back to chilling at the bristish airways lounge - this time in Cape Town

the first (and by far shortest) leg of our trip home - from Durban to Cape town, went without a hitch - so that's good.  now waiting 3 hours for the 12 hour flight to London, and then the 7 hours flight to NY....  just typing this makes me tired.
But - we did have an excellent vacation!  We have a million pictures (I really only posted a very small number), which I will insist on sharing with everyone once we get home.
Just in case it was not clear, Joe is the photographer, and took all of the wonderful pictures!  I am responsible for the words, including all bad spelling.
It has been fun, good bye Africa!

and now, a jump in the Indian ocean!

We woke up late (7am!  That’s late compared to the 5:30am wake up call at Notten Camp...).   It was a sunny and pleasantly warm day (78 degrees Fahrenheit, 25 Celsius for a high today) albeit a touch windy.  I took a stroll by the ocean before breakfast:  Durban and its entire surrounding area sits on a beach that is over 300 miles long, providing endless views, surfing and wave jumping opportunities.

We have another leisurely breakfast (that has been the one constant of this vacation – venues, scenery, climates have changed, but breakfasts have been long and luxurious throughout!), then took a cab to Durban itself:  Our driver also gave us a quick tour of the city, before depositing us on the main beach area.  Durban is very different from Cape Town- they are both large cities on the ocean, and both are beautiful, but Durban is somehow much more African:  Cape Town has kept a very “English colonial” feel to it, with it’s Virginian buildings, its statues and parks.  Durban bustles more, is more diverse, has women carrying heavy loads on their heads, next to women in Muslim veils, next to white families, all walking together amongst street vendors that sell everything from fresh produce to fake crocs shoes.  The downside of Durban is that, while Cape Town felt very safe (and we were told by everyone there that we could freely walk everywhere, which we did), it only feels safe here in limited areas, and at the cost of very strong security measures:  our hotel, and basically all of Umhlanga, is surrounded by a six foot walls, topped with an electric fence.  The town is patrolled not just by a lot of police, but also by 2 separate private police forces.  The beach of Durban and the entire boardwalk – which are pretty and lively, and full of cute stores, restaurants, and families of all colors, is great.  But we were strongly warned not to walk away from it at all.

Durban is really a good example of all the possibilities, and all the potential problems of South Africa… but for today – we just enjoyed to sights, the beaches, the diverse crowds.

For lunch, we had the most common fast food here: bunnies – it does not involve eating any rabbit; I don’t know why it’s called that…  It is a hollowed out brioche (not as sweet as French brioche, but similar otherwise) filled with different India curries.  I had chicken, Joe had mutton.  The odd juxtaposition of cuisines works better than you’d think, and these were quite good.

 Then we looked at the fancy sandcastles on the beach - they are quite amazing.

Then we went back to Umhlanga – took a walk on the beautiful beach:

I went for a wonderful swim in the Indian Ocean (I could not possibly not go!).  The water temperature is about 78 degrees, same as the air, the waves are long and rolling… it was blissful…. Although I did miss Claire and Emily – waves are more fun with them jumping in them too…..

Since Joe and I are celebrating our 23^rd anniversary on Sunday, while we will be on an airplane (we should be home before dinner, but much to tired to have any fun....), we decided to have a nice dinner tonight, and went to “Ile Maurice”, a French/island restaurant (Ile Maurice is Mauritius Island in French).  We had some lovely food (in a very hot kind of way) and wine – by the time I remembered that I wanted to take picture of this meal, here is all that was left of it (this used to be banana flambé au coco)….

Tomorrow we start the long trek home – Durban to Cape Town, Cape Town to London, London to New York.

Leaving the bush, on to Durban!

We took advantage of the fact that we were not leaving until 10:00am to take one last Range Rover drive:  The rangers had tracked a female leopard and her 2 cubs, and we were hoping to see them.  We did follow her tracks for over 1 hour – the process is very interesting, and seeing the rangers figure out, from rather faint paw prints on the sand, which direction she was going and when she went by was fascinating.  Unfortunately, she outsmarted all of them, and managed to remain hidden.  So we had to “made do” with a few lovely zebras, kudzus and birds.

and, as always, lots of impalas:  in fact they are so common that we became very blasé about them…  “oh, it’s just another impalas, what a bore….”- but they are cute.  They are known as “the McDonalds of the bush”, because from behind, their markings look like a big “M” (i.e “a golden arch”) and because “every one eats there (i.e:  there are the most common prey for everything that eats meat: leopards, lions, hyenas, cheetahs, etc…)…

Back at the camp, we said goodbye to the playful monkeys, and the noisy baboons.

One last breakfast in the outside dining room overlooking the bush, and off we were.

We took 2 hours to make it to Hoelspruit airport – mostly on dirt roads through a series of villages made of small houses most with outside plumbing.  But each little village seems to have a nice school, with lots of children (all in uniforms) going to and from them.

We arrived in Durban after dark, so did not see any of it.  We are staying in Umhanga (pronounced Umshcanga), a ritzy suburb of Durban, about 15 minutes north of Durban, on the Indian Ocean.  Our bed and breakfast is exquisite, in a gentile andvery “old English” kind of way:  they serve port and sherry every day at 5:00pm, and a nice reading room overlooking the ocean, It’s all very beautiful and relaxing.

More about Durban and Umhlanga in the next entry.

Lions and wildebeast and hyenas, oh my!

Up at 5:30again.  I did not even have to wait for the rangers to wake us up, because the baboons were having some fight right outside our lodge and were making quite a ruckus!

We saw another big female leopard and a lion:  what we do is, once we see one, we follow them around for a bit in the range rover, just to figure out what they are up to:  it’s remarkable how much they just don’t care about us – they go about they business in a slow and deliberate way, basically ignoring us – it’s cool.  We also found a big bunch of hyenas.  Not the most pretty of animal – but apparently, they don’t deserve there bad rap – they are quite a clever predator, with a sophisticated society.  (Still, they are just not pretty and they look threatening…..).

Talking about societies, I’ve also leaned a lot about termite societies:  their hills are just the “tip of the iceberg” – it’s there for temperature control inside:  the termites open and close the holes to ventilate and get a constant temperature in order to grow a fungus on which they feed – they are very sophisticate farmers, and were doing it a long time before us human figured out farming.  I find this fact amazing!

Saw my favorite again (warthogs) demonstrating how they sometimes walk on their front knees:  they are not very flexible, so leaning to eat or drink is hard.  They deal with that by sometimes just walking on their front knees.  

On the way back, a wildebeast just lazily crossed the road…..

Lunch, another walk, a siesta….  I can’t recall when I’ve been so relaxed…..

Although – the ranger that does the walk is not relaxed – he carries this big riffle around, just in case we happen upon something threatening (like a lion) and we can’t escape – they do not want to shoot an animal – but they are ready just in case:  however, they are not allowed to shoot unless an animal is threatening AND within 10 meters: For a charging buffalo, 10 meters is an awfully short distance … and you only have one shot.  But Chase (the ranger) said that climbing a tree is in fact a better technique…..

In the evening, we followed this lion around:  they are much more active in the evening – during the day, they sleep and move only to go from one shaded area to the next one.  This one showed us his impressive teeth and took us to his watering hole.

We also went to see some hyppos- but they are quite boring, because they just stay in the water (they come out at night, at which point they are extremely dangerous - they do kill more people they any other animal in Africa) - this is all we see of them: a nose, an eye, an ear.....

Another sunset drink in the bush:  picture with both Joe and me together – just to prove that Joe is really with me……

Lovely moon rise on the bush!

Of lions' politic and hyena's poop

The day starts early – 5:30am.  Just time for some coffee, and then at 6:00am, we are on the range rover for our morning drive.  We drove for a while, because they had spotted some lions, so we went to visit them.  A big male and 2 females.  

Apparently, there is some lion politics going on in the park right now:  The largest pride lost it’s dominant male, so a big male from another pride seems to be making a move for it:  he has convinced 2 of the females to move with him, and may try to move in, since the remaining males are too young to really take over.  If he does, he will kill all the cubs, so that the females will go back in heat, and he can then procreate.  But that may not work if the remaining females just don’t like him. 

We saw a big old one-tusked elephant, and a bunch of young ones and females stopped by the watering hole.

We had a luxurious breakfast after our ride, and then we went for a bush walk: saw some impalas, but they ran away:  apparently, we are much scarier on foot than in the car:  in the car, we can park right next to them and they don’t care, on foot, we look like humans and thus are scary…..

I learned a lot about tracking on the walk – which involves learning about the different shape, color and consistency of different animals poop -  it’s a lot more interesting than you’d think… for instance, I can now recognize hyena’s crap, because I know that hyenas digest everything very efficiently, so you don’t find fur, or bones in it- the only thing that remains is white balls (about the size of a golf ball) made out of the calcium of all the bones they’ve eaten.  This is not a fact that will greatly help me when I get back to New York – but I still think it’s cool.

Talking of cool:  It’s not cool here! In the afternoon, it gets to 95 degrees, but it is so dry and breezy that it is in fact quite pleasant.

Now, I’m sitting by the pool blogging until “high tea” (basically lunch), after which we’ll go on our second ride of the day.

On the second ride of the day, we went out to look for Cape Buffalos (they look just like water buffalos, but the locals get very offended if you call them that….).  We first found 3 old males cooling off by the water hole, and then an entire heard of younger males, females and young adults.  They surrounded out Range Rover, in a mostly non-threatening way – although the do look a bit scary when they stare at you………..  

 Our ranger says that of the “big five” they are in fact the most dangerous (side note:  the “big five”, which include lions, leopards, rhinoceros, elephants and cape buffalos are called that not because of size, but because they are the most dangerous to hunt – thus used to be the most prized by those who like to shoot wild stuff).  Other side note:  we have now seen all of the “big five” – they are magnificent (the thought of shooting any of them did not cross our mind…. Although the thought of eating us may have crossed theirs….)!

We also saw a lot of giraffes last evening, at sun set, posing for their post card pictures.....

And the usual range of impalas, water bucks, widerbeast (gnu), and other type of antelopes and my favorite- wart hogs:  they are so ugly they are adorable. 

And a “bush baby”, a very small and jumpy primate.

Then a second magnificent dinner on the deck overseeing the bush, and to bed early!

WOW!!!

We arrive at Notten camp -day one: The short version of this blog is simple, and consists of only one word: WOW!

Let me warn everyone that the long version will indeed be long, and will not do justice to the experience.

We left Cape Town on a rainy and quite cool Monday Morning.  A 2 hour flight took up to Nelspruit – a largish town right at the edge of Kruger Park.  Kruger is huge and in fact extends across multiple countries (south Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe).  Years ago, all the internal fences were taken down, making it a completely uninterrupted range for all kind of animals. Within Kruger are also a number of private preserves:  the land belongs to private owners, but these fences were taken down too.

We are in one of the private reserves, Sabi-Sabi, in a small “camp” called Notten camp.

I added the quotes because we are definitely not camping….  This “camp” consists of 8 lovely bungalows, with decks overlooking the watering hole, where (so far) we have seen elephants, giraffes, impalas, warthogs, baboons and monkeys come to drink.

The bungalows are lovely and the common areas, where we have meals together are indescribably pretty and serene (as I said – I just can’t do it justice).  I’ll post some picture in a later blog – including monkeys and baboons that play around the camp…

We took our first game watching ride at sunset:  first we followed a couple of leopards on their chase:  the female did catch a small impalas (we missed that part), but the male stole it from her, and we got to see him chew on his prey:  it is quite an awe inspiring thing.   

Our guide  is very knowledgeable and has been very good at explaining how the different animal societies work – and get us away from the “right” and “wrong” way of thinking that we tend to have (as in: it’s “wrong” for the male to take the female’s kill, particularly since she has 2 cubs to feed. ).  We also got to meet a bunch of elephant, a dazzle (that’s the technical term) of zebras, and some white rhinos (you’ll note that they are not white.  They are called while because they have wide lips that they use to mow the grass.  “Wide” was mispronounced into “white”.  And then the other kind was called “black” – to differentiate them – while in fact, they are both dark grey.  The “black ones have much thinner lips and eat leaves).

One thing that is amazing is how close we can get to them in the range rover:  they don’t see the range rover as a predator, since it has never been used that way.  They do see humans as predators, so we are under strict orders to not stand up in the car, because that makes us look like humans, not like a range rover…..  BTW- range rovers are amazing vehicles; I just could not believe what we were able to drive through…..

We can go within a couple of feet of all the animals – close enough to tough them, but not stupid enough to try…..

Oh, I forgot, in the middle of this little ride, we stop and have a drink- they’ll bring anything you want – most of the brits had gin and tonic (Claire would like this place!), I had some wine, Joe some whiskey – at sunset, in the bush…  as I said – wow!

It’s the full moon, so the sky is bright enough to walk around at night without a light- but we don’t dare because of the hyenas (!!!!).  I got to see the Southern cross- very bright in the sky, for the first time.

After that, we had a lovely outside dinner.  It gets quite cool at night, and we had dinner by a bonfire.  Then off to bed early, because we are getting up at 5:30am for our morning ride!

A leisurely day in Cape Town.

As promised, today was a relaxing day (vacations are exhausting, so every few days, one has to just stop and do nothing….).  We got up at 8:30am – I can’t remember the last time I’ve slept so late, I have to say the bed at the Taj is really comfortable!

We then had a leisurely breakfast and strolled though the pretty gardens across the street from the hotel – just beyond St George’s cathedral:  these are the old Dutch East India company gardens – which are now just a pretty place to walk around.  We took pictures of the local fauna – although I have the distinct feeling that to the locals, we look like Japanese tourists in Central park, taking picture of the squirrels….  In other words, we look funny – why would anyone take pictures of this very common ducks for instance…. 

 Well, we did, because it’s not common to us (neither, I assume, are gray squirrels to Japanese tourists…..).

Then we walked down to the harbor, where we saw a lot of statues – some you would expect, like the one in honor of Queen Victoria – But some were very odd and hard to explain:

A water buffalo, made out of small beads, with extremely accurate genitals also made out of small beads (we choose to take a picture of his head instead).

A bronze African statue- with Bart Simpson’s heads stuck all over it?????

A very large man (about 40 or 50 feet high) made entirely out of coke crates – and surrounded by the heroes of modern Africa???

The harbor itself is beautiful. 

And we were happy that we had chosen yesterday to go to the top of Table Mountain, because today it was in the clouds.  And the Robben island ferry was not going today because the sea was too rough – so we really lucked out.

The weather was actually OK today, except around lunch time, so we had to take a leisurely lunch, with several glasses of wine and dessert – while the rain showers passed by (Dessert was banana tarte tatin, which is an inspired idea: tarte tatin is a caramelized apple tart – which is good.  But bananas go really well with caramel – so it’s even better!)

Then we just strolled back to the hotel, had a simple dinner, and now are packing.

Tomorrow, we fly to Kruger National part, where we are spending 3 nights at a “camp” (not really camping – but still, in the park, and close to the animals).

We may not have internet access, so no pictures may be posted until we get to Durban in 3 days!  Until then, have a good week!!!!