We spent Labor Day weekend in Cape Town, our second trip, but just as amazing as the last! Charlie the lucky duck got to fly on his 6th birthday!
Joanne & Mark beat us there by a day, we caught up with them for a few adventures. First the birthday boy wanted to go on the pirate ship in the harbor. We saw seals & dolphins jumping the bow wave!
We liked this seal that was sleeping in the tire
At one point on the V&A Watefront we walked by this guy sleeping on a bench, so we took a quick photo with him!
Katie is rocking her new outfit, she fell in a fountain and got soaked..so we did some emergency shopping at Cape Union Mart, kind of like the South African version of REI! The guy had no idea we had so much fun at his expense!
On Saturday morning, we went to Muizenberg, the surfer's spot. We ate the most incredible breakfast at the top floor of a restaurant where we could watch the surfers & read the Sunday paper.
I brought my swimsuit but figured I'd dip my feet, but the girls convinced me to sign up for a paddleboarding lesson with the girls, it was really fun and Charlie was delighted because he got to rent a wetsuit & boogie board.
We then went to a beautiful winery (against Greg's wishes- right Joanne & Mark?) and had lunch before we headed to the rugby stadium. We saw the Western Province play the Qruiquas.
At the end they let the kids go down on the field to meet the players-so fun!
Here is another of the interesting signs, darn we forgot the vuvuzela!
Not everyone found the rugby game fascinating...Katie was reading her Nook-thanks Auntie Julie-she takes it everywhere!
On Sunday we went to Boulders Beach & swimming with & chasing the penguins,
Here is a penguin swimming, he isn't at a zoo, he is swimming right in front of me & the guy who looks like my brother Chris!
Charlie building a sandcastle with a penguin checking out his progress!
We left the penguins and headed to the furthest South we have ever been, the Cape of Good Hope!
Katie at the top by the lighthouse!
Amazing views, we tried to find some whales, but no luck!
They had a "vernicular" a little tram that took you to the top, kids wisely rode up and we decided to cheat and ride down!
Charlie and I were super excited about our next stop! We had read about an old shipwreck near the Cape that you could hike to. It was a WWII Liberty Ship that broke up on the rocks after the lighthouse was turned off during the war to not aid enemy ships...
The start of the trail looked like we were walking on the moon!
We made it! Mark figured out this was the anchor hausepipe!
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Greg happy that this wasn't the fate of the Block Island (his NC ship)!
We found a cool old whale skeleton, but we took speedy pictures because the wind picked up and was pelting us with sand-for those of us in shorts it was painful! We were really being sandblasted!
Cool birds Mark spotted- I looked them up later to learn they are African Black Oystercatchers!
We had to go back to school and work sadly, so our final day we had a last, lovely breakfast and then we did a bike ride to the lighthouse that is near the waterfront.
Charlie showing me his tricks on the bike!
We were very sorry to leave and super sad to say goodbye to our travelling buddies, Joanne & Mark!
We drove with Joanne & Mark to Pilanesberg, a safari park about two hours from our house, close to Sun City. Our family has still not seen a leopard in the wild so we went with a list of places where the leopards have been known to be spotted in the park. I even checked out some current sightings on various websites to see where people had reported them the day before.
On our first day we saw...
baboons greeting us at the entrance gate,
warthogs at the place we stopped to book an afternoon game drive,
3 big & 1 baby hippo at the dam
Giraffe
Herd of Blue Wildebeast and zebra bringing up the rear!
We stopped for an early lunch at a cool spot overlooking a giant hippo pool, looking through the binoculars we saw the same group of blue wildebeast & the lone zebra come up to the water for a drink!
Our lunch on the braii with cheese grillers cooked by the boys was wonderful. The birds were amazing at the lunch stop, grey hornbills, and a ton of others, we had a bird book with us and had fun trying to figure out all of their names.
One guy we talked at our picnic spot said there was a whole group of lion laying around at the one waterhole, we didn't have time to backtrack (we waited to go the next day but sadly the lions had moved on)
After lunch, we headed to the place we were staying for the night. We were rushing so we would have time to check in before the afternoon game drive, but were stopped in the road for quite some time waiting for a lone elephant to finish demolishing a small tree for lunch. He finally moved on, but it was cool to watch him eat!
Grey Hornbill
Finally moving on, part of his destroyed tree lying in the road.
Here is my scary parenting story...when you wish your kid wasn't in Africa!
Kelly was complaining a bit at lunch that her thumb was swelling up, having Joanne the nurse along was great, she checked it out..and we didn't think more of it. However, after Greg, Joanne & Mark departed for the afternoon game drive Kelly kept getting worse and now the swelling (under the skin welts) were all over her body and she was in a ton of pain, she told me her lips were swelling and I started to look for a hospital. My GPS reported a hospital about a mile away, we got there and it was CLOSED, so the nearest one was on the south side of the park about 45 minutes away, and yes, the sun was setting and it isn't really safe to drive at night, especially when you are on back roads and you don't know where you are going!
So, with my swelling Kelly, we headed south...arrived at a public hospital and saw a different place than the private hospitals we have spent some time in for various things in Pretoria. After a lengthy wait in the ER, which wasn't "hospital clean", a doctor came and gave Kelly a pretty strong drip to stop her reaction. (I glanced at the medicine box (all the medicine has different names here) but I was very happy to see the maker of it was Pfizer).
The doctor was quite busy, we saw a boy of about four come in with a long metal spike stuck between his toes. We listened as the doctor pulled it out. Kids here rarely wear shoes, so this must happen quite a bit. I can't even imagine what else they deal with on a daily basis.
They gave me a bunch of medicine for Kelly to continue to take and the nurse asked where we were staying and advised me that it really wasn't safe for us to be out, so to not stop anywhere and drive straight there. Kelly was pretty groggy from the medicine, so I drove white knuckled the entire way home. I was extremely grateful to the hospital crew and especially for their words of caution. We were very happy to make it back to everyone, they were finishing a late dinner and we were able to tell them of our adventures and have Joanne check out Kelly's pile of medicine. They entertained us with tales of the characters that joined them on the game drive, Greg, Mark & Joanne will be talking about them for years! It took Kelly days, (and lots of medicine) to get the reaction to finally stop. We also took her to the embassy doctor when we got back to Pretoria. We still don't know if it was a bite from some strange insect that caused it or something she ate, I just hope it never happens again!
The next morning Joanne & Mark went on a solo game drive very early and we had a lazy morning and met them for breakfast to hear all about what they saw. On our way out of the park we saw lots of rhino, at the waterhole we saw a bunch of hippo, including two babies, so adorable! We also saw a male kudu with huge horns take a drink and some giraffe.
Baby hippo are so cute! There are two lying down.
Before we left the park we found a few more rhino and one lone elephant...still no leopard!
Greg's sister Joanne & her husband Mark visited us and timed their visit perfectly so we could attend a festival in the little country of Swaziland. The annual reed dance takes place over nine days and the girls travel from all over the Kingdom to bring a long reed to the Queen mother, and then they dance before the king. The parts that are a little different is that they don't wear tops, and also the King can choose one of them for his next bride (if he likes). He already has many wives and from my reading his wives end up with BMW's while most of the country is still pretty poor.
The festival is an event the Swazi people do for themselves, is not commercialized at all-there were no tickets for sale and it was only open to the public for the final two days when they dance. Before we left our house early on Sunday morning we heard on the radio that lots of girls had died on their way to the festival as two of the trucks they were riding in collided. There were people demanding that the dance be called off due to the tragedy. Sadly, once we were there the poor girls were never mentioned, and the festival went on, I couldn't help think about the girls and their families, especially when you saw the rest of them being transported in trucks. (we only saw a few coach buses transporting girls-the rest were in trucks like this)
We drove for about 4 hours (including a swift border crossing). We met up with our friend Doug and his daughter Annalise, we were wearing dresses (as instructed) and his daughter had already found a place where they would dress girls in traditional attire (with tops thankfully).
So Kelly and Katie joined Annalise in the traditional dress.
Greg went native too
just kidding- thought I might convince you if you didn't look too closely! (no idea who this guy was)
Here is a video of some girls walking with their reeds, before they gave them to the Queen Mother.
We got in the stadium super early and although dancing was supposed to be from 3-5, it was Africa time, so we sat for a very long time, it was crazy hot, so I ended up moving into the shade and met some girls who had done the dance in previous years, they became my tutors!
They explained when the King came, who the royal princesses were (and that the one who was 21 needed to find a husband and stop dancing). The one in the blue also told me how she wants to marry an American so her parents will be proud of her. She said she wants to be a nurse one day.
Charlie practiced some "Goldfish diplomacy" and shared his goldfish with the girls around us, they all liked them very much! He also eventually warmed up to the locals and made some friends that he played with on the steps.
The lady in the black dress/hat/with beautiful beadwork is wearing a traditional Zulu dress- from my limited knowledge...
I liked this shot of the Swaziland flag and the beautiful mountains behind them! Our view in the stadium was pretty spectacular!
The red feathers in their hair tell that they are members of the royal family.
You can hear Charlie in some of the videos, he was a trooper, it was a pretty long, boring afternoon to just sit there and wait. Here is one of the first groups to march, they had a ton of little ones in there, I think that is why they were early.
It seemed that the kings arrival slowed everything down, he finally entered with his entourage, apologies for the rough video, it was hard to zoom & actually find him in the crowd!
The Kings arrival to his box seat, note all the photographers to the right- I was super far away zooming in!
Here is my crummy video, there is one glimpse of him...
After the King finally got seated, there were dancers as far as you could see that still had to march on and fill the field. We were very concerned that the sun was about to set and we had miles on a dirt road to get to where we were staying for the night, so sadly we had to leave before the field was full.
This is my parting shot, but my guess is that all of that green would be filled in for the final dance!
As we all reflected on the experience we had mixed feelings about it...I loved the energy of all the girls being together and getting to see their big annual festival, the biggest thing most of them probably do all year. (much like Milk Days in good old Harvard, IL) The rest of it, the King choosing one of them to marry, and the fact that they are transported in cattle trucks and that they have limited opportunities for their future due to the poverty in their country that was the part we didn't like. However, we were happy to have had the chance to see it, this is what seeing the world is all about!
We stayed at a Wildlife Sanctuary only a few kilometers away, but down dirt roads with the setting sun & people and animals in your path..We made it and were delighted with the place. We had a great outdoor dinner and the best part it was a buffet so we could eat right away and the kids were pretty hungry!
Here was our little cottage, I didn't get a picture of Joanne & Marks but theirs was really cool.
Here we are checking out the lodge in the morning.
Katie wanted to climb trees, but check out the lizard we saw hiding in this one tree!
I reminded Katie of the snake we had seen in the tree last trip to Swaziland, she really wanted to climb this one!
Charlie checking out a traditional beehive hut that we could have stayed in.
There was a warthog house next to him.
We didn't swim but the kids loved the tree trunk that was in the pool to mark the deep end.
We saw some animals on our way out of the park, here is Joanne & Mark's first crocodile, glad we didn't swim there!
We stopped for late breakfast at a very cool candle factory where they make amazing candles into all sorts of animal shapes, rhinos, elephants, this time I even found a penguin!
Our next adventure was Pilanesburg...will write more about that trip soon!
