tree

Henriët is growing a bonsai version of a Baobab in their Chicago apartment. Here she is with it in summer of  2011.

Henriët and the bonsai Baobab.

South Africa - Safari!

June 24 - 27

We had a lot of fun in South Africa, but our trip to Arathusa Safari Lodge in Mpumalanga province rates as one of the best vacation weeks of my life. We took a 1 1/2 hour flight from Johannesburg to a small thatched roof airpot in Nelspruitt. We had a driver waiting for us and he told us to go to the bathroom and get a snack before we left because we had a long drive ahead of us. We headed out for about 1 1/2 hours on a small 2 lane highway; then we turned onto a very small paved road for 1/2 hour, then we turned onto a dirt road for another 30 minutes. We were very far out.

Map showing Johannesburg, Nellspruitt, and Arathusa Safari Lodge

Once again I was completely turned around on direction; I was sure we were headed south when in fact we were going north. Our relationship to the sun is very ingrained.

Arathusa Safari Lodge. The pin shows location of our hut.

We arrived at the lodge a little before 3:00 just in time to put our stuff away in our hut before the afternoon guided drive

Our thatched roof "hut" featured indoor/outdoor showers.

We jumped into our seats on the range rover and prepared to head out.

Our ride for our visit. Notice the rifle in the sheath on the hood

 About 1/2 way through the afternoon drive we stopped for beer, wine and appetizers. We took a few minutes to meet our tracker Roy and driver Brett.

Carla and me with our tracker Roy (left) and driver Brett. Roy sits on the seat on the hood.

Roy, our tracker, on the lookout for signs of leopard

It wasn't long before we came upon a pride of lions resting and digesting. Two Japanese women on our Range Rover later showed us video of the pride eating an impala earlier that morning. One of the women is a flight attendant for Air Emirates; she and her mother were on a vacation.

Resting, but watchful. Laying on their backs helps digestion; she was rolling back and forth

He looks like I feel Thanksgiving night

 Another group was at the site with us and I was taken by the size of the lenses they had. The lions weren't doing much so I thought I'd watch the watchers.

Watching the watchers, I immediately had lens envy

Soon after we drove off, we spied a couple of hyenas

One of two hyenas we saw working as a  pair. More of the pack may have been around.

We got back to the lodge around 6:00 where aperitifs were waiting along with hot, moist towels to  wash off the dust. It was then time for drinks at the bar with the drivers, trackers, and other visitors. People arrived and left every day. We ranged from 16 - 28 visitors during our 3 nights. Dinner was served in an open aired dining room at 7:30. The chef was a delight: he came out at the beginning and described the menu to us. One night we had wild impala; he told us "Two weeks ago the owner of the lodge shot a young impala and I've been aging it. I'm delighted to be able to serve it tonight" Dinner was 4 courses: appetizer, salad, main course, and dessert. Everything we had was delicious.  

After dinner it was time to retire

Our bed was surrounded by a mosquito net

Our wake up call came at 5:30, we quickly dressed and mustered at the Range Rovers for our morning drive. It was a cool morning with mists in the lower areas. But they had us covered. We had hot water bottles and blankets to keep us warm.

When I think of our Safari vacation these two pictures are the images I have in my head. We stopped for coffee and croissants just as the sun was rising

Sunrise on the bushveldt

A few minutes later in a slightly different location

We saw the bottom of the food chain. We had some of each earlier in the week at the Carnivore restaurant.

Impala

Kudu

Zebra

We got back to the lodge a bit after 9:00 and had the opportunity to go on a game walk with Du Beers; another of the trackers at the Lodge.  He carried a rifle that managed to make me feel safe and scared at the same time. Safe because he had it; scared because he might have to use it. I knew were weren't out for a walk in the park.

DuBeers led us on a game walk. Notice the rifle

 No sooner had we walked down a trail than we came across this pregnant giraffe.

Pregnant giraffe

DuBeers showed us lots of uses for things found in the bush. Elephants have poor digestion system and only digest about half of what they eat. DuBeers demonstrated a headache cure. He picked up some elephant dung and lit it on fire and "allowed" us to inhale the smoke. He also taught us to spit impala dung. They are little nuggets about the size of cherry seeds. DuBeers demonstrated and did pretty well, but a long term cherry stone and watermelon speed spitter from Georgia won. Yeah, that's right, I had impala dung on my lips.  I'm sure the trackers have a splendid time in their quarters swapping stories of what they could get the tourists to do that day. :)

After the nature walk we had some time to ourselves so we sat out on the cabana watching the animals at the drinking hole.

View of our lodge from across the pond

It took a few watchful minutes before  this giraffe knelt down for a drink.

A little after lunch we headed out for the afternoon drive. We headed out over the pond dam and immediately came across a herd of elephants who had just finished drinking. Notice the mom has her ears flared in a warning posture. The light wasn't great for this shot but notice that the oldest sibling on the right has pulled the youngest baby in with his trunk. The baby started to come over to check us out, but the older sibling seemed to be saying "let's let mom take care of this" Carla caught the action on video with her camera.

Mom checks us out while the others wait behind

We saw this same herd on another drive

Baby elephant walk

The older sibling still wasn't having it. After the others walked off through the bush he came back and put on a display, flaring his ears and waving our trunk at us. He wasn't doing it in a friendly way. He then walked over to a small tree and pushed it over with his head while keeping his eye on us. Roy and Brett told us to keep extra still and silent.

Brother elephant putting on a display.

Later we came across a couple of older male buffalo. The herd had left them behind because they couldn't keep up. Roy said in a few more weeks they'd be lion dung. He's been around a while; his ear is shredded and he chips on his horn.

Old bufalo. Notice the tattered ears and chipped horn.

On one of the first days we saw the back ends of some rhinoceros. But they don't like the lime light; we tracked them into the bush but they kept retreating into deeper and deeper brush. On our last day we finally found a family of white rhinos. Interesting story about how the white rhinos got their names. Their Afrikaans name is literally translated as wide-mouth rhinos. These rhinos have adapted to eat grass. The English misinterpreted the Afrikaans "wide" to "white", hence the name. The English then named the tree branch eating rhinos "black rhinos" because they were different from the wrongly-named white rhinos.

Once again the sun wasn't great for the picture. But you can't exactly move to the other side of them and pose them.  You can see they have poor eyesight just by looking at their eyes. They get pretty riled up if you sneak up on them, which is easy to do if you are quiet and come from the up wind side.

A couple of white rhinos.

The trackers and drivers really like to find leopards. We spent many hours tracking them with some spectacular results. One day we found a leopard stalking a herd of impala. The impala knew he was there and were raising a ruckus. Over a dozen impala were pointed straight at the leopard and snorting very LOUD. It sounded like a dozen locomotives releasing their air brakes. The leopard realized he had been discovered so retreated; we saw him as he started a wide circle around. We don't know if he was successful or not.

Something interesting is just over there!

Stalking a herd of impala. It walked very close to our Range Rover

 There was a pair of mating leopard while we were there. The female tracks the male and makes the first move. When a pair couples up, they mate every half hour for a couple of weeks. They make quite a racket. We found them just as the female caught up to the male; they took off into the bushes and then the roaring started

Looking for a mate

We also saw quite a few birds around the lodge.

 This is a "Go Away" bird. He gets his name for two reasons. First, its call sounds like Go Away, Go Away. Second that's what you want it to do  when you see it. If you are trying to stalk something and he sees you, he starts his call and your prey takes off at the warning. So you wish it would just go away. Finally, this one kept jumping up on the breakfast and lunch table looking for scraps. Eveyone would shoo it "Go Away!""

I'll leave you with a couple more beautiful landscape pictures. 

We had a great time.

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!