Travelling TA: July 2019

Friday 26 July 2019

Day 17 - Apartheid Museum

Our final day! Its gone at a great pace actually, not too quick. We feel very relaxed and ready to return to England and then China to see our fluff bags, who we miss very much.

It happens to be our 5 year wedding anniversary today too. 5 amazing years, travelling (and being looked after by) my best friend. I'm very lucky.

We had a later breakfast today, having arranged for our half day tour with Nic to finish with him dropping us at the airport. Its actually been perfect timing.

Our first hour was just driving around the city, looking at various neighborhoods and buildings. Nic knows a huge amount about the city, so it was very interesting.

At 11, we arrived at Constitutional Hill in time for a tour around Block 4, an awful prison for men during apartheid. It was designed to hold just under 1000 men, and ended up with over 2000 living in awful conditions. The men only cleaned once a week maximum, had to use toilets that overflowed into the eating area, and were allocated food amounts/quality based on their skin colour. Lots who were imprisoned there were there as political prisoners. Ghandi was there for 9 months in 1908, sent there because he wasn't carrying an ID card. He had refused to carry one.

There was a group of teenage school kids there, who were very noisy and laughing and joking around the solitary confinement cells. They were so loud we couldn't hear the guide. So disrespectful. Their teacher should be ashamed.

Nelson Mandela was also held here for a couple of years, in and out before his transfer to another prison. He was kept in the fort hospital next door to the prison, because the guards were worried he would try to escape. He was allowed booms and paper and this is where he wrote some of his memoirs. We saw the diaries he kept too.

Interestingly, the fort faces the city, not outside the city. This is because they decided that there was more threat from within the city than without. The fort is unique in this way.

We then headed to the apartheid museum, where we had wraps for lunch with Nic. Our museum tickets randomly designatedvus either white or non white and we had to use that entrance to get into the museum, which was very odd.

The museum had a huge section on Mandela's story, which was very interesting, and then a different enormous section on how the apartheid affected Johannesburg and gge neighboring regions. There was a huge amount of information, perhaps too much. It was one of those places you have to visit in order to acknowledge and respect the place you're visiting. We've done a few; Vietnam, Warsaw, Cambodia. This one was the first to leave me feeling more hopeful than hollow. The country is making huge progress, considering that apartheid really wasn't that long ago. Some of the video footage was difficult to watch, but I certainly understand the history of SA better now.

Now, we are at the airport in the business class lounge, waiting to board our plane. Its been an amazing holiday. I can't wait to cone back to Africa.

Day 16 - The Cradle of Human Kind

A big archaeology day for us today. Very exciting! We had breakfast at 7am and were picked up at 8 by Nic, a softly spoken, wonderfully friendly, chatty man from Soweto (the same place as Nelson Mandela). Our best guide by far. We headed to the Cradle of human kind UNESCO world heritage site, which is 47,000 hectares and is made up of lots of caves and archaeological sites where our earliest human ancestors remains were discovered. I live human evolution. This was just as much up my street as the cave paintings.

We headed to Sterkfontein cave where 'little foot' Australopithecus was found. A juvenile male, thought to be 3.7 million years old. To get to his dig site we put on hard hats and headed into the cave. I hate caves usually, but this one was dry, well lit and spider free, so I was fine. We walked through cave and were even crawling on our hands, knees and bums at some points, but it was perfectly safe, and we felt well looked after by our guide. The cave was 60 metres at its deepest. There was a crystal clear underground lake that years ago they had put dye in to see where it went. It came out 100km away, all undergroind. There was a bit of dust on top from the excavations still going on. There were also a few Stalactites and stalagmites but mist had been mined years ago. Limestone was mined there too. Little foot fell through an opening 45 metres from the ground and was fossilized. No one lived in the cave. Archaeologists know this because thete are no wall paintings or smoke on the ceiling.

Mrs Ples was the second specimine found and was also an Australopithecus (an offshoot of hominids, not from the Homo genus like we are). She (turned out to be a juvenile male) is 2.5 million years old. The Site is not in the cave, but close by. There were some students excavating fossils in a building nearby.

We then headed to the Lesedi cultural village (means place of light). It is not the natural site of a village, but was built to showcase the culture of four villages from 4 tribes in SA. Our guide was from the Zulu tribe, and ge led us around each village, where traditional houses had been made, and women were preparing traditional meals. We had to shout a greeting before we went into each village.

The first village was the Zulu tribe. We were introduced to thr spear maker and he dropped his spear. They were a Marijuana smoking tribe.

Basotho from Lesotho was the second tribe, who had slightly different buildings and clothing and language.

Xhosha was the next tribe. They have tounge clicking speech and songs. Went inside the hut. Women on right men on the left because if an enemy entered the door swung to the right so the men would be attacked first. Also a Marijuana smoking tribe!

Last was the tribe of the Pedi (Limpopo tribe, bordering Botswana). They wear kilts because they were attacked by the Scottish and refused to fight what they thought was a group of women. They were defeated and wear the kilts even today to remember. We were offered a dried or fresh worm to try as a local snack. Matt ate a dried worm, rather than fresh. I didn't.

There was then a 45 minute performance of dance from each village, plus neighbouring countries. We recognized the Swazi dance. Group of school girls were going mad and screaming at the men, who were only wearing animal skins. Drums and whistles, dancing with sticks or spears. Very charismatic Zulu man introducing each dance. Older women playing drums and singing. It went into break dancing, backflips, flossing and the worm at the end. One guy was absolutely living life. So energetic. A real spectacle.

Next, we drove back to the cradle of human kind to visit the museum. First we had lunch in the cafe with Nic. Chicken prego rolls. Delicious. The museum started with a corridor describing all major events in the Earth's history, like 4 mass extinctions, continents changing from 1 to 2, dinosaurs, first monkies, first single celled organisms, etc. Then we turned a corner and there was a round boat in the dark leading off into a dark river. It was a journey through Earth's geological beginnings - water, ice age, lava. It was fun and so unexpected.

The museum was then an interactive look at evolution and man's impact on the planet. It had 7 stations of what qualifies us as homo sapiens: ability to make fire, ability to speak, creation of tools to manipulate our environment, being sociable, creativity, food consumption, big brain. There was also a great 'clock' that showed the entire history of the earth in 12 hours. The first hominids appeared with only a couple of seconds to go, and homo sapiens, with less than a second. We are a mere dot in Earth's history!

We then drove back to our hotel, the Hype Park Guest House, chatting to Nic about the history of SA. The man sure knows his history, and the regions politics. He can recall dates instantly of anything from SA's history. A great tour guide. We managed to persuade Nic to be our guide for tomorrow's trip too.

We ended up back at Nelson Mandela Square in the Hard Rock Cafe listening to Queen again, exhausted after a fantastic day!

Day 15 - Johannesburg

Last nights steak dinner was amazing. I don't even like steak. I'm now a convert! Before we went to bed the hippo and water buck were moving around near the river, then there were suddenly 10 elephants standing, munching the trees as close to the fence at the bottom of the garden as you could physically get! Too dark to get photos unfortunately because the baby elephants were so cute!

In the morning we were up at sunrise again to see if the elephants were still around. We only saw 2, in the distance on the opposite river bank unfortunately. Not even the hippos were splashing around this morning! The beautiful birds were out in full force though. There is nothing quite like a sunrise breakfast with the sound of the dawn chorus to accompany you.

We had a look around the little shop on site and bought some gorgeous wooden napkin rings shaped like animals. We had them on our table at every meal and I just loved them at first sight.

We said goodbye to Leanne the owner and Anzelle, who had catered to our every need on the trip, and got going with our driver, Sam (and his wife - they were making a trip of it). It took 6 hours in total to get to Johannesburg. We stopped again at the Nandos with the watering hole. No rhino today, but plenty of ostrich, buffalo, zebra, ibex and impala.

Because its winter here, lots of farmers are burning their fields, so that in the spring, fresh new grass will grow there. We've seen plenty of controlled bush fires, but today's one was crazy! The huge fire was about 30 feet from our car, but we could still feel the intense heat from it. Smoke was all over the area, but at one point we had to stop the car because we couldn't see the bonnet of the car, or out any of the windows. We crawled the car forwards and suddenly we were in clear air. I feel like it was actually pretty dangerous. Not so much the fire, but the potential for being hit by another car!

We made it to the Hyde Park Guest House after a 6 hour journey. The room was OK, but nothing compared to the lodge we just came from. Our room was very cold, and even had a free standing radiator and an electric blanket. Our door onto the terrace didn't fit properly, so there was a towel wedged at the bottom, presumably to keep out the cold... Or bugs. That's only just occurred to me! There was a generator on our terrace that made noise 24/7 too, so Matt hasn't slept well since we arrived.

Anyway, we arrived and decided to get an Uber to Nelson Mandela Square for a photo with his huge statue. We went to the Hard Rock Cafe for a beer/coconut and pineapple mojito, and ended up staying for a few, plus burgers. I got the local one, which you can only get in this particular Hard Rick Cafe. We even got to choose some songs for the playlist (all my choices were Queen - I've always loved them, but watching Bohemian Rhapsody has renewed my love. I must unearth my best of Queen albums...)

Tuesday 23 July 2019

Day 14 - Hippos, Elephants and Birds

Once again, I find myself sat by the fire pit, glass of wine in hand, ready to tell you about the brilliant day I've had.

Dinner last night was delicious white fish and mash with veg. Did I mention that we eat on our terrace next to the fire, listening to the very loud grunting hippos, calling birds and just now something that sounded suspiciously big-cat-ish. We spent an hour or so at the bottom of the garden in the dark watching a total of 15 hippos moving around. There was even a tiny baby one! Super cute. Hippos really are quite fast on land, I was surprised! We had got chatting to a couple of hippo-mad Americans from California earlier, so we went to grab them to watch the hippos too. They had binoculars, which was great for us!

We got up at sunrise (6.30) to see what was out and about. We'd booked breakfast for 8 and boy did that time go quick. The mumma and baby hippo were having a wander around, as were some other hippos. They were climbing all over the bank and went really quite far from the river. I got some great photos.

Our bird feeder outside our room was also jam packed full of lots of different birds. We also have a nice orange tree/bush thing that had lots of nectar feeding birds on it, including red breasted sunbirds, a lovely kingfisher and some very beautiful others. We also saw a black white and red big bird that is apparently on the endangered species list. Not bad for before 8am!

Breakfast was delicious. Matt had a fry up. I had omelette, plus we both had croissants, fresh OJ, fruit and yoghurt. Yum.

We settled on our terrace for a day of book reading, relaxing and chilling out with a stunning view of crocodile river.

At lunch, we were half way through our sandwich/tuna salad when a family of 5 elephants wandered down to the river to drink. There was an adult male and female, a slightly smaller make and two gorgeous babies. They were all having a drink, dipping their feet in the river to cool off and then throwing mud over themselves to cool down. The babies were copying their Dad. It was wonderful to see and we watched them for quite a while, all thoughts of lunch gone. Elephants are just gorgeous.

Then, to make our stay complete, just as it was getting dark, a small herd of buffalo came for a drink! They were the only animal we wanted a closer look at on safari and here they were. I know we saw one through binoculars yesterday, but now I feel we can truly say we've seen all of the big 5. Amazing.

I'll be very sad to leave tomorrow, but I'm looking forward to Johannesburg too. We've got a trip planned to the site known as the 'cradle of mankind' so that gets my archaeological fever going.

For now, we're waiting by the fire for our steak dinners to arrive, and enjoying the impressive display of stars on show. Matt is sure he can see the milkyway...

Monday 22 July 2019

Day 13 - The Big 5

What an amazing day! I didn't even mind getting up at 4.45am this morning. I mean, you don't mind do you? Not when you're off on safari. I now consider myself an expert, having safaried in 3 different parks, on 2 continents, on 7 different drives.

Our driver today was Elvis, and he has been guiding at Kruger for 25 years! He knows his shit, both literally and figuratively. Once again, we had the safari vehicle to ourselves, do were in the front row, seats we've had on every single one of pur safari adventures. We barrelled down the road for 5km and were first in the queue to get into the park. It was very cold; hat, thermal undies, thermal jumper, hoodie, boots, scarf kind of cold. Neither of us remembered gloves. It must have just slipped our minds as we were packing shorts and swim gear.

As soon as we were in the park we saw the elephants from our stretch of river yesterday, the mum, dad and two babies. Still pitch dark though, so no photos. Then we ran into a pair of lions, snoozing on the road. Got a few early sunrise photos there. Then white rhino, warthog (which I've decided are really rather cute. I've developed a bit of a soft spot).

Then, we got a tip about a cheetah and drove like a bat out of hell, convinced that racing a cheetah was just going to end in disappointment. But there they were. 3 cheetahs, standing close enough to get some amazing photos with the big zoom - the best money I've ever spent! Cheetahs are o beautiful, and lean and they have very long tails. Two started playing together. It was fabulous to see.

By 7am we'd seen 3 of the big 5 (rhino, lion and elephant, no buffalo or leopard yet) plus so many other animals. We even saw the interesting birds that Zazu from the Lion King is based on.

By 12, we'd seen buffalo too, though only through binoculars, velvet monkies sitting in trees, hippo, giraffe, loads more rhino and elephants, so many impala I can't count and zebra. There were some very pretty water bucks covered in little birds, who were eating the flies off them.

On our way out we stumbled across wild dogs, more lions and then a few feet down the road we were told there were 3 more lions. We didn't see them, but we did see a leopard stuck in a tree, not willing to come down due to the lions! Lions, cheetah and leopard all in one day, amazing! Seriously amazing considering Kruger is bigger than the whole country of Swaziland! The leopard made 6 of the big 7. Hyenas were the only thing we missed.

There were lots of people driving their own cars around, but I just can't see why you wouldn't go in a nice high up safari car, with an experienced driver/guide. It's worth every penny.

We needed a bath and a nap when we got back to the hotel, and now we're sitting on our sun loungers looking out over crocodile river, letting the sun warm our faces and seeing if we can spot anything in the river!