Monday 21 March 2016

South Africa

Image result for south africa flag

Carolyn.  We drove down to Cape Town from Namibia - about a 10 hour drive, though we took 3 days to do it, with some nice stops en route.  Then spent another week in the Cape area before boarding a train to Johannesburg (30 hours, overnight sleeper - I'll let Cooper tell you more about this).

Cape Town is a beautiful city, with the kind of variable weather that reminds us of Calgary!  And beautiful sea with city beaches that remind us of Vancouver.

We hiked up to the top of Table Mountain, spent a day in nearby wine country, admired the local penguin colony on the southern reaches of the Cape Peninsula, and photographed amazing coastline views along the way.

Importantly, while in Cape Town, we toured the former prison of Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in jail (now a national historic site).  And then later in Johannesburg, we also visited Mandela's first home (now a small museum) in the ghetto-like suburb of Soweto - and later spent several hours at the Apartheid Museum (located on the other side of town).  Talk about an education for Cooper!  Even for Vern and I, we are still processing what we saw and learned...more than the media coverage of our teen and young adult years...

We are now headed to Madagascar.  Very excited to see lemurs, and a new part of Africa!


Click here to see the rest of the pictures from our world trip so far: Trip Photo Album


Saturday 5 March 2016

Sand Dunes

Cooper. After a month of staying put in Windhoek, Namibia, it was nice to start moving again. The apartment that we stayed at was very nice, and we went back to it after our 10-day self-drive safari through Namibia.

We stayed in 5 campsites and 1 guesthouse, for a total of 10 nights. Between campsites, there was a lot of driving; once even eight hours between them. Each of the sites had a pool which we went in (it was so hot, so needed).

At home, we go camping very often with a normal tent for setting up on the ground, but our vehicle here was different. It had two small tents permanently attached on the roof of our 4x4 truck. You just unfold it and voila, then you only need to add the poles. It sounded simple to us, and we got a demonstration of how to set it up when we rented it, but on our first night, it took us nearly an hour!!! We got the hang of it by the end of the safari though.





While on the safari, we visited Swakopmund on the coast and stayed in a guesthouse for two nights (just to take a break from camping). The main reason we went there was to see, hike, and board down the magnificent sand dunes that were just outside of the ocean-side town. It was amazing(ly hot and tiring) to climb and board down the dunes, but is was sure fun! On my sand belly board (literally a piece of pressboard), I reached 71 km/hr!





Another place we went with grand sand dunes was Sossuslvei, the home of ‘the dune’ (the dune that’s on all the postcards here). Climbing up for sunrise was really cool… but it meant waking up at 4:30 in the morning. So it was beautiful, sleepy sunrise.






My favourite campsite was called Hoada in Damaraland. This campsite was very private, with a shaded concrete pad to set up our table and chairs, an outdoor kitchen sink and counter, personal toilet and shower, and a small pool. But the part that especially made it my favourite was that the campsite was in clumps of smooth boulders. (see pictures to understand it better).





Thank you safari (except for our fridge that never did stay cold!). It was very nice!





Click here to see the rest of the pictures from our world trip so far: Trip Photo Album



Friday 4 March 2016

Spiders and Centipedes and Scorpions, Oh My!

Vern.

We’ve spent the past week on a self-drive camping safari.  Armed with a 4x4 'bakkie' (a double cab truck with rooftop tents!  See Cooper's post above for pix) and a battery of rented camping gear, we ventured forth to explore the wilds of the Kalahari in northern and western Namibia.

We’ve added to our Botswana sightings of elephants, zebra, wildebeest and giraffe, and were hugely excited to view several rhinos, completing our set of the “Big 5” (the five most coveted animals that visitors strive to see:  elephant, lion, rhino, leopard, buffalo).   




We spent a fascinating morning with a Himba tribe at their remote village, learning their customs and daily routine. 




One of our self-drive campsites stands out in particular.  (It was Cooper's favourite, as he mentions above in his post.) The desert region southwest of Etosha National Park contains an area punctuated by outcroppings of huge, smooth boulders.  It’s as if giants used the place for a game of marbles, left them all behind, and went home (this based on the fact that we saw no giants during our stay).  The designers of Hoada camp cleverly incorporated the unique natural features into their fully-plumbed sites.  You meander through house-sized boulders to your outdoor shower.  Our private, outdoor, flush toilet was nestled between two similarly huge stones. The camp even included a small swimming pool situated – you guessed it – amongst prehistoric mounds of granite.



One unexpected feature of our site was the nighttime critters brought out by the combination of rock and desert sand.  Cleaning up from dinner one night, a massive centipede skittered across the ground of our eating area.  It was followed in short order by a large and aggressive spider, with a creepy yellow colour.  After the first quick glance, Carolyn asked Cooper if he was sure it wasn’t a scorpion, to which Coop replied: “No, it’s a spider.  That’s a scorpion over there.”  Sure enough, resting directly on the path to our tents was a giant scorpion.   We were very happy with the fact that our tents are on the roof of our 4x4.




The geography of Namibia continues to surprise and impress us.  We’ll shortly be driving south through the country and into South Africa, where we are looking forward to spending time in Cape Town.

Click here to see the rest of the pictures from our world trip so far: Trip Photo Album