Mom's Visit

Last week my awesome mother came to visit me! After picking her up from the airport after a 10 hour flight from Dubai we dropped her bags at the res hall where I stay and taxied to Lion's Head Peak. We hiked up during sunset, made it to the top just as the day's light expired and ate some dinner at the top. As the city lit up below us we relaxed and enjoyed the full moon. We even saw Saturn! I was so proud of my mom for not letting Jet-lag effect too much of her trip by deliriously hiking up a mountian, ha!

We spent the week checking out the city and beaches in the Cape Town area. We packed every day to the brim and pretty much crashed every night. During the weekend we made our way to Kruger National Park. We stayed at a very intimate Lodge within an area called Marloth Park just 30 minutes from the southern Kruger Gate. Marloth Park actually used to be part of Kruger until around ten years ago when they  removed all the predatory animals and built a fence around the Lodges. As a result there were zebra, giraffe, impalla, and all sorts of bucks literally in our back yard.

We spent Friday on an all day driving safari in Kruger and saw some amazing things. No more that an hour into the day we came across a fresh lion kill. The kill (a warthog) was just feet off the road, and was being devoured by the male lion while three females eagerly circled waiting for their turn (even though they killed it).

After a full day of seeing elephant, giraffe, rhino, water buffalo, hippo, crocodile, lion, deer... pretty much you name it, we made our way back to the lodge and had a well deserved full nights rest. On Saturday we relaxed by the pool to recharge our batteries before leaving for a night drive within the park.

What do you know, once again we see a lion within an hour of entering the park. The night drive consisted of a drive into the park at dusk followed by two hours of searching for animals via spotlights. Definitely cool to see both sides of Kruger. We saw a pretty wide range of nocturnal animals including bush babies, hares, owls, and hyenas.

On Sunday we spent a large part of the day traveling back to Cape Town. My mom got a kick out of the budget airlines I booked us through... we flew Kulula Air there and Velvet Sky on the return flight.

During the  next week we continued explore the Cape Town area, as I took her to the spots I felt she had to see. On Tuesday we rented a car and toured the Cape peninsula. We visited Hout Bay (where the video below was taken), Simons Town (penguins), The Cape of Good Hope, and made our way back up the peninsula through Muizenberg to show her where I surf most of the time.

In Hout Bay there is also a bird and primate sanctuary which was unexpectedly fantastic. They had many different species of birds and animals, and even allowed you to play with the bolivian squirrel monkeys.

Of course we also made our way up the cable car to the top of Table Mountain. By Wednesday we decided that an upgrade was needed from sleeping on the floor of my flat in the UCT residence hall. We booked a room at the Westin in town and had a relaxing final evening of her stay. During the week we made tons of friends with the merchants/mini bus/taxi drivers, laughing the whole way. Somehow there were no hitches along the way and the things we did during the two weeks she was here are definitely high on my list of favorite experiences in South Africa.

Hermanus, South Africa

This past weekend around 20 students in my study abroad program that live in the Residence Hall went on a trip to a town called Hermanus just an hour and a half South East of Cape Town. The town is famous for its whale and white shark sightings which become very frequent in September-October... and it definitely lived up to its reputation. We spent Saturday lounging on a tiny beach watching whales probably 100 yards from shore.

We had a very relaxing day hanging out with a seal that happened to be doing the exact same thing as us. That night we had a braai at our hostel and after a couple games of pool I was ready for a good night's sleep. The next morning a group of us woke up, had a quick breakfast and went for a hike in the foothills of town. We made our way up to a dam/reservoir where we jumped in off the bridge in the picture below to cool off. Hermanus made for a well deserved relaxing weekend after a packed week of school.

Zambia - Victoria Falls

As I described in the previous post we spent Sunday night through Friday afternoon in Botswana as well as the two weekends of the trip in Livingstone, Zambia. Livingstone is a large town just 15 minutes from Victoria Falls. It is largely supported by tourism and trade, as it is the closest town to Zimbabwe in the area, and a 15 minute drive from Botswana and the extended arm of Namibia.

We spent Friday evening through Sunday morning, as well as the following Friday evening through Monday morning in Livingstone at a Backpackers Lodge called JollyBoys. Jollyboys was the perfect accommodation for us at $8 a night, with free rides to the Falls, and tons of information on activities at the Falls. 

 Jollyboys had a restaurant/bar that was pretty popular at night. There also was an awesome common area to hang out, read, and talk to other backpackers about travel plans.

Friday night we went into town to get cash, buy groceries, and check out some shops. The currency in Zambia is called Kwacha and has inflated to the point where $1 US = 5,000 Kwacha. So in order to pull out any real amount of money you are going to be withdrawing into the hundreds of thousands... I took out 1.5 million Kwacha ~ $300... To put it into perspective, their smallest bill is 50 Kwacha worth around 1 US cent, and their largest bill is 50,000 Kwacha worth around 10 US dollars. You end up leaving the cash machine with a wallet that won't close and a head full of conversion rates. At one point I had 4 currencies in my wallet: US dollar, SA Rand, Botswana Pula, and Zambian Kwacha... all accepted pretty much anywhere in Zambia.

Saturday morning we caught a 10:00 am ride to the Royal Livingstone Hotel. The Royal Livingstone is an upscale hotel that sits above the falls on the shore of the Zambezi river. From there we took a short boat ride to Livingstone Island, a patch of land above the falls in the middle of the Zambezi, the size of probably half a city block. Once on the Island we met our guide who would take us for a morning dip in Devils Pool. He walked us to the edge to take pictures, have us sign an indemnity form, and give us the safety talk on how to get to the pool. In order to get to the pool we had to swim across a pretty mellow current, stopping several times to make sure we still had everyone, and in about 15 minutes we made it to the pool. Everyone jumped into the 10x10 ft pool literally on the edge of the falls and had their fill of the sublime.

     Right about here I understood why we signed an indemnity form, but the current wasn't strong enough to sweep you off where we were sitting. 

     

After hanging in the pool for about 15-20 minutes we waded back to the Island and had breakfast. That Saturday was spent wondering if we started the trip with something that couldn't be topped, which certainly wasn't the case. Saturday evening we went on a Sunset cruise up the Zambezi River where we unexpectedly saw tons of animals. The tour lasted about 3 hours with legit finger food, an open bar, and a beautiful sunset to top it all off.

Sunday morning we woke up early and were driven to the boarder where our Botswana portion of the trip began. We returned from Botswana Friday evening and spent the night cooking dinner and hanging out at Jollyboys. Later in the evening we ended up going out to a couple local bars. On Saturday we woke up bright and early for a day of rafting on the Zambezi. The day consisted of 25 rapids ranging from class 3-5, with lunch at #10 and a braai at the end of the day while we checked out the footage. On our boat with us was a Japanese guy our age named Rio who was also staying at Jollyboys and our guide Babyface. We had a great day and ended up not flipping once despite the 5 or 6 class 5 rapids (pretty much just luck).

Sunday morning we ate breakfast at a restaurant in town and took a taxi to the Falls. After walking around the trails on the Zambian side below the falls, we made our way to the edge of the falls. After poking around for a bit we quickly realized that in order to venture around the edge of the falls it would probably be a good idea to get a guide. We found a group of guides and got one to take us along the edge to a pool appropriately named Angel's pool. Our guide was great, he took pictures the whole way, and let us choose how long we wanted to hang out at the pool. 

After the falls we went into town and bought some crafts with the remaining Kwacha we had. Sunday night we went back to the Royal Livingstone for a relaxing final evening. We had some overpriced drinks, watched the sunset, and recapped the whole trip. Monday morning we went back to the craft market to pick up some last minute gifts and took a taxi to the airport. 

We had an amazing week and a half that I will never forget.

Botswana - Okavango Delta and Chobe National Park

Spring break was awesome! We got back on Monday and I have spent much of this week catching up on school so I haven't really had time to post. Anyway, our time in Zambia and Botswana was so great I am going to have to break it up in two posts. 

After Arriving in Livingstone, Zambia and spending Friday through Sunday there, we took a taxi to the Botswanan border and ferried across for around 30 cents. After a brief ferry ride across the boarder we taxied to the Kasane airport in North Eastern Botswana. We boarded a 70 seater Air Botswana plane with no more than 20 people on it including the 5 of us and the flight crew. The hour long flight took us from Kasane to Maun where we were picked up by a tour company called Delta Rain and taken to their campsite/backpacker lodge. 

     At the ferry boardering Zambia/Botswana there were smugglers taking 2L coke bottles filled with gas back to Zambia. Our taxi driver told us authorities just turned a blind eye and took a nice tax for every load they took over. There was all kinds of corruption at this boarder including the fact that the government won't build a bridge to gap the river so that bribes from trucking companies would still be paid. The ferry was basically a barge that fit 1 semi-truck, another pick up truck and however many passengers could fit. There was a line-up of over 300 semi-trucks on the Zambian side, so officials on the Zambian side were probably making some nice money off of the bottleneck.

Once at the Lodge just outside of Maun we chilled by the pool for the afternoon (Sunday) and went to bed early. The next day (Monday) we woke up early and were driven out of Maun and along one of the fingers of the Okavango Delta until we reached the meeting point for our Mokoro Polers. The Delta is obviously a protected area so the least harmful/best way to get around is by mokoro, a 15-20 foot long dug out canoe (some made of fiberglass these days) driven by a local guide with a 15 foot long pole to propel the mokoro by pushing off the bottom. That day we took a relaxing mokoro ride into the Delta towards our campsite for the next two nights stopping to check out an Elephant on one of the many islands of the Delta. When our guide used the word Delta he would draw out the EL sound to the point where every time I type it it is hard not to write Deeeelta. 

Anyway, once we made it to our campsite we spent the day swimming, napping, going for an uneventful evening game walk and talking to our guides about the plan for our stay in the Delta. It was around 90 degrees during the day so cooling off in a nearby watering hole was key to survival. 

Tuesday morning we woke up with the sun and went for a mokoro ride to Chief's Island, the major island in the Delta where the majority of animals reside. On the walk we saw springbok, red lychwe deer, warthog, baboons, many birds, hippos, and all kinds of animal tracks, kills, and poop. We once again spent the day trying to stay cool and in the evening went for a sunset mokoro ride in search of hippos. We ended up seeing a couple hippos and were sure to keep our distance so that we didn't become another one of the stories the polers told us about. 

On Wednesday morning we woke up for morning game walk, returned to camp, packed our gear and departed for another relaxing mokoro ride back out of the Delta. Wednesday we went to town briefly, hung by the pool and went to bed early due to exhaustion and the ridiculous sleepiness that 1 beer causes after a long day of traveling. On Thursday we flew back from Maun to Kasane and took a taxi to a backpackers lodge on the Chobe river. We checked in hung by the pool, and at around 4:00 pm jumped on a safari vehicle which took us to our Chobe sunset cruise.

The section of the Chobe river that we toured was the most densely packed natural collection of animal life I have ever seen. We saw probably 10 species of deer, tons of birds, crocidiles, hippos, elephants, giraffe, water buffalo, monitor lizards, monkeys etc. Below is a video of where we landed the boat to check out the elephants munching on some reeds in the afternoon sun.

     Definitely got uncomfortably close to this croc, I was sitting in the front of the boat which was almost on top of him, 5-10 feet away.

           Pretty much everywhere you turned there was some group of animals either close by or in the distance.

       Too many baby/mama animal pics for this blog but I think this was one of the better ones.

On Friday morning we went on another game drive in the Chobe National Park early in the morning, hung by the pool, and had lunch at the lodge. When it was time to head back to Zambia, we went to the front desk of the Lodge to call a taxi. When we got there they told us the phones weren't working so we decided to hitch hike. After no more than 3 or 4 cars passed by, a guy pulled over and told us he was heading to the boarder as well, and could easily give us a ride. We got in and started talking to him. He had a Tupac chain hanging from the rear view mirror, he was bumping Tupac the whole way to the boarder, we soon found out he had recently named his son Tupac and the conversation the entire way to the boarder was about the life and death of the godfather of thuglife. Needless to say Botswana treated us very well with an very wide spectrum of experiences.

Spring Break 2011 #2

Today is officially the first day of spring in Cape Town! Somehow I got lucky enough to have two spring breaks in one year. For this break, which starts tomorrow, I will be traveling to Victoria Falls and The Okavango Delta. The trip slowly fell together in the past couple weeks and it is awesome to say it is finally here. I will be traveling with the same group I did shark cage diving with, which will make for great times. I am leaving tomorrow Friday the 2nd of September and returning Monday the 12th. Below is a Google map of the trip (it will probably be easier to see with this link). I have written a short description for each point and travel between points, hope it isn't too confusing!

View Spring Break in a larger map

Today I went to the mariner's wharf and beach in Hout Bay with two friends. Two twenty minute mini bus taxi rides for around $2 brought us to this functioning port/fish market. We poked around the marina, checked out a couple shops, ate some delicious fried hake and chips and then settled on the beach for an hour or two.

The beach was surprisingly undeveloped given how picturesque it was and pretty underpopulated despite it being Sunday. Just to the right of the picture below were massive sand dunes that looked exactly like those in Cannon Beach, Oregon.

Overall pretty relaxing day except for the ridiculous ride home. After being jammed in the back row of a mini bus that legally seats 17 uncomfortable people, one fairly intoxicated woman decided to pick on the Americans. She first jokingly said "I know you are rich, pay for my taxi," this turned into her trying to teach us one of the local languages (Xhosa) and by the end of the ride she had asked me to come on a date with her and not to worry because she would pay for everything. She was probably 40 years old... Can't even begin to describe all of the random happenings on mini bus rides.

Old Biscuit Mill

Every Saturday in a neighborhood called Woodstock, there is a open market with crafts, food, flowers, furniture, and whatever else people can think to sell. I went this Saturday to find out what all the hype was about. It was a bit pricey and kind of a hipster's paradise but all the food was amazing, there were free samples all over the place, and it supplied some of the best people watching so far.

There was a huge tented area with stands selling thin crust pizza, chicken/beef sandwiches, salads, waffles/french toast and any form of cooked egg imaginable. There was also a section with vegatables, tons of different olives, bread/spread, smoothies, chocolate, sausage/dried meet, wine, brandy, etc. And of course they have ice cold beer at 10:00 am.

If you weren't completely full after buying one of the many breakfasts, you could go Cosco style and eat samples all day. Definitely going back in the Saturdays to come.

Lion's Head at Full Moon

Every full moon tons of people make the hour long hike up to Lion's Head, a solitary peak overlooking Town. It was raining yesterday up until about 5:30 pm when we decided to pull the trigger. The forecast said clear skies by 9:00 pm, kind of hard to trust when it also said 10% chance of rain and it was pouring, but we decided to go for it. We taxied over to the base and were half way up by the time the sun set. By about 6:30 we switched the headlamps on and made it to the top by around 7:00.

Once at the top we were a bit surprised at how few people were there due to the rain. We had heard sometimes there were hundreds of people and will probably be expecting that once late spring/early summer rolls around. At the top we ate our parmesan veggie pasta and enjoyed some cheap South African wine. My roommate, Michael brought some portable speakers as well which was sweet. Overall great night as we didn't end up getting rained on and met some cool people at the top.

Shark Cage Diving

Today I went shark cage diving. Woke up at 4:30 am to get picked up by a bus and driven to Gansbaai, a bay SE of Cape Town. The company we booked with was called White Shark Projects and for around $180 including transport they did an excellent job. They provided a complete breakfast and by 7:30 we were on the boat heading to a bay where white sharks are most frequently seen. After 4 or 5 spashes of chum hit the water, there were 4 sharks circling our boat as we were the first and only boat out at the time.

I volunteered our group to go first so we threw on some wet suits with hoods and booties for the 11 C water. A group of 5 people at a time climb into a cage that is attached to the side of the boat and is 2/3 submerged in water. You hold onto bars on the inside of the cage (so as not to lose fingers) and when the shark spotter/tuna head thrower yells "down, down" you pull yourself under water and hook your toes under another bar attached to the bottom of the cage. You are equipped with a mask and when the shark gets close you hold your breath to view underwater.

The cage was 3 meters long, and this big boy was estimated to be around 4 meters. At one point while my group was in the cage it grabbed the tuna head attached to the chum line, tried to dodge the cage to the right and slammed into it with its body. Then to break the tuna free from the line it thrashed up against the cage. I'd say that was the moment where I decided the $180 was well worth it.

We ended up getting in the cage twice during our 3 hours on the water. As other shark cage diving boats entered the area we pulled anchor and headed out.

Clearly everyone had a great time and even went home with all limbs in tact.