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.
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