Lions and zebras and hippos, oh my!

Day 5 is when we said bye to Cape Town and said hello to safaris! Getting to the Krueger Park was a mission in itself, involving a flight to Johannesburg, a propeller plane (didn't know those actually fly commercially lol) to Hoedspruit, and an hour transfer to the resort. I have to say that it was the best transfer ever as we got to see giraffes, zebras, and watch an elephant eat and take a bath along the way :)

 

At the risk of being mushy, I must admit that this was a very special experience for me. I never thought what a rush of excitement it is to see all these amazing and exotic animals up close in their natural habitat. I also have a whole new understanding of the animals' life and behaviours, the conservation aspects of national parks, and a great respect for and appreciating of the schooling, skill and experience that it takes to be a ranger or a tracker.

 

We chose a private reserve neighbouring Krueger Park called Shindzela (or honey badger in English) as our playground for spotting the animals. The guys working there were absolutely amazing in going above and beyond to show us the animals (including a night chase for a herd of buffalo and tracking an elephant and a rhino off road through the bush). They also taught us a tonne about the animals, their interaction in the wild, their behaviour towards humans, and how they could be tracked. When I say 'taught' I mean share 0.0001% of their knowledge, but since we came in with 0 knowledge and a ton of misconceptions, I consider it a great learning :) A special shout out also goes to Gerdie - the awesome cook who kept us full on delicious meals full of 'mmmmm'.

 

We would have 2 drives a day: one morning one (involving waking up at 5:30 am) to catch all the animals as they wake up and start going about their day (be in grazing on trying to eat the grazers), and an evening one, starting at 4 and going into the nigh time to catch all the nocturnal animals in action. The most popular animals on the safaris are called the Big 5, a term coined for animals that are most difficult to hunt for on foot, and they are: elephant, rhino, buffalo, lion and leopard. There are also Little 5, which is a fun way to categorize 5 smaller animals found in SA whose name correspond to the Big Five i.e. a rhino beetle. Finally, there's the Secret 7 - animals that are the trickiest to find as they are nocturnal. Our count was 3/5 for the Big 5, 2/5 for the Little 5, and 3/7 for the Secret 7. Not bad at all as we were told; the only pity was that we didn't get to see any of the big kitties: the lions or the leopards.

 

We literally managed to have an adventure every single time we drove out. We also did a walking tour where we didn't encounter anyone bigger or badder than a millipede, but were told that just a few weeks ago people ran into a herd of 60 elephants. I will let these pictures and story blurbs describe our animal encounters :)

Our accommodations in the bush. Other than a small electric fence around some of the perimeter, we were pretty much out there with the animals. Supposedly all sorts of critters come to visit, elephants, leopards...we only got visited by an impala-boo.

 

We saw this guy hanging out on the side of the road while driving to the safari lodge. He didn't seem to mind us and ate some leafs then took a mud bath before strolling off

We drove into this herd of buffalo by the dam after tracking them down all night in hopes that they would bring lions on their tail. There were 100+ of them and the one staring at us from the middle wasn't too happy with our arrival. We were told that buffalo is the most dangerous of the Big 5 because it will charge you if it doesn't like you, so having dozens of them around was pretty cool and unnerving :D

These are the impalas aka McDonald's of the bush, because everything with teeth is trying to eat them. Them also have a black M on their bums hehe. We also tried eating it...tastes like steak :D We saw these guys all over the place, they were like squirrels back home.

The kudu. These guys are really pretty large antelope like animals...and also tasty :) We stumbled upon a whole family of them by the dam. As most animals, they didn't mind us and went about their business snacking and hanging out.

Meet Gina the giraffe. I was blown away by how tall these guys actually are. Surprisingly, they are not as easy as one might think to spot. We only saw the one up close.

Harry the Hippo...he's a loner because he ate his friend and the other hippos exiled him. He now hangs out by himself around the dam. We didn't know this, but it's actually very hard to see a hippo on land as they only come out at night to feed. Even still, ou don't want to be around them as they get very aggressive. They begin opening their mouths and roaring when they want to come out to warn you to go away (which we didm, because these things are 3 tonnes and run 40 km/hr).

Warhog aka Pumba...These things are quite skittish and don't like people too much.

The janet is part of the secret 7. It can only be seen at night when it hunts.

The moment I thought I was going to get trampled...

We found this guy with Sam's tracking help. He heard him break a branch when we were watching the hippos and lead us right to it. We had to do some crazy driving through the bush to follow this guy, but he eventually ended up following us right back to the water. In this shot, he's actually standing 10-15 m away from the car. He was very surprised to see us and walked right behind the car to get a closer look (and this is where I thought I was going to die because I was half expecting it to charge hehe). He was cool though, and proceeded to go about his business-drinking and taking a mud bath. Whew!

We spotted a fun family of zebras during one of our rides. These are absolutely gorgeous animals with perfectly flawless hides. Loved them!

 

Rino the white rhino. This guy was crossing the road when we found them, but he paused for a few minutes for us to admire him. He was at least 3 tonnes-these guys are massive! Also, nerd fact of the day: the name white rhino actually comes from the Dutch word for 'wide', which sounds like 'white', hence it's called the white rhino.

 Our adventure car for our safari adventures. The ranger drives and the tracker sits in the front and looks out for animal clues.

Our awesome ranger Mike taking us on a supervised walk through the bush. We didn't have any incidents other than meeting the millipede that I'm playing with in the next picture. Never had a giant millipede crawl on me before...it felt like a toothbrush :)

That's it for now! :))

Discovering Cape Town

It is Day 8 in South Africa, and I'm sitting in a quant safari themed lodge (my home in Johannesburg for the next 2 days) reminiscing all about our wonderful trip. Steve, Anna and mark are en route to Kenya for their volunteer mission to help build a school, and I miss them already, but am so excited, as I know Kenya will be amazing. I have nothing but love for what I've seen and experience in Africa.

 

Cape Town was stop 1 of 3 on our journey, and we had a city tour, a visit to the Table Mountain, winery crawl in the winelands, and a coastal tour of the peninsula on our itinerary. I have to say that I loved the city, and I loved the peninsula and all the nature wonders that it has to offer even more. Besides the scenery and the great food (South Africa is heaven for a meat lover), it was also very eye opening to learn about the history of apartheid and the racial separation in the country, and how it shaped the way of life of its people. It absolutely puts things in perspective and makes you appreciate Canada and the UK even more. The only way to describe this trip fairly is to post some pictures, as I don't think I'm poetic enough to do it justice in words, so here we go :)

 

Table Mountain

Table Mountain is part of a small mountain range right smack in the middle of Cape Town and is renowned for its flatness, just like the name suggests. I was fortunate to visit many mountains, but this one was the most unique one of them all. Firstly, you find yourself above clouds, so on a sunny day (like the one we fortunately got), one could see the ocean, the mountains and the city through patches of cotton ball like clouds - absolutely spectacular view. Secondly, because of the flatness, you can actually walk the whole mountain, back and forth, taking in the scenery and trying to spot all the little animals that live all over it - a change from most mountains where al you have ia a couple of viewing platforms.

Table Mountain from afar

This guy was covered by a tablecloth of clouds 3/4 days we were there, except for the day when we actually went up. Lucky us as we got great views!

Taking in the view

Lion's Head mountain on the left...harbour on the right...

Table Mountain critters

We had no idea who these guys were but they were everywhere. The winning hypothesis is that it's a guinea pig.

 Winelands

South Africa is renowned for its wine, and has been since the mid 1600's as we have learned. Our day two was supposed to be a tour of the winelands including visits to the wineries and a couple of small towns, but because it was a rainy day and walking outside was out of the question, the tour turned into just a winery tour. The damage? 30 wine samplings and 4 wine bottles for later :) As always, we learned a ton about wines, and forgot it by the evening hehe. The wine country itself was spectacular, even in the rain. The one drastic difference compared to Canada is that the grapes grop on the slopes as opposed to flats. We later learned that the taste of the wine has a lot to do with these unique elevation conditions.

Wineland scenery

 

Cape Peninsula Drive

The highlight of my Cape Town stay! Imagine an all day coastal drive where you spend your day taking in beautiful ocean, bay and mountain scenery, driving to the tip of the peninsula to stand on the most south westerly point of the African continent, visiting a penguin colony on Boulders beach, and finishing the day off with a visit to the Jurassic Park like Kirstenbosch botanical gardens. I was especially excited to stand on the most southern westerly point of the continent, because I'm a huge geek who pretty much thinks that things like that are cool, and uber-especially excited to visit the penguin colony, as these guys are my fave animals. They were so cute, words can't even describe them! I would totally bring a couple home if I could :)

Maiden's Bay views

A the name suggests, this is where the women used to go to take baths 200 years ago...

Chapman's Peak views

It gets so windy in these parts that people get blown off the mountain sometimes...yikes!

Road companions

These are baboons, and supposedly you are not allowed to touch or feed them because they are dangerous (or at least that's what the signs that are everywhere told us)

Stopping to feed some ostriches

This activity is as terrifying as my face suggests. These guys will attack your hand for food. Mine almost got swallowed. Good thing they don't have teeth hehe

"The most south western point of African continent"-we were there!

Cape of Good Hope views

Making new friends with the penguins!

There's a penguin colony on the Boulder's beach. We were told that these guys showed up in the 80's and multiplied making this beach their new home. They are the most adorable things ever!

Penguin march

Kirstenbosch botanical gardens (NOT Jurassic Park)

 

Victoria and Albert Waterfront

Day 4 was our official 'chill day' where we got to sleep in, explore the waterfront and harbour area of Cape Town, squeeze in a bit of shopping, and eat eat eat. More seafood, steak, ribs, and more steak. We found an amazing resto right next to our hotel - a quaint stakehouse called Hassar's Grill, serving fantastic meat, and equally fantastic dessert including their special chocolate vodka (sipping chocolate with vodka and cream...where have you been all my life! lol). It was the first resto for all of us that we went to two days in a row, that's how good it was! As an added bonus, you could bring your own wine, so our 4 bottles purchased during the winery tour were put to a good use. I have to say that SA restos (except for those tourist traps along the waterfront) have a great policy of BYOB charging a small corking fee at most, making dining experience quite affordable.

The old City Hall

This is the building from the balcony of which Nelson Mandela made his first presidential address

The Coke Man

We thought this was the greatest thing ever...It's a 'Coke Man' b/c it's a guy that is sitting on the harbour and he's made of coke crates. Amazing what people come up with. He is looking at the stadium, so we think that he's supposed to be cheering for the World Cup...or maybe we just have too much imagination :D

City views from the ferris wheel

City of rainbows

We saw these a lot in Cape Town, and they were the brightest biggest rainbows that I've ever seen! We also got to see a perfect double rainbow. Must be a geographical thing? Or just one of Cape Town's wonders...

 

Dam, Dam, Amsterdam!

Amsterdam is another city to add to my favourite city collection. Using my bday as an excuse, and with my fave 7 people posse in tow, this was a 2 day city break on a fine first weekend of April.

 

Our day 1 got started with a visit to the Keukenhof gardens to catch Amsterdam's most famous flower, the tulip, in bloom. Unfortunately the tulips weren't yet in bloom, but instead we got to see other interesting things, like a bus full of people all dressed up in traditional Dutch clothes (I'm talking clogs hehe). The rest of the day went something like this: city exploring, eating, beers, more exploring, more beers and eating, visit to the red light district, and beers and partying at a randomly found but surprisingly good club.

 

Day 2 continued on a good note with a visit to the pancake house for breakfast (only my fave breakfast food in the whole world!). Seriously, I think those crepes really contributed to my lovey dovey feelings towards the city. I should mention that we got to the pancake house by renting bicycles, which we then rode to the other side of the city to do a tour of the Heineken brewery. So, yours truly ended up riding a bike through the streets of the city after not being on a bike for a good 14 years. Not going to lie, I was a little terrified at first, but I guess they have the saying 'it's like riding a bike' for a reason, because it all eventually kind of came back hehe. The Heiny brewery was a blast! 2 hours of interactive brewery exploring and beer sampling do equal a good time :)

 

All in all, it was another awesome weekend with awesome friends! Here's a display of our escapades:

 The Crew: Rachel the photographer, Maria, Mark, Jon+burger, Andy, Van, Vi, Anna and Steve

The bike posse aka same crew 

Proof that I rode the bike!

 Prancing around in Keukenhof

New clogs...

A very happy Heineken sampling

Next Heineken label :D

Saalbach Skiing...Attempted

We decided to go to Saalbach to take advantage of the 2011 skiing season. Instead, we ended up learning a lesson that going skiing at the end of March does not really work, turning the trip into a roadtrip through the Alps to visit Salzburg and Munich.

I can't really tell you how good Saalbach skiing was, since half of the mountain had melted by the time we got there. I have a feeling it would've been really good though lol. We still managed to have a day of skiing (before the snow turned into slush by the end of the day), and got to have a wicked schnitzel and beer filled lunch on top of the mountain in our t-shirts. What was good about Saalbach, however, was the apres-ski! In fact, some of our apres-ski started at 10 am with breakfast beers. We found an awesome bar right by our hotel that by 4 o'clock was filled with German pop and dancing people everywhere - a scene that we were happy to join. This is also the place where I discovered jaggertea - an incredibly potent mix of Jagger and hot tea (pretty much just like the name suggests lol). If you have high tolerance for alcohol, try this and see what happens hehe.

On Sunday, we decided against more slushy skiing, opting to do a roadtrip to Salzburg instead. Salzberg is about 90 min drive from Saalbach through the Alps, which was hands down one of the most beautiful drives I've ever done. Everything looks like it just came down from a picture on a Swiss chocolate bar - green green grass, beautifully blue water, quaint little farms, and spectacular mountains in the background. All in all, jaw dropping.

Salzburg itself is a very pretty little city. Lots of colourful old building (in amazing condition), narrow streets with quaint cafes, cute squares with vendors selling all sorts of Austrian knick knacks - a great place to stroll for a couple of hours. Mark did a good job finding a resto inside a hotel, that looked like it was straight from the 17th century. I managed to have more schnitzel (which is the one Austrian dish I realized I'm in love with), and we finished our lunch by having cake and tea in the oldest cafe in town.

Unfortunately the weather gods weren't on our side, and it started to rain, so we had to cut our stay short. Instead, we departed on a road trip to the airport through Munich. I think I already love Munich, based on what I've seen from the car and at the airport (like, a vending machine with a conveyor belt that lets you buy cigarettes at the till in a supermarket - amazing technology these days! lol), and I can't wait to go back there for Oktoberfest!

Here's a recap of our skiing and Salzburg adventures :)

Chalet views

(you could easily notice the obvious absence of snow here :) )

Fun on the hills

(pic on the left=bad side of the hill; pic on the right=good side of the hill)

A little too hot for skiing

(No, this is not us posing this time, it was actually that hot!)

Alps view on the drive to Salzburg

Pretty colours in Salzburg

 My Austrian favourite!