Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Cape Town

Table Mountain with table cloth
When you see photos of the beautiful cities of the world, (Rio, Vancouver, Hong Kong, and Sydney) Cape Town is among them.  The ocean hugs her front and Table Mountain rises at her back.  She is glorious - from the mansions that perch on the mountainside overlooking the city and harbor to the shanty towns near the airport.  This is a city of contrasts.  In the city center are world-class shops, Bentley and Rolls Royce car dealerships, and jewelry stores (think diamonds,  diamonds, diamonds).  At the outskirts are the townships with small cinder block houses and shanty towns build of cast off wood and corrugated steel where most of the Blacks and Coloureds live.  (Honestly, these aren't racist terms, but legal and socially acceptable terms here.)  Wealth and poverty exist side by side.  There's 23% unemployment in South Africa and that doesn't include those who have created subsistence businesses washing cars, cutting hair, dressmaking, etc.  Enough of my social/political views for now...

King Protea
Table Mountain is often shrouded in clouds, known as the "table cloth".  As we approached Cape Town Sunday afternoon we learned the weather was clear so the bus raced to the tram hoping for a chance to ascend to the top when while we had
the opportunity.  It was cold and very windy, but the views from the top did not disappoint.  We'd been there about 45 minutes when the siren blew, notifying us the tram would soon be closing due to excess winds.  Our visit was fortunate as no one has been able ascend since due to high winds and clouds.


Langa Township
We've seen the city and surrounds as part of our Grand Circle tour - Table Mountain, the Cape of Good Hope, Langa Township with it's 50,000 poor to middle-class inhabitants, the African penguins at Boulders Beach, the beautiful Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, Victoria and Alfred Waterfront and wine tasting at the Stellenbosch Winelands.  It's been a grand visit.  Tonight we have our farewell dinner as our travel mates leave in the AM for home.

Terri and our new friend Jay
Rand and I will stay on three more days before meeting friends and family in Tanzania for our Serengeti safari.  We'll rest up, get our laundry done and see a few more sights.  Tomarrow we plan to sleep in, then I've got a haircut and pedicure scheduled.  Boring - right?  We're planning a tour to Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was held prisoner, and have booked a white shark cage dive - weather permitting.  Good god, what have I gotten myself into this time?  They assure me it's quite safe.  Maybe the wind will come up and the boat won't go out.  More on that later, assuming they are right about it being safe...

Saturday, October 27, 2012

The Garden Route





Smack in the middle of the Garden Route along the southern coast is Knysna, a beautiful holiday town on the Indian Ocean.  We're spending three nights here, enjoying the amazing ocean views, touristy shopping and some interesting outings.


Yesterday we drove inland, just beyond the coastal mountain range, to an ostrich farm and a cheetah preserve.  Touristy?  Yes, but again an enjoyable experience.  First we were introduced to the ostrich life cycle and their commercial products - leather, meat, feathers and eggs.  Then those of us below a "certain weight" had the chance to try an ostrich ride.  Fortunately I qualified (barely) and enjoyed a thrilling few seconds racing around a small arena on ostrich-back.  You'll have to wait for the trip video to enjoy a good laugh  at my outstanding ostrichmanship.

After a lunch of ostrich steak (excellent by the way) we headed for a Cheetah breeding preserve.  Cheetahs are the rarest of the African cats and the preserve is raising the cats and releasing the young in the wild in an effort to increase their numbers.  It was thrilling to be close enough to see and photograph these beautiful creatures.

Today we took a boat across the lagoon to a wilderness area where we had fabulous ocean views and a short hike.  Both Rand and I enjoyed the chance to stretch our legs and fill our lungs.  I actually reached an aerobic heartbeat for the first time on the trip.  We both agree Overseas Adventure Travel trips are more our style than the Grand Circle land tours which seem to cater to an older clientele and slower pace.  It's nice to know there's still a group we're a bit too young for!

Tomorrow Capetown!

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Shakaland and Beyond



It was a long bus ride through Swaziland then a border crossing back into South Africa and into KwaZulu-Natal Provence where we arrived at Shakaland for the night.  This is model of a traditional Zulu village built as the film setting for the TV miniseries about Shaka Zulu, the great chief and warrior who united the Zulu people in the 1800's.  The area has been maintained as a destination resort and cultural center where contemporary Zulus demonstrate traditional village life, music and dance.  Is it hokey?  A bit, like a Zulu Disneyland, but like Disney it is well done.

 Cultural Oops - We think of ourselves as pretty experienced travelers but cultural misunderstandings still happen.  Here's our most recent.  We checked into our Zululand native hut and discovered one barely double-size bed.  That's pretty tight for the two of us so we asked our guide to see if he could get us a room with a king or two beds.  He replied, "I have a double and can trade with you."  I responded, "We have a double, so there's no point in changing."  After a nearly sleepless night as the two of us hammocked into the center of the tiny bed, Rand again mentioned to the guide our disappointment in our accommodations.  Just then we realized he'd offered us his "double" the night before - double meaning a room for two, not a double bed.  Duh....

We bused to Durban (sleeping most of the way in our bus seats) where we boarded a plane for Port Elizabeth on the Indian Ocean.  This is an industrial port city with a beautiful city center with Dutch influenced buildings.  We notice lower walls around the yards and less barbed wire than we've seen in the residential areas since Johannesburg and many more white people than we've seen for a week.  We're in the British influenced area of South Africa (v. the Afrikaans/Dutch area).  We enjoyed a wonderful seafood dinner last night and a beautiful hotel room.  It feels like we're back in civilization - but not for long.  We were off to the Addo Elephant preserve this morning.

Addo didn't disappoint.  We saw elephants, eland, cape buffalo and innumerable other animals.  This is the southern most animal park in South Africa with the big 5 plus 2 - the great white shark and the southern right whale as the park's southern boundary is the Indian Ocean.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

The Kingdom of Swaziland



Goodbye Kruger Park.  Hello Swaziland.  In a million years who'd have thought they'd ever end up in a place called Swaziland?  Well, here we are in what may be one of the most beautiful places in the world.  A small country nearly completely encircled by South Africa,  we're surrounded by green fields and trees, smiling people and granite topped mountains.  By tradition the king of this country of about a million people is supposed to select a new wife each year.  He doesn't discard the previous ones, he just adds another to the family. The current king is suffering criticism from his people for not keeping up with tradition as he's selected only 13 wives so far, skipping the opportunity the last few years.

On the surface this is an idyllic place.  The people are relatively prosperous, unemployment is lower than South Africa, everyone we've met speak English and the crafts are superb.  (I suspect an international marketing consultant has visited and given advice on product design and display.)  Sadly, beneath the surface all is not well.  Education is free through 6th grade but families must supply the uniforms and some can't afford them.  People are sick with HIV/AIDS - fully 25% of the population is infected, the highest incidence rate in the world.  Many children are orphaned because one or both of their parents have died.  We shopped at a local food market this morning, then took the food to an orphanage where we prepared lunch for the children.  It was a moving experience.

Tomorrow Zululand and no Internet so we'll be out of touch for a couple days.

Friday, October 19, 2012

Lions, Leopards and Wild Dogs, Oh My!


The ride from JoBurg to Kruger Park took us through beautiful open country - the Africa of diamond, gold and coal mines.  Sadly there was no evidence of the diamonds or gold, but the cooling towers of the coal fired electrical generating plants were plentiful on the horizon.  A turn off the main highway and we were on the Panoramic Route which took us along the Klein Drakenburg escarpment with wooded canyons, sheer sandstone cliffs, beautiful rivers and stunning views. This beautiful countryside is a stark contrast to the crowded city. We arrived outside the gates of Kruger National Park after dark.
Five AM seemed early but the game was waiting.  We'd no sooner driven through the park gates when we were greated by cape buffalo, impala, elephants, giraffes and zebra.  The rains started a couple weeks ago so the grasses, shrubs and trees are green limiting game viewing, but not enough to keep our guides from pointing out 4 of the big five (elephant, lion, cape buffalo, rhinosauros and leopard) within a couple hours of entering the park.  I was astonished at the number of rhinos we saw - probably 10 -12 the first day alone.  Apparently efforts to curtail poaching have been successful.  The leopard eluded us until the last half hour of the second day when we spotted one in a tree.  She slowly made her way down from the tree and walked across the road just in front of our vehicle.  It was a magic moment.
Perhaps the rarest sighting we had was the female wild dog feeding her pups just beside the road.  There are only 5 packs of these rare animals in all of Kruger Park and we saw them - truely amazing.

Kruger Park is the largest and second oldest game park in South Africa.  Like most southern African parks the shrubbery and trees make game viewing a challenge.  It is set up much like our national parks - good roads, plenty of reasonably priced accommodations and camping areas within it's borders making it very accessible to the people.  While South Africans drive around the park in their own vehicles, tourists like us stay in beautiful accommodations outside the park and enter in safari vehicles - 4 wheel drive, open air vehicles with high seats for viewing.  We loved our time here but look forward to our next adventure, Swaziland, as we continue our "Highlights of South Africa" tour this morning.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

26 Hours Across the Sea

Twenty six hours door to door from our home in Surprise to our hotel in Johannesburg, South Africa - the melody to "26 Miles Across the Sea" keeps swimming through my head...  Whatever, it was a LONG flight and a modicum of jet lag still muddles my thinking.
We're in Johannesburg, the largest city in South Africa.  We arrived at a gleaming clean airport, met by a modern bus, wide streets and what appears to be a cosmopolitan city.  Our hotel is lovely, nestled among the rugby, soccer, lawn bowls and cricket fields.  Joburg is a new city, founded  in 1886 when gold was discovered here.  It was a rough and tumble town then and still is.  Though some areas are fairly safe, the yards are surrounded by high walls with razor wire at the top.  We're discouraged from leaving the hotel at night - no problem as we're early to bed catching up on our sleep.  We're not in Kansas.
Our first outing was to Soweto (South West Townships), a Johannesburg suburb, the location where 7 year old Hector Pieterson was killed by police in 1976 during a school children's march to protest the government's decision to teach in Afrikaans, a language unknown to most Blacks.  This event ignited the massive protests which eventually overturned apartheid almost 20 years later.  It's not that Hector's death was unusual in those days, it simply happened to be the event that coalesced the grievances and brought world-wide attention to the terrible injustices in South Africa.  Example - not only were Blacks and Coloreds (a South African legal term for people of mixed race) restricted to living in the townships and homelands, required to carry identification with them at all times and be out of the White neighborhoods before dark, but at the time the government spent 42 rand/yr on a Black child's education and 644 on a White child's.  After all, why would a Black child need to learn mathematics - (s)he'd never have cause to use it.
Today Soweto is home to 2-3 million people, primarily Black.  Desmond Tutu, Winnie Mandella and other notables live there.  Nelson Mandela has a home but now lives in the East Cape, near his childhood home.  There are relatively wealthy areas with large homes and fenced yards alongside shanty towns with homes made of corrugated steel and families sharing common water sources.  Much of the housing is small 2-4 room government provided cinder block houses, often inhabited by extended families of 15-20 people.  Many are still awaiting to be assigned one of these homes.
When I was here 11 years ago the shanty towns seemed to predominate and people were very optimistic that the new South African government would rectify the injustices of the past.  Things haven't improved as quickly as hoped. In recent weeks SA is experiencing massive protests and yesterday all public transportation was shut down due to a strike for better pay.
Today we took in the Apartheid Museum, the Voortrekker's Monument and Museum and the legislative capital in Pretoria.  With the places we've visited and the lectures from our guide we've been pretty well steeped in the history of this country.  What makes this so very fascinating is to compare the history with the current events...  More about this later as we continue to learn.
Tomorrow we leave history/politics behind as we drive through the Klein Drakensburg escarpment and arrive at Kruger National Park.

Friday, October 5, 2012

Follow Our Travels


Welcome to our Africa 2012 travel blog.  My husband Randall and I will be traveling in Africa until the end of November. 

Interested in following our adventure?  Simply enter your E-mail address in the area titled Follow by Email on the right hand side of this page and follow the directions.  You'll receive a confirmation E-mail.  Once you accept that you'll get an E-mail each time we update our Africa blog.  You can always unsubscribe later if you want.

We start our travels in South Africa, then join a group of friends in Tanzania for a safari, on to Zanzibar, and finally to Victoria Falls before returning home.  Our itinerary, links to news in the countries we'll be visiting, etc. are available on this (home) page.  

We don't know how often we'll be able to connect with the Internet, but hope to keep you up-to-date with photos and text whenever we can.