Shipping: just like another African border crossing.

Current Location: Richards Bay.

Well I managed to get Edmund in a container, while I thought the process would be easy it seems previous training exercises at other African borders paid off.

Firstly I made a mistake by using a shipping agent from Cape Town to ship out of Durban, don't get me wrong the agent in Cape Town was more than competent, but they needed someone on the ground to deal with whatever they were supposed to be doing.

I got a phone call from the CT agent on Thursday saying that customs wanted to see the Carnet before they stamp it the following day, so off I go drive the 2 and a half hours to Durbs in the pouring rain, once I arrive the Durbs agent tells me to go home and show up on Friday morning. So I wasted half a day and had a completely pointless 5 hour drive, it would have been fine if the weather was nice, but it was pissing down, Edmund is a landrover and he obviously leaks.

I was told by Durbs agent to show up at the packing yard at 7:00 the following morning as customs would be there at 7:30. Now as it seems no one in the shipping industry does anything themselves, the packing company was a different entity alltogether. I get there I take a seat and wait, the boss arrives and tells me customs will be there shortly. After a hour or so the boss starts to wonder what's going on and rings up various people and finally we get onto the Durbs agent who says customs will not come until they have perused the carnet, now this was the exact reason for me to drive down on Thursday wasn't it.

10 minutes later Durbs agent is on the phone again telling me that I have to hand over the Carnet to some stranger that is going to pick it up and i'm really not sure what they actually wanted to do with it. So along comes a man on a moped, I was hoping to go with the carnet, figured that I have enough experience with African customs guys at this point and it shouldn't take me more than 15 minutes to get it stamped. But that was not possible. The Carnet dissapeared with a man on a moped. Against my wishes and the advice of the manager of the packing plant.

For the next few hours various phone calls were made but not much progress. CT agent was doing a good job keeping on top of things and trying to keep me calm, unknown to her and probably unbelievable to most people that know me I was actually very chilled. But I happily sat on the edmund's Bonnet, another good reason to own a landrover, it comes standard with outdoor seating, and read a book. I can recommend the book, "shitting pretty" to the unseasoned traveller who is a bit worried about getting god knows what kind of disease on the road, it's written by a doctor but in a light non medical manner.

At about 11 the guys at the packing plant we're getting a little bit jumpy, it was friday after all and they wanted to go home at 2. So they decided it was time to load edmund into the container, even without a customs inspection. I figured they knew what they were doing so agreed. Edmund was all strapped in, it took them about an hour. This is when I realised that if customs had shown up at 7:30 I could have been out of there by about 8:30, 9 latest.

Oh well it's Africa, so that's fine.

Now Durbs agent get's on the phone to me and tells me that customs is on the way, they will inspect the car, take the carnet away, stamp it and then give it back to me after that, i simply asked why they couldn't stamp it at the depot and hand it back to me. He said that wasn't possible, that's fine it's Africa.

Now what happened next is when I decided the Durbs agent should not be in business, also the fact that I did email this company about 2 months ago, when first enquiring about shipping, and never got a response. Agent guy rang again and said they have the carnet and it's been stamped and their driver is bringing it back to me. Ok so customs doens't actually care what's in the container it seems, since they hadn't been there yet unless they have invisible agents. The agent promises me customs are still on the way. I didn' really care, the carnet was stamped and on it's way back to me. But here is the proof that the Durban agent is useless, their driver rings me and asks me how to get to the depot, now even in Africa that is the most absurd thing to do, the local is asking the tourist for directions. I told him to ring his boss, he rings him and a few minutes rings me back saying the boss told him to ring me again. So I spent the next 10 minutes on the phone explaining to this guy how to find me and ended up walking out on the main road to find him.

After getting the carnet back we waited a while for customs to show up, The packing manager rang both the CT and Durbs agents and the decision was made to seal the container and send it on it's merry way. Now we'll have to wait and see what actually arrives in Basel in a months time.

See you all in Switzerland or somewhere else.

Ciao

Namibia, Botswana, South Africa

Current Location: Mtunzini, South Africa.

15 May 2009 – Present

The last entry perhaps.

As I write this Louise is back in the land of chocolate, corrupt banks and cuckoo clocks, that’s right, she’s gone home and left me here in Africa. There is reason to her madness, cousin, I don’t know his name, and she only has one so I guess it’s fair to call him cousin, is getting married. I’m not far behind her, I hope, still waiting on the shipping lady to put the car on a boat so I head back too.

First let’s fill you in on what we’ve been doing since we dropped the Canadian at the airport in Windhoek. It’s been a bit of a game drive since we left. We stopped in Maun for a few days to catch up with Tony, Denise and all the rest of their tribe, which was a nice break from the road. From Maun we headed south in the direction of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. Stopping off in Ghanzi to allow Louise to have an argument with a useless campsite lady that never sold us any firewood. On the plus side the campsite does have wild dog in captivity, though seeing them through chicken wire just doesn’t do it for us.

Our last bush camp just before the gate to the park was uneventful until we woke up in the morning and discovered that one of our camping chairs had gone missing. Upon closer inspection of the ground the only discernible prints were those of hyena. So now we have been robbed by animals in Africa too, though being robbed by a hyena is not as annoying and frustrating as being robbed by locals.

Kgalagadi transfrontier park is a big sandy place that’s full of predators. We spent a total of 2 weeks in the park and while it is a stunning park, we left early because of the freezing nights (-5°C one morning!), terrible roads and general lack of good animal sightings. It was alot of fun though, we met up with Thomas and Isabella, the Swiss couple travelling in Obelix the big MAN truck. We enjoyed sharing a campsite with them, also using the inside of the truck for dinner was fantastic as the food wasn’t frozen by the time you took it out of the pot and got it into your mouth. The cheese fondue was a definite highlight with everyone standing around in -5 degrees eating melted swiss cheese and drinking lots of white wine and a bit of kirsch!

After leaving Kgalagadi we headed east looking for warmer weather. We finally found it in Pilanesburg NP just a few hours away from Joburg, we stopped at Uppington and Kuruman on the way there. Pilanesburg is a beautiful park set amongst rolling hills and lush greenery. The animal numbers according to the brochures are high, though they are hard to spot due to the dense bush, none the less we did see a brown hyena that didn’t run away for once (he was eating a dead giraffe though...). After leaving Pilanesburg we headed in the direction of the mighty Kruger, stopping on the way in Hazyview. We spent a total of 4 nights in Kruger and do have to admit it’s a love and hate kind of place. The number of people in the park in particular when one of the big cats is around is frustrating, on the other hand the amount and variety of animals you see is phenomenal, while it still doesn’t quite compare with east Africa it comes close.

After Kruger we headed back towards the coast, stopped in Sodwana to meet up with Rene and Andrea for a couple of nights (Rene spoilt us with fried ostrich egg one morning and ostrich egg and sour milk pancakes the next - yummy!), spent a night in St Lucia before finally arriving at our final destination chez Christine and Dudley.

Now I am waiting for a boat to put Edmund on and head home myself.

It’s been a fantastic experience and we don’t think it will be the last of our adventures so stay tuned to www.touringafrica.ch to see what we do next.

To everyone that’s followed the trip online I hope you have enjoyed it and thanks for reading it!

To all the travellers we met on the way, it was wonderful to meet you all and hope to see you again sometime. Keep in touch!

Ciao 4 now

Louise and Milan

Namibia part 2

Current Location: Windhoek, Namibia

Freezing nights, dunes, dust and a Canadian!!

Well the drive from Ghanzi (Botswana) to Windhoek (Namibia) was fairly uneventful. Once in Windhoek we headed back to our favourite haunt, Puccini House for a couple of days of R&R before heading to the south of Namibia to see what we hadn’t seen yet. First off was the Quiver Tree Forest, for the overly photographed sunset and sunrise shots, very nice indeed. On the second sunset we missed the trees as we were being entertained by a friendly family of Meerkats. I am really starting to wonder how we can get permanent jobs as a wildlife photographers, it’s just way more fun than anything else we have done, though you do require the patience of a saint, more on that later.

After Quiver Tree we went for a superb drive for a couple of days around Fish River Canyon and were really starting to notice how cold it get’s at night. We started to use the 6 dollar blanket at night that we bought in Morocco intended as a seat cover. Fish river canyon is a beautiful sight but the 4x4 track south that runs along the South African border is even more spectacular, we finished that day in Klein Aus Vista, a beautiful campsite about 20Ks from the wild horses, and sure enough the books do not lie (well, not all the time), the horses were there the next day. After spending a few hours photographing the horses we headed to Lüderitz on the coast. Now if anyone has seen a WWII movie with a little industrial town in it, Lüderitz may well have been it. It was full of barbed wire and concrete walls, and no people. However we had to stay in town in order to visit the ghost town of Kolmanskop at sunrise, which is slowly getting eaten up by the sand dunes all around it. Very eerie.

We hightailed it out of Lüderitz not wanting to spend any more time in this potentially soon to be ghost town, and headed inland towards the famous dunes of Sossusvlei. Southern Namibia is as stunning as Kaokoland in the north but feels a little less remote, guess all the fences and power lines take the “middle of nowhere” feeling away. Arriving at the gate of Sossusvlei and being told the extortionate prices for camping inside the gate we decided to skip it for now as we knew we were coming back in a few weeks with Nick. (Nick is a Canadian guy that worked with Milan at Man in Switzerland and now lives in Hong Kong)

We headed back to Windhoek to stock up on some supplies, organise accommodation in Etosha for when Nick is around, and service the car. Oh yeah and get robbed yet again! They unbolted the spot lights of the front of the car in the middle of the day in a guarded car park, guess you can figure out who they are. This thieving thing seems to have become routine for us at the moment. Not very happy travellers at that time.

Leaving Windhoek a bit sour because of missing lights we headed back up to the Caprivi Strip to one of our favourite places, Ngepi Camp, when spent 7 days there doing as little as possible and it wasn’t as cold as the rest of the country.

Next we headed back south into Damaraland via Etosha (5 male lions and 5 cheetah in 1 day! Plus all the usual suspects). While enjoying a lovely peaceful drive Edmund decided to spit the dummy and behave badly losing power idling and revving like a cylinder was blown. We quickly got onto the phone to the mechanic back in Windhoek and he reckoned it was the fuel filter, had a check of that all seemed fine and next thing you know Edmund conks out completely and won’t start. Luckily at this point we were only about 1KM outside of Uis, a little hick town in the middle of nowhere, onto the mechanic again in Windhoek, we quickly deduced that it may well be the all too well known problem of the dodgy fuel pump. Which is all fine since we have driven around the whole continent with a spare in the back. Now we need to find a local mechanic who can take out the fuel tank and swap out the pump. After ringing one of the local lodges we get the number of the local bush mechanic, an Afrikaner type that has clearly lived in this little town all of his life. I explain him the problem and he then starts towing us back to his garage/house, but uses a chain for towing. Now as anyone knows that has ever been towed before, your brakes generally get weaker the longer you are towed, so eventually the chain goes slack. Tow man up front decides to head off in a bit of a hurry and leaves half the chain flying straight for our windscreen. Needless to say we now not only had a car that wouldn’t start but also a windscreen covered in cracks and a small hole. Afrikaner boy didn’t even apologise, at least he did have the sense to poke and prod around with the wires attached to the fuel pump to discover that our problem was a blown relay and not a faulty fuel pump. So the 34 Namibian dollar relay cost us an extra 1400 for the new windscreen.

Next we headed back to Windhoek with an overnight stop in Spitzkoppe, to get a new relay and a new windscreen, and wait for Nick to arrive.

The day after Nick arrived we headed towards Sossousvlei, but after a late start which involved the GPS cable being broken off by our visitor for the first time :o), we only managed to get to Solitare where we stayed at a recommended place called Ghecko Camp. Run by a Swiss lady and it was a truly magical place. We also met another Swiss overlander couple, Florian and Sara (www.tchovaxitaduma.blogspot.com) , who left Switzerland at the beginning of the year. We bought some beers and chatted with them at the top of the hill overlooking the stunning sunset.

Since we were all going in the same direction we decided to save costs of the camp site at Sossousvlei by sharing one site (as well as Louise hiding in the back of their car to save money on entry as well). We set up camp and made our way to Dead Vlei. Since it was quite a late start that day as well and so much chatting with everyone, we didn’t quite make it to Dead Vlei for sunset – we know its a sin to be there and not see it, but we enjoyed a lovely sunset close by instead. The rules for the park are that you have to be out by sunset. Of course we were 70 kms away from the gate after the sun had already disappeared, so we played dumb and told the man at the gate who we had dragged away from his beer that we had gotten stuck in sand. Pretty sure he didn’t believe us but what could he do, take us to court?! The next morning we made sure we were on the road on time and had a lovely sunrise at Dune 45, although it was freezing cold! We also checked out Sossousvlei itself which was nice as well. After that we hit the road again and headed north towards Swakopmund, but we didn’t quite make it so we stayed in a lovely camp called Rostock Ritz.

Up early and headed to Walvis Bay for lunch and arrived in Swakopmund in the afternoon. Being fairly tired we stayed in that evening and had an early night. Next day was a Sunday, and its worse than Europe as nothing is open on Sundays in Namibia. We were lucky to find a gelateria that was able to serve us breakfast. In the afternoon we went quad biking together with Andrea and Rene (Czeck/German couple that came down the east coast – www.ourwildjourney.com who we met in Caprivi). Tips for anyone going quad biking in the desert, hire the manual rather than the lemon automatic that Louise had. It struggled to get up the hills! We had a great time though and were lucky to see a peringuays adder at one of our breaks.

The next morning we went on the Living Desert Tour which is a 5 hour tour into the dunes where the guide tries to find all sorts of animals that survive in the desert. It was really fun and we were lucky to find chameleons, skinks, spiders etc. Highly recommend it! We carried on north to the Skeleton Coast where we first saw thousands of seals at Cape Cross, and they are noisy! We also saw some wrecks on the way but it was so cold and very barren so we carried on, plus we had to be out of the gate before 7pm. We managed to find a lovely bushcamp in a riverbed just outside the Springbokwater gate (S20°16.136, E013°45.041) in between the rolling hills.
While packing up the tent in the morning Milan had a bit of an accident and hit his head on the end of a branch. The blood was gushing out and I was tempted to use some of our steristrips to fix the cut, but Milan was having none of that. A 3cm long cut nonetheless. Louise took over the wheel and drove to a beautiful campsite called Granitkopie close to Twyfelfontein. The campsite has 5 sites all tucked away between the hills, very basic but all you really need is a shower (heated up via donkey system), toilet and a sink. On our way to the camp we spotted 8 desert elephants in the distance!

The following day we headed to Twyfelfontein and saw thousand(s) year old San rock engravings. Next destination was Puros but we only made it to Sesfontein where our only option was the community campsite in the middle of the village – not the best. The road to Puros was a lot worse than last October so it took us a good 4 hours to drive 100kms. Puros has expanded their accommodation and now offer self catering chalets as well as camping, but it was a bit pricey for us so we went back to the same camp site we had last year. We explored the area and searched for the desert elephants and we saw one hiding in the bushes and we also visited a Himba village which was very interesting.

Since we had already made bookings for Etosha in advance we had to make our way in that direction so we drove to Kamanjab to another one of our favourite camps, Porcupine Camp. Nick had the one day flu so was not really feeling too well. The owners invite you into their home and spoil you with food, entertainment and porcupines in your lap! We haven’t been to any other camp with so much atmosphere! Unfortunately the next morning Milan wasn’t feeling well either, another case of the one day flu, so Louise was behind the wheel again and drove to our camp site in Okaukuejo in Etosha where we would spend the next 2 nights. On the road to the gate an aardwolf ran across the road in front of the car – luckily I didn’t run him over!

This is when we met Marc, an Australian overlander that has been travelling for years when he is not at home working to get more money for the travels. We shared stories and chatted for hours. At the waterhole that evening we saw a large herd of elephants and 5 black rhino! Up at sunrise and we headed to a waterhole were we saw a large pride of lions, 2 male lions and 5 lionesses. So lucky! One lioness tried to hunt a springbok but wasn’t very successful. In the evening we saw a huge herd of elephants again and 2 rhino. The third day in the park was not highly successful but we still saw a rhino in the day and elephants. In the evening at the camps waterhole at Halali we saw another rhino chasing away a spotted hyena – so funny!

Aaahhh, the fourth and last full day in Ethosa turned out to be a fantastic day. At Salvadora waterhole we saw a mom cheetah with her young in the distance, and then came a lioness who hid in the grass waiting to hunt. We were there for 7 hours and she tried to hunt zebra three times but failed each time. It was the first time for us to see a proper hunt which was great. This is where we had never ending patience. Of course we also saw a rhino that day :o) Nicks holiday was coming to an end and we had to make our way back to Windhoek where we are staying at Puccini again. We think we have covered every corner in Namibia, except Kaudoum NP for which you need to be 2 vehicles, so its time to leave this wintery country and head into Botswana for warmer days and nights.

Botswana part 2

Current Location: Windhoek, Namibia

20 April 2009 – 14 May 09

The land of no fences and cold showers! (Plus lots of cold beer...)

After spending nearly 5 months in South Africa, arriving in Botswana was a nice change. It is a bit closer to Monkey Africa and has a wilder more disorganised feel to it, where the locals clearly don’t know how to drive and nothing quite works the way it could. As we drove into Gaborone we decided to punch in the location of the national parks booking office in the GPS, as we already know Botswana’s booking system for camping in the parks is about the daftest thing we have faced. Now they made it worse by not even letting you pay at the park gates (due to staff theft we presume), so you can’t even get in without a booking from their offices. Surprisingly we managed to book everything we wanted to in less than an hour and without too much fuss. We booked 7 nights in the Pans and 7 nights in Central Kalahari. While in Gaborone we hunted round for a tripod head for the video camera, one day we may even produce a video from the Gigs of video footage we have, be warned though our video skills are shocking, well mine are, Louise is getting pretty good.

Well as expected we didn’t find the tripod head but we got a little surprise when we got back to the car in one of shopping areas, there was a light hiss from one of the rear wheels, a small hole in the side of a tyre. As we needed 2 new tyres anyway we headed straight for Tiger Wheel & Tyre and instead of being good overlanders we watched as a local changed 2 news tyres and rotated all the wheels from the roof etc..., so while we had our first flat it required very little effort on our part apart from flashing a credit card for the new tyres J. The tyre place happens to be owned by the same guy that owns the Land Rover and BMW dealership right next door, something which would come in useful a few hours later on...

Later on while we were still hunting out the tripod head, some local boys attempted to break into the car in the middle of the day in a crowded car park, it seems while we in the shops someone notified the boys in blue, and a couple of undercovers showed up. When we got back to the car I tried to put the key in the lock and noticed it was busted, the door was unlocked but they didn’t manage to get in as you need to shove a long pointy thing into a hole where the button to open the doors used to be. Hehe some Land Rover faults have practicalities... The same happened on the passenger side, so in my usual disgruntled manner I starting to swear and generally raise my voice and asked a local street vendor if they had seen anything, of course not. During all my noise making the two undercover cops came over and asked what was going on. I proceeded to tell them that someone had attempted to break into the car but was clearly too stupid to open the doors. They then asked what I wanted to do now, after having dealt with the capetownian police I thought better of it and simply said we were going to go straight to the Land Rover dealership and get 2 new locks then leave town cause we don’t like it anymore, which is exactly what we did. Luckily thieves seem to know how pathetic Land Rover locks are and had broken a local guys locks so Land Rover Gaborone had one set of locks on stock. We spent that night in City camp in Gaborone, bit of a dive, we left early the next morning for Francistown.

Once we stocked up on supplies in Francistown we headed to the Nata Bird Sanctuary, finally we were back in the wild, it was a tremendous feeling. I guess South Africa is too civilised for us these days. Nata is famous for flamingos when there is enough water in the Pan, luckily for us there was, there were plenty of flamingos , though they never let us get close even when I sprinted across the dry area of the pan to get closer, their graceful movement that makes them appear to walk on water was still too fast for me to get close enough for good photos, I have now made a mental note that we need the big long lenses. Flamingos are not the only creatures in Nata, there was a large number of Pelicans and many other birds big and small, a few springbok and a jackal or two.

After leaving Nata we headed to Gweta to find out whether or not we could get to Kubu Island. We first heard about Kubu from Floris and Marieke in Nigeria, as he was the guy that introduced me to panoramic photography I was really looking forward to getting there, though with the water at Nata being present I was worried that we wouldn’t make it. In Gweta we stayed at Planet Baobab which is another one of these great camps with a brilliant atmosphere. (Also looking for a managing couple, no experience required....) As we found no info on the road to Kubu we looked at the map and there is a road that runs along the edge of the pan and not straight across it. So we took it, and what a magnificent drive it was with great scenery all the way, a view that we were getting used to, the golden grass with white salt pans, acacias, baobabs, the lovely smell of wild sage and the occasional springbok or ostrich dotting the landscape with a clear blue sky to top it all off. Arriving at Kubu Island we found out that the road across the pans was dry too. We spent the evening watching the sun set behind the odd looking baobabs with the usual suspects being present; the German tourists, the drunk south Africans being a little bit too loud and disrespectful, and then the few others like us wanting to experience Africa for its stunning beauty.

After getting up early for sunrise, we headed out across the salt pans back towards Gweta, this drive was even more stunning than the one to Kubu; crossing salt flats, golden grasslands and finishing with a rally style drive through Mopane woodland. We headed back to Planet Baobab, where we met Johann and Nancy who were going to spend about 7 months touring southern and eastern Africa, Johann nicknamed me the Kingsley Holgate of New Zealand, guess the beard is getting a bit long, Louise occasionally threatens me with the scissors but that won’t happen for a while.

Next up was Magkadikadi Pans NP, on arrival we were greeted by the friendly staff who proceeded to tell us exactly where the zebra were, as you probably don’t know Botswana experiences a zebra migration similar to the Masai/Serengeti migration, though the 10000 strong number in Botswana doesn’t really compete with the 2 million in the Masai migration. It is still a stunning sight to see animals in every direction , in particular zebras as they make for great photographs. Spending 2 nights in the east of the park with the zebras was very nice. We then headed to the western side where we drove up and down the western border fence line looking for lion, or anything other than zebra, 2 days of that was enough. Off to Nxai pan it was.

(We did meet a Swiss guy exporting rarer South African wines to Switzerland so if anyone is interested, contact us).

The rain, thunder and lightning came on strong our first night in Nxai pan, which was spent close to Baines Baobab, made famous by the painter of the same name (just the first name, naturally). We really don’t know how anyone finds the campsites that don’t have a GPS without the Tracks4africa maps installed as there are absolutely no signs except for a big “no camping” at Baines baobabs themselves. It was remote as! Next up was the main game viewing area of Nxai Pan National Park, made famous by the IMAX documentary film ROAR about the Kalahari lion. As we arrived at the gate and started the standard Spanish inquisition on animal activity, we were given a short quick answer “the animals are all gone”. It seems that when the rains come, the animals leg it into the bush to drink from puddles. So it was a hard two days looking for animals that just weren’t there, a little bit of a disappointment, will probably have to go back to see it again when it hasn’t rained.

Maun, back in familiar surroundings, we decided not to contact Tony and Denise as we were only staying one night, and needed to sort through over 1000 photos and about an hour of video footage we thought we would make bad guests, as we also know we are going back in June or July, bookings in the Kgalagadi are scheduled for then. Maun was an essential detour for a resupply on food for a seven day stint in the Northern area of the Central Kalahari. We had coffee with Denise and Tony in the morning as Ian decided to not only worry himself but them as well asking if they knew of our whereabouts as they hadn’t heard from us since we left SA.

The Central Kalahari is the second largest conservation area in Africa, and is one of the remotest places on the continent. The roads are either sandy tracks or hard clayey surfaces, unless it rains where the clayey surfaces turn into wet slippery stuff, and you could have guessed it; it rained on our way into the park and most of the first night. The next morning we were driving around Deception Pan and got stuck. Spending over an hour digging and trying to use the sand ladders to get us moving, the stuff is so slippery that you just don’t go anywhere. Knowing that the cable on the winch was stuck and there weren’t any trees in front of us. We started to worry a bit as the guide book mentions outside of the main roads it can be months before someone comes along, plus we were in lion territory; the overly relaxed Oryx hanging around were a bit reassuring however. Out came the winch controller and we managed to get the cable unjammed, we attached it to a tree to the left of the car, Edmund was out in a few minutes. Winches are now back on my list of useful recovery gear.

Surprising to us the Central Kalahari is not a desert like landscape but is more typical of the savannah type scenery you see in the movies; with the all too familiar landscape of golden grasses, acacia trees, bushveld areas as well as the flat salt pans that we had gotten used to. It was a fantastic 7 days. The wildlife was just as spectacular; lions, cheetahs at a springbok kill, bat eared foxes and a leopard topped the list of the best sightings, the park was also full of springbok, oryx, wildebeest, jackals, various birds of prey. 7 days was up and we could spend a lot longer getting up before the sun, driving around in the wee hours of the morning and the late afternoon, baking bread on an open fire, keeping snakes at bay in the campsites which exist solely for one group of people, hearing the jackals chit chat and lions roar every night, staring at the magical stars in the dark night sky, watching the orange, red, and pinks of the sunrise, sunset and moonrise, not forgetting the animals for a second and that this is truly their domain.

The camps in the Central Kalahari have no water, only long drop toilets, and showers where you have to provide your own water, so showering was not a regular activity. I did promise Louise that there was a restaurant at our last camp in Pipers Pan, and to our surprise there was; a Swiss couple from Wetzikon, who are driving back to Switzerland from SA, had decided to take refuge in our campsite hoping the occupants would let them stay. The campsites are big enough for 10 people so we were more than happy to oblige. They cooked us a nice meal in thanks and we discussed African travels before turning in for our last night.

We left the Central Kalahari and headed to Ghanzi for an overnight stop before leaving Botswana for Namibia. We will be back to this wild and mesmerizing land!

Milan (& Louise: chief editor)

South Africa, last one for now.

Current Location: Kimberley, South Africa

20 March 2009 – 18 April 09

Well as some of you may have received our celebratory “1 year on the road” email, it’s seems that we were lucky enough to see cheetah on day 366. They even took us for a little hunt, meaning we followed them down the road as they walked and jogged in the direction of a bontebok. Also there has been a slight change of plan as the Kgalagadi is full till the end of July we aren’t going that way YET.

For those of you who didn’t get the email, here are a few of the stats and the best and worst so far:

A few stats:
Countries: 22 African countries (23 since we support the partisans of western sahara) Kilometres: 56190 Litres of diesel used : approx 7000
Illness: Malaria x 3 (all Milan) with 1 hospital visit (In Cameroon), Louise has had 2 hangovers Number of bites on the body at one time: 58 (Louise’s back in Cameroon)
Number of photos taken: Approx 25000 (3 underwater thanks to Chris for lending me her camera)
Number of dives: 44 between us
Number of flat tyres: 0 none, nada, nichts, zilch (yet)
Number of tyres without tread: 4
Number of OK tyres: 2
Animals we have eaten: Zebra, Kudu, Oryx, Springbok, Warthog, Impala (Pate), rubber chicken, possibly any other number of creatures that the locals couldn’t describe to us.
Number of dutch overlanders met on the road: 12
Other overlanders: 4 brits, 3 Swiss, 1 swede, 3 aussies, 1 Pole (on a bicycle), 3 Germans, 2 south Africans and a Kenyan.
Number of break downs: Suspension 4 times and the steering rod snapped once.
Amount of stuff thrown out on the way: over 100 Kilos

Now for the best and worst.
Best Game park: Moremi (Milan), Chobe (Louise). Both in Botswana
Best drive: Crossing the desert in Morocco (not western sahara) and Marienfluss in Namibia Hardest drive: Border crossing between Nigeria and Cameroon (whoever draws maps should know roads need bridges to go through rivers)
Worst drive: Angola after the suspension broke, all 2500 Kms without rear shocks.
Best roads in a country: Malawi
Worst roads in a country: Gambia
Friendliest people: Zambia (even the police that fined us 25 USD)
Best dive site: Sodwana bay, South Africa
Best campsites: Purros, Porcupine camp, Ngepi camp (all in Nambia)
Worst campsites: Niokala Koba Lions camp (Senegal), Kora (Just before Burkina border)
Wildest Place: Ihaha campsite in Chobe, Botswana
Best atmosphere: Big Millys backpackers, Ghana
Best unexpected thing: People in Nigeria
Biggest letdown: Sahara crossing (a tar road all the way)
Louise’s favourite country: Namibia
Milan’s Favourite country: Botswana just because Louise already took Namibia
Most stunning countries: Namibia, Morocco and South Africa

Now where were we, oh yes Coffee Bay.
From Coffee Bay we went to check out the Hole in the Wall, where a kid decided that without his help we wouldn’t find it and he needed to guide us there. Once we got there and gave him his 5 Rand coin he turned around and said it was not enough and that all ‘guides’ in the area got 10 Rand for guiding the tourists. This is when Louise just ignored him and Milan decided to give him a life lesson on how to treat tourists which lasted 20 minutes and the kid looked very sad and went away forgetting all the useful things Milan had just told him. At least we try!

We hopped on the N2 highway and drove up to Sodwana Bay were we met Dudley trying out his new surf board in the ocean. We spent a week there and it was the first time in a long time we didn’t need to wear sweaters in the evening! We managed to increase our number of dives even more and one day on the way out to a dive we spotted a whale shark! Everyone hurried to get their fins and masks on and jumped in the water swimming after the whale shark. It was the first time we had ever seen one so it was a real treat! This week the diving was a lot better than last time, with fantastic visibility and lovely things to see. Since Christine is into macro underwater photography we were trying to find things for her to photograph. It’s amazing how much we’ve learnt and have gotten a very big interest at finding things that are smaller than 1cm! Can we live here please?! ;o)

We hadn’t really made a plan after Sodwana so we were invited to stay at Christine and Dudley’s place again until we had decided what was next. We ended up staying longer than planned as Louise got an appointment with an eye laser specialist mid week. The results were not as hopeful as she had hoped for, the doctor recommending the old type of laser rather than any of the new easy, more or less pain free ones. What a disappointment. Contact lenses and glasses it will have to be then!

We finally got our acts together and headed to Injesuthi in the Drakensberg. When we arrived it was surely the most beautiful part of the ‘berg’ that we had seen. And there were autumn leaves everywhere – so beautiful! We did two lovely walks over that weekend; the last one being the toughest one in the area but it was really worth it. The walk was hard and steep but lovely to get to the top to see that view of the Drakensberg. This is where it starts to get chilly as soon as the sun goes down around 18:00, and a few times in Injesuthi Louise had to wear her winter hat because it was so cold at night. Brrrrrrrr – not only in Europe!

We felt fit and healthy after all that mountain air and were planning to go over the Sani Pass into Lesotho, but the weather forecast was thunderstorms for the whole week so we decided against that and headed north to Golden Gate Highlands National Park. Another freezing destination after sunset, but very beautiful with lots of autumn colours! Thomas and Isabella showed up (Swiss couple in a huge MAN truck) and they invited us for dinner inside which was great because it was so cold outside (10°C in the night!) and it was really nice to catch up with them.

The next morning we carried on along the scenic route which is only kilometres from Lesotho’s border, driving through all the huge farms that are the only thing in the area, and we made it to Wepener where we stayed on someone’s farm and watched the lightning all around us after it got dark. Next morning we headed to the Mountain Zebra National Park and since it was Easter we made a booking in advance and managed to reserve the next two nights with them. They have recently introduced 12 cheetah and rhino in the park so obviously we were on the lookout for those critters. We went for early morning drives and late afternoon drives and enjoyed the spectacular scenery and all the animals. We were still searching for the cheetah on our last evening drive at 17:30 Milan got out of the car to take some photos when I scanned the area with my binoculars and just then two cheetah sat up under a tree only 20m from us! They had obviously been sleeping when we came along and woke them up when they realised they were hungry. They started walking along the road in the same direction we were going so we followed them hoping to see a hunt.

Unfortunately we had to be back at camp at 18:00 so we had to leave them that evening. We went out the next morning again trying to look for a kill but we couldn’t see anything. It was so nice to see them and two out of the 12 was pretty lucky! It was also the first time we had seen Black Wildebeest and they are much more photogenic than the common Blue Wildebeest – ggnnuuuuuuuu...

Next destination was a new park by Graaf-Reinet called Camdeboo NP. We went for a short game drive and saw the usual suspects in way of the bucks and an adult ostrich which was followed by 24 young which was quite a spectacular sight. We carried on to the Valley of Desolation which is also part of the park but it has amazing rock formations and we stayed there to watch the sunset. Lovely.

Since we are on a National Park roll we headed next to the Karoo NP where we went for a long afternoon/evening drive in the arid and stunning area. We even spotted a black rhino munching away! We watched the strikingly pink sunset and got back at 19:00 when we found the gate to camp to be closed and very tightly padlocked. Oh no! Luckily there was another car there too and they had called someone to unlock it. The next day we drove to Oudtshoorn where we stayed in the same place as last time, the lovely Cul De Sac. This was a good place to relax and sleep in a warm bed indoors, and we also tried to plan the next destination on the trip. We had decided to go to the Kgagalagadi NP in South Africa for two weeks, then cross into Namibia and then Botswana and then back into South Africa where we would end our travels before going home. Unfortunately we found out that the park was fully booked until July! Oh no – sudden change of plans panic! We decided to go to Botswana now and visit the Central Kalahari and the Salt Pans, then head into Namibia and do all the things we did not do last time, then probably into Botswana again to go back to Chobe and Moremi as its the best time then. We booked the Kgagalagadi for end of July so if anyone fancies a spot of wildlife you are welcome to join us then!

You can’t really come to Oudtshoorn and not see the Cango Caves, apparently being one of the 10 must sees in South Africa. You can do two tours, the standard 1 hour tour or the 90 minute adventure tour. Since the latter forbid cameras we decided for the more adult version. The caves were stunning! If you are ever in the area – go and see them! We then drove over the Swartberg Pass and watched the fires around us. The area hasn’t had rain since November so it’s no wonder there are fires everywhere. The drive was stunning and we headed back to the Karoo NP but it was unfortunately full so we found a lovely camp just next to the NP called Stenbokkie Private Reserve which was full of animals.

We are now in Kimberley, the diamond capital of South Africa and also where De Beers was founded by Cecil Rhodes. Since we are planning to cross into Botswana in the next few days we have stocked up on a few things here; a bird book, a book on stars, guide books on Namibia and Botswana, better mattresses for the ground tent and a very warm large blanket for those cold nights stargazing.

You’ll hear from us in Botswana!

Tomorrow the 19th of April we will have spent exactly one year on the African continent!

Louise

More South Africa

Current location: Port St Johns, Wild Coast South Africa

17 February 2009 – 19 March 09

Well another month has gone by and we are still in South Africa. Guess we like it here. As mentioned in the last post we were off north to visit home affairs to extend our tourist visa. The town was Malmesbury as we had heard horror stories of home affairs in Cape Town and how it could take days there, whilst in Malmesbury it should only take an hour. As we arrived at home affairs, it certainly appeared to be a typical African governmental office, paint peeling off the walls, 1 or 2 tiny windows set crookedly in the wall that you could hardly see through due to the fact that they hadn’t been washed since the days apartheid left this place. There was only one English couple sitting at the visa extension handling desk, it took them about an hour to clear the way, seems they were having problems extending their residents permit, perhaps South Africa is heading down the slippery slope that Zimbabwe is on, more on that later.

Now it was our turn, we didn’t think it would take long as the person sitting opposite us taking care of our paper work happened to be white, is that politically correct? Anyway sitting opposite a white person at a government office in South Africa is definitely not BEE (Black Economic Empowerment). We fill in the forms and they discover that we only have to 10 days left on our current visa, not good, they bring out this additional form. It was an apology letter and went as follows:

I / We __________________________
Sincerely apologise for not having requested a visa extension within 30 days of the previous one expiring for the following reason: ___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________

As you can imagine we were gobsmacked, but duly filled in the blank lines, I was refraining from laughing my head off when I wrote this:

We offer our sincerest apologies as we were completely unaware that we had to apply for a visa within 30 days of the previous one expiring. We kindly request to have our visas extended as we have been mesmerized by the beauty of your country and its people.

Well that was fine, next they needed to know if we had had enough funds to stay in South Africa for another 3 months. Now wondering how I was going to prove this she stated a figure that we would need, about 30’000 Rand (3’000 USD). So off I went to an internet cafe and printed out a copy of my Credit Suisse bank statement. She didn’t even look at it. Next thing she tells us is that it normally takes 2 to 3 weeks to process. We asked what we could do to speed up the process so we wouldn’t be in the country illegally. As she was the supervisor (this may explain her skin colour), she said that we could come back on Monday. So what were we to do for a week we asked her? She then quite happily offered us her insight into the local area and a little further afield. Now is it just me or did we just walk straight back into a typical “Monkey Africa” country and not notice we crossed a border. So far South Africa has proved to be the most civilised country we have been into in a long time, yet you show up to a government agency office and it’s like you’re back in the big bad Congo.

With nothing left to do but be tourists for a week in the west coast area, that’s exactly what we did. We headed first to Langebaan for the evening. We found an ok campsite (caravan park) and watched one of the better sunsets we have seen setting over the hills, oceans and ships in the bay. As we weren’t too keen on the 80’s style caravan park, (the mens loos had been burnt out in one corner, seems that no attempt had been made to repair it either), we left to go a little further north where we found Columbine Nature Reserve just on the outskirts of a quaint little fishing town called Paternoster. Stunning, we camped right on the rocky water’s edge and had no sounds apart from the waves, birds and howling winds. Once the wind had gotten the best of us we headed yet further north. We ended up in a place called Lamberts Bay, pretty much at the end of a dead end road in the middle of nowhere. Now this is where we start to discover that camping on the west coast is not the best idea and is something that should be left in the 80’s. We found yet another unappealing caravan park and were faced with the hard choice of having to stay there as it was getting late. Lamberts Bay is quite a disappointing place they have stuck the town’s only economic feature bang smack in the middle of it and this happens to be a fish processing plant. So as you can imagine it stinks, it also seems that the place has long past its heyday, as the youngest looking resident is about 200 years old (clearly the young had moved out long ago), and the houses don’t look much better. The only reason to visit the place that we could see was its Cape Gannet colony, and perhaps the little coffee joint where you get served by women dressed like ‘working girls’.

Heading back inland, clearly as the coast has nothing to offer but wind. We went to the Cederberg hoping to camp at a place called Algeria, but this place was closed due to recent bushfires where apparently half of the Cederberg has suffered from bushfires. We ended up in Citrusdal, as you can imaging by its name this is South Africa’s citrus capital and I think it has a juice brand named after it.

Off for some wine tasting in Riebeek Kasteel, a little known wine area north of the main wine regions. Tried some excellent wines and had an excellent lunch. Headed out of town to find a nice camping spot, now this is definitely not an area that is in the guide books so we were relying on the GPS for a camping spot. First place we went to no one was home, though the sprinklers were on, we tried all the phone numbers listed on the door to no avail. Next we stopped next to a sign that said camping 2 kms down a gravel track, thought let’s call them first to make sure they have room, no answer here either. Found another on the GPS about 18 Km away went to that to discover that hubby was out playing golf and he was in charge of that sort of thing, wifey was adamant that only one camp was available in the whole place, and it was full, though to us it looked like there were about 20 spots free (shame because there were zebras wondering around). Now off to Tulbagh where the GPS tells us there is a caravan park, figured that would be a safe bet. Oh how wrong we were. We arrive at this place and the security guard lets us in and we are the only souls in the place, not only that gave us the heebie gebbies, the fact that the toilets were covered in graffiti and every braai spot had been demolished made it worse. As you can imagine we made a quick escape and headed back to the safety of Riebeek Kasteel, where we found a nice little cottage run by a lovely lady, the cottage was called Morway (R400 for the unit. Great!).

It was and Monday we could get our visa finally, now we thought this would be a quick in an out thing. But how wrong we were we handed in our little bit of paper that said “pick up Monday”. Then we waited for over an hour and finally the woman walked out with our passports after possibly, we think, either drinking tea for that long or trying to find the visa sticker in amongst the mess of paper that seemed to pile high everywhere. It’s quite surprising that anyone will be able to call the coming elections in South Africa free and fair, if home affairs is as disorganised as this, what are the other departments of this countries government like. We all know that the most likely next president has the education of a 6 year old, is as corrupt as they come and spends more time in court than most prisoners spend in prison, and I have yet to find a single South African that supports him, black or white.

After finally getting the visa we headed to Cape Town to meet up with our long lost fellow travellers Anne and Reindeer a.k.a The Dutch bikers. We spent the night at the Ashanti Lodge, what a disappointment; we got a room with a bed, a sink, a window that I couldn’t fit my head through and no form of cooling from the stifling heat. Needless to say we hightailed it out there the next day to visit the mechanic in Muizenburg. Jim is a Scotsman turned South African over the years, very helpful. Checked a few things out, and as he is probably the busiest mechanic in Cape Town made an appointment the following week to get more minor repairs done. Ended up crashing at Tammy’s in her lounge (Trevor’s sister) for the night. Thanks Tammy and flatmates!

As we had yet another week to kill around Cape Town till the mechanic had time to tend to Eddie’s needs. We headed out to Gordon’s Bay for no real reason at all. We headed back to Franschoek for some more wine tasting and beautiful surroundings, found that nearly every place was booked out but finally found a place called Calais Country Cottage. Louise had a little cold but we went wine tasting anyway, discovered that La Motte was rubbish, Grande Provence is not too bad and Boekenhoutskloof was the winner of the day. At the end of the day we headed to the wine shop in town to send a selection of wines to our friends in Mtunzini. We drove back to Cape Town and stayed in Kalk Bay. The following day I went down to see Jim again, we had the parts and now it was time to replace one of the front hubs, thanks to the mechanics in Windhoek for over tightening two of the three bolts and stripping the thread the whole hub had to be replaced while Jim replaced that. I swapped out the rear half shafts and driving members, and ‘bush mechaniced’ the rear shocks as I can’t find the right bushes for them. A quick oil and filter change and we were away.

We headed out to the peninsula again this time to the other side Nordhoek, where we had heard there was a good campsite. We discovered a couple of other overlanders, Isabella and Thomas from Switzerland, who have been on the road for a year and will spend at least another 2 years travelling around Africa in their giant Man truck, equipped with garage to store the BMW motorbike in the back. Also there where Sean and Lucy, an English couple from Henley who have spent the last couple of months coming down the east coast, their website www.bigafricanadventure.co.uk made me want to drive back up the east coast now, they also introduced us to the phrase “monkey Africa”.

Now on Wednesday the 4th of March it was time to see some more fellow travellers, we went to Hout Bay to have dinner at Annaliese and Stewart’s, the South African couple that we met at Big Millys in Ghana. They had another couple staying with them for the weekends cycle tour the Argus. At about 10 at night in the quiet neighbourhood in Hout Bay we heard the neighbours shouting that someone was trying to break into a van. Though Edmund would not approve of being called a van sure enough it was his window that was smashed, and a backpack was taken. We didn’t lose much, a few camera items, nothing that is irreplaceable and no one was hurt. Little shits.

The next morning we started early ringing places for a new window, no one had one but it’s amazing how helpful people in this country are. Telling you to try this person or that person, telling us how sorry they are to hear our car was broken into. Eventually PG Glass down by the waterfront could organise one for us for the following Monday though it was only fitted on Tuesday. We also headed out to the police station to get a copy of the police report, which was not possible as the constable was in court. Seems he was in court for the entire week as we finally only got a copy the following week as we were leaving Cape Town, more signs that South Africa is becoming more like Monkey Africa.

The broken window meant that we were campsite bound for the whole weekend in particular since the Argus we right outside the campsite and they shut the road for the whole day. (Unfortunately we didn’t manage to spot Matt Damon on his bicycle though, whilst sipping wine with Sean and Lucy at the nearby pub). We did manage to go to the Cape of Good Hope national park, after having our first McDonalds since we left Switzerland, though were duly chased away by baboons, I did get revenge as I chased them away with the help of Edmund as they were trying to destroy another vehicle.

Finally it’s Wednesday the 11th and we are leaving Cape Town, no offence meant but after first waiting for the visa, then the mechanic and finally the window replacement we were well overdue to be on the move again. We headed towards the southern most tip of Africa, after a quick lunch stop in Hermanus we headed just past Gansbaai, where we found yet another one of these caravan parks from the 80’s. The following day we headed to L’agulhas to take the necessary photos of the most southern point in Africa. For the night we ended up in De Hoop nature reserve where we would have liked to stay longer but at 275 Rand for camping, nearly 30 USD, we decided one night was enough. Next was Knysna, Trevor’s hometown. Spent a couple of nights there taking the necessary photos for Trevor, and enjoying the area before heading to Nature’s Valley for the next day. Then it was back to Storms River Mouth, where storm is the operative word, it blew gail force winds and rained all night. We had dinner in the car and went to bed in our ground tent at 19.30! Needless to say the next day looking much the same as before we headed out of there and tried to get back into Addo Elephant Park, it was full. We ended the day in Port Alfred a quaint little coastal resort.

We are now in Coffee Bay sitting in a campsite on top of some cliffs overlooking the turquoise blue ocean, listening to it crash into the rocks and generally enjoying the sunshine. We will spend a few more days on the coast before we head to Sodwana Bay for more diving with friends Chris and Dudley.

Milan

South Africa so far

Current Location: Salty Crax, Table View, South Africa

South Africa
24 November 2008 – 16 February 2009
We crossed over into South Africa from one National Park to another; Mozambique’s Parque Nacional do Limpopo into SA’s Kruger. Needless to say the wildlife on the Mozambique side is a little on the small side, only seeing a squirrel cross the road in a fright.

We were at the end of the trip together with C and Ian and had to head back to Pretoria quite quickly, so we only had a few days to spend in Kruger. Our theory being we can always go back and check out the park thoroughly at a later stage. Being there in November was also not the right time of the year as it was quite green and lots of long grass, meaning that it’s more difficult to spot any wildlife.

Time was ticking and we headed to Pretoria where we stayed with friends and got pampered with great food and lovely showers. We dropped C and Ian off at the airport in Joburg and headed off on our own again towards Blyde River Canyon where we spent a week relaxing and enjoying the stunning mountain views and waterfalls. Feeling the need for a little more ‘time off’ we headed to Mtunzini just south of Richards Bay where Christine and Dudley kindly let us stay with them for the next few weeks to recharge our travel batteries. After a lovely Christmas and New Years with the Kelbe’s we thought it was time to get back on the road again and headed off to check out the Drakensberg, the tallest mountain range in southern Africa which borders Lesotho. Unfortunately the weather gods were not supporting us that week as it was mostly raining heavily and freezing cold. Luckily we had some days with clear skies where we could see the mountain tops surrounding us which were really stunning. At this time we got news from our friends Andy and Francoise from Zurich that they were coming to visit us in 2 weeks. Yippieeeeee!

We had arranged to meet Christine and Dudley in Sodwana Bay for a week of diving so that was our next destination, back up north east close to the Mozambique border. Our first dive was with the Ragged Tooth Sharks and I was a little nervous to start off with as we all had to lie on the sandy bottom while the sharks were swimming close by. It was the time of the year where the pregnant females all come to that spot for a few months, and apparently they do not eat anything for that time which was a little more reassuring. It ended up being an amazing dive and we carried on diving for the whole week. By chance we also bumped into Erik and Ellen on the beach and it was really nice to catch up with them for a few days!

It was now time to start the long drive down to Port Elizabeth. We left Sodwana early on January 24th and made it to Gonubie (just east of East London) later that evening. We picked up Andy and Fran the next day at the airport at PE and it was so nice to see them after such a long time! We drove to Addo Elephant Park where we stayed for the next 3 nights. We booked a few tours with the rangers and we saw some really amazing lion on hyena action one morning. The night drive (which is usually really good) was a little disappointing as we only saw spring hares and scrub hares, plus when we got back to the waterhole by the campsite there were 2 rhinos there and some mongoose running around our tents.

Next move was to Storms River Mouth at Tsitsikamma National Park where we stayed in a little cottage on stilts just by the ocean. The views were just amazing with the waves crashing against the rocks just in front of us. We even spotted a whale! On the way there however, we drove through small local villages which Andy began calling ‘Stattschiffs’ and there was a lot of ‘Oh my word’ from the back seat while driving through. We then found a lovely camp site in Wilderness just next to the lake where we treated our guests to Zebra Pâté – unfortunately it didn’t go down too well and there was a certain one that refused to try it... you can just imagine who... ;o), granted the smell was rather off putting, it apparently smelled like cat food, this is when we discovered a certain member of the group has tried and tested kitekat cat food. This was also the evening when as soon as the sun went down, Andy changed into long trousers and a sweater – although everything was tucked into each other to minimise possible bug entries and bites. Check out the photo and see for yourselves, then let him know on a scale of 1 to 10 how funny he looks. Andy the Bushman! ;o)

We carried on to Oudtshoorn which is in the Little Karoo – meaning that the landscape changes drastically once you pass over the mountain ridge. It was really hot and dry again like Namibia – lovely. We stayed in a lovely place called Cul de Sac and the owner was so interested in our trip that he called a local reporter who interviewed us! It was so strange! He only asked a few questions about how many km’s we had driven and from where, not where we were going or anything regarding our adventures. Very strange... I would imagine the article will be really incorrect, if we ever get to see it. In Oudtshoorn we visted the Cango Wildlife Ranch where we could spend a few minutes with a grown cheetah, 2 young cheetahs which we all did, then Andy and Fran also wanted to hug the tiger which they did with buckets of enthusiasm. PS. Andy was not afraid of the big cats but had a little ‘reaction’ to a wallaby...

Next destination was Franschhoek for a tad of wine tasting. We found a lovely cottage to stay in called La Bourgogne for R1050/night, we all thought the accommodation was stunning though Andy was not impressed with the bathrooms, think there was some dust behind the toilet or something, and was tormented by the fact that the windows wouldn’t close properly and the cottage got doomed to death as he slept so badly because of a hundred apparent bugs. Fran was really keen on doing wine tasting on horseback, so off we went the next morning and got on our respective horses, sans Milan who checked out the town instead. We rode through the lovely vineyards and the rugged terrain. Our first wine tasting was at Rickety Bridge where we were given 40 minutes to taste 5 wines of our choice. A little too short and at the end the riding guide had to come and collect us as we were spending too much time tasting and buying wines... It was a lovely winery and the wines were really nice! We ended our horse riding with another tasting at Mont Rochelle where Milan met us for lunch. In the evening we had booked a table at Haute Cabriere where we had a fantastic dinner and, yet more, wine :o). Haute Cabriere is an award winning south African restaurant, Andy swears that Milan’s (marinated by Louise) cooked on the braii beef fillet was better than their Haute cusine.

A week had gone already and we headed to Cape Town. Fran called a place in the Cape Quarter (De Waterkant) just by chance to check the price and it was amazingly good value and an excellent location! It was a very cute little townhouse with two floors and a terrace on the top with great views over the city. Plus it was walking distance to everything around – perfect! The remaining week we walked around V&A, ate lots of kg’s of prawns, lots of kg’s of ribs, lots of burgers and fish and just enjoyed the café’s and good restaurants. Andy and Fran managed to do a helicopter ride over the city and Camp’s Bay which sounded great. We checked out the District Six Museum which was really interesting and we had a guide who had lived in that area of the city when he was little, but in 1966 it was declared as a white area and the authorities moved all the blacks and coloureds to the Cape Flats and bulldozed the area.

We also went to Robben Island one morning which is where Mandela was imprisoned for 18 years along with many other black and coloured political prisoners. The prison itself is nothing special but the tour is done by an ex-prisoner which brings a very personal touch to the whole experience. Andy and Fran finally decided to do a Township tour which turned out to be very interesting and we’re glad they saw that part of South Africa as well. With only a few days left we spent one day out on the peninsula where we went to Cape Point, Cape of Good Hope and visited the penguins at Boulders Beach. We spent nearly the entire week calling Table Mountain about the cable car running or not, it seems that even though it was built by the trusty Swiss as soon as there is a slight breeze they shut it down and go home for the day. We finally managed to get up the mountain on the Saturday morning; this is where we tried to test Andy’s fear of heights by tempting him with an abseil over the edge, as expected we failed, maybe next time.

Unfortunately their 2 week holiday was finished already, time went so fast, but it was lovely to catch up with ‘home’ again. Thanks guys for a great 2 weeks!

After they left we spent 5 days in Simons Town close to the penguins and mostly spent time on the peninsula hiking and taking photos of the views and the penguins. We are currently in Table View (Saltycrax Backpackers) which has a beautiful beach full of kite surfers. Tomorrow we will head a little north to extend our visa’s which expires in 10 days and then also visit Paternoster.