A Week Hiatus

The main theme of this blog post was supposed to be my family visit, but I thought I would preface it a bit with the week leading up to my time with them. 

So, after my long 25 day camping trip, I had a week to catch my breath. 
I didn't do a lot of structured activities during this week because I did not want to have to repeat things when my family arrived (even though everything we did I would gladly do twice).

When our tour group arrived into South Africa, the country was still in its 10 day mourning for Nelson Mandela, or Tata Madiba ("Tata" isiXhosa for "Father" and Madiba refers to Mandela's Xhosa clan name) 
Living in South Africa for the past 6 months has greatly deepened my appreciation and respect for Nelson Mandela and, even then, my appreciation and respect can only barely scrape the surface for what he and those he worked beside deserves. 

Being in Namibia when he passed, I did not witness the full extent Mandela's death impacted South Africa; however, coming into South Africa, he was honored everywhere. 

(Memorial at the V&A Waterfront)

March for Mandela when I was in Cape Town

There were also memorials left for Mandela in his prison cell on Robben Island (see below for pictures).

For the first half of the week, I stayed in Atlantic Point Backpackers (http://www.atlanticpoint.co.za/) which was a short 15 minute walk away from the Waterfront. At the Waterfront you could shop, eat, and view Cape Town's port. I spent most of my time here... 

... and I ate sushi everyday. 

(Which was VERY reasonably priced)

(The view from my favorite sushi bar)

The second half of my week, I spent at Amber Tree Lodge (http://www.ambertreelodge.co.za/) which was absolutely beautiful. 

The upstairs hammock view of Table Mountain

This lodge was about a 45-50 minute walk from the Waterfront (they tell you 30  minutes, but it is a lie) and just down the road from Cape Town's famous Long Street. 

Long Street is, well, a long street full of bars, clubs, and restaurants that is the nightlife core to tourist Cape Town. 

Trust me, it looks quite different during the day. 

My favorite place was called The Slug and Lettuce. It was a small pub which I was a regular customer at with different people on my tour. 

During the week I was able to get together several times with people from my tour and even ran into some friends from PMB.

There were a few activities that I did allow myself:

One activity being a trip to Robben Island to see Mandela's prison cell.
(***Fun Fact*** The name Robben Island is Dutch for Seal Island)

The tour was definitely more than I expected (my impression being hustled into a prison and hustled out again). We had a wonderful bus tour guide that told us the history of the island as we drove around and up to the prison. Upon entering the prison, we were designated to a different tour guide. This tour guide was an ex-prisoner of Robben Island. Hearing the history from his point of view greatly enhanced my experience and made everything even more real. 

Our Ex-Prisoner Tour Guide

Mandela's Cell

The Boat that carried us to and from the Island

(Also the boat that carried the prisoners to the island.**You can see Dias in the new Mandela movie**)

Another activity I did was a sunset hike up Lion's Head for the full moon. I went with a few people from my tour and we hung out at the top and watched the sun set while the moon rose from the other side.

Another hike I did was up Table Mountain. I took advantage of this because there were several days where the mountain was closed down to hikers (or hikers were highly discouraged to go up) because of intense winds and bad weather. 

This symbolic landmark was beautiful as it was exhausting. It was during this hike that I came to full grips with the fact: I am so-very-out-of-shape. However, on the selected route, we took the exact average amount of time to get to the top: 2 hours. 

Here you can see our path up

The hike was fun and meeting people on the trail, of course, was one of my favorite parts. 

My time here was a great way to unwind after the previous month traveling, and exploring the city made me appreciate why Cape Town is considered one of the best and most beautiful cities in the world. 

After my not-so-solo-week in Cape Town, it was finally time for my Mom, Scott, and Ian to arrive....

(To Be Continued...)

The Past Two Months

So much time has passed since my last blog post, I don't even know where to begin. I've actually started and stopped this blog post several times because I just don't know how to adequately depict my time. So please, bear with me, this may be a little rough. 

The past 2 months have been filled to the brim with new experiences with each day bringing forth a new adventure. The first half of my summer holiday was a camping tour of Southern Africa, and, for my second half, I was joined by my Mom, Scott, and Ian.

During my first month of holiday, I decided to go on an Overland tour of Southern Africa. We covered vast amounts of land during these 25 days including four different countries: South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, back to Botswana, Namibia, and then back down to South Africa.  

Now, well after the 25 days, I realized how stupid it was of me not to have been preparing blog posts as I went; however, we had limited access to wifi, so I spent those precious moments checking in with family members. 

This, obviously, will be a very lengthy post, posted mainly for those dedicated family members and friends who are truly interested in what went down these first 25 days. 

So, to begin...

Day 1 and 2:

Our tour started right outside of Johannesburg and it was there that I met my initial tour group. Everyone had such interesting stories and all have been to many wonderful places. My bucket list has now expanded to several more countries. 


Our first highlight activity was Kruger Park. To put in plainly, Kruger Park is MASSIVE. It is the most famous game reserve in Africa and I have heard very mixed reviews. Some have told me that it was unsatisfying and they barely saw anything, while others have told me that it is a ‘must see’ item for my list of things to do in South Africa.

Luckily, my review would fall under the latter opinion. Packed into a game truck, I not only had the best company, but we were also able to see all of the Big 5. For those who do not know what the Big 5 is, it includes what was originally thought to be the five most dangerous animals to hunt on foot. The Big 5 includes: the lion, the leopard, the rhino, the elephant, and the Cape buffalo. We were told by our guide, in the beginning, it would be a good day if we saw three out of the five. In addition, we saw giraffes, zebras, kudu, warthogs, hippos, crocodiles, vervet monkeys, baboons, different kinds of antelope and plenty of impala and various birds.

Day 3, 4 and 5: 

After Kruger, we entered Botswana. In Botswana, we stayed at a campsite called Elephant Sands. To give it some credit, Elephant Sands would have been a really neat campsite if it actually had elephants. Unfortunately for us, we arrived when it had previously rained, so we did not see any. With a lack of elephants, the campsite was rather dull and disappointing due to the lack of fresh water. The pool and showers and taps were unfortunately all salt-water.

This is what it should have looked like:

In Botswana we also stayed at a campsite named Kasane. Our stay at Kasane included the Chobe National Park where did a sunset boat tour. This boat tour exceeded expectations when we got to see hippos EVERYWHERE and when we watched a family of elephants drinking from the river.  

Day 6:

After Botswana, we made our way across the Zambia border and settled into Livingstone. Here in Livingstone, we were introduced to several additional options for activities since we would be staying there longer than usual.

The first activity I did was a lion encounter. Here, we were able to walk with 8 month old lions that were steadily being introduced into the wild. We were able to walk beside them, pet them, and play a bit with sticks with them. 

Day 7:

After the Lion Encounter, the next morning, I did half-day white water rafting on the Zambezi River. The Zambezi river is said to be in the top 3 for white water rafting. Unfortunately, I do not have pictures for this because I did not feel like buying them. Hopefully, someone posts them on Facebook sometime in the near future. 

That evening, a group of us went on a sunset cruise. We enjoyed nice beverages while spotting hippos and other wild-life on the river. 

Day 8:

The next morning, we went to the famous Devil's Pool. Here, at the very top of Victoria Falls, we were able to swim right to the edge and look down.

Right on the edge of Victoria Falls

Livingstone was a major stopping point for a lot of Overland tours. It was here that some of our group departed and we had new members merge with us. We switched drivers, tour guides, and trucks and went from 13 people to 25. 

It was quite a bit different learning to cope with more people in the truck, but we all got along like peas and carrots. 

Days 9 and 10:

The next days we went with the new group back to Botswana and back to Chobe and Elephant Sands. A bit of a bummer to some of us, to return to a place we had already been, but how much could we complain, really? We were in Africa.

Days 11 and 12:

After repeating those two locations, our truck headed to Maun. Here, we got to experience the Okavango Delta, a natural wetland in Botswana.

On the Okavango Delta, we were able to travel the wetlands on a Mokovo (a traditional canoe) that took us to our bush camp.

The group trying it out

A hippo spotting!

That evening and the next morning we did a walking safari that was guided by a man who has lived in the region for most of his life. While spotting zebras and elephants, he taught us about the different plants and animal droppings in the area.

Day 13:

From the Delta we moved to Ghanzi, which is right on the outskirts of the Kalahari desert (which we have been in during the past few days).

Here, we were introduced to the residing Bushmen and we were led on another walking tour. During this walk, they dug up roots and showed us other plants to demonstrate their medicinal uses. They also showed us their hunting weapons and how they collected water with ostrich eggs.

The cutest little girl you would ever meet

A man so fast that he could chase down an antelope and kill it

demonstrating the different arrow tips

teaching us how to make fire

The whole Acacia group

Day 14:

After Ghanzi, we finally headed into Namibia! We first hit Windhoek, the capital city. There, we did a little shopping and that evening we went to a restaurant named Joe's. There, I finally tried kudu! Kudu is a type of antelope, and, according to our Kruger ranger, is the best cut of meat out there.

After waiting 2 hours for my food to actually arrive, I finally was able to agree with my Kruger guide that kudu was my favorite piece of meat up until that point (that is, until I had a piece of Scott's springbok in Cape Town). 

Day 15 and 16:

Still in Namibia, we headed to Etosha! Etosha's campsite was one of my favorites on the whole trip. Our tents were situated a small walk away from a beautiful watering hole where we were visited by numerous elephants and zebras and other such wildlife.
The second night we were actually lulled to sleep by two lions roaring back and forth to each other. 

On the second day in Etosha we went on a game drive with our own Acacia truck. There we encountered this:

A black rhino not very happy with our truck

Day 17:

After leaving Etosha Park, we drove to Otjitotongwe Cheetah Park. There, we played with some domesticated cheetahs and then we watched the owners feed semi-wild cheetahs they had in separate enclosures.

The Cheetahs enjoyed licking my knees

One of the domestic cheetahs eating

The cheetah liked our driver, George's hair

One of the semi-wild cheetahs

Fighting over food.

That night, the owner's son took a small group of us to do a short night drive where we got to visit the leopard they had on sight. Frightened, it rattled up against the cage trying to get at us. Unfortunately, I did not bring a camera or a recording device. 

Day 18:

The next day was another one of my favorites. We drove from the cheetah park to Spitzkoppe. There, we did another walking tour to go look at bushmen cave paintings. 

A rhino

A hunter

An Elephant?

That evening, some of us hiked up to watch the sunset and that night we slept out under the stars. 

Day 19 and 20:

The next day we headed to Swakopmund. Swakopmund is where we were able to sign up for skydiving or dune biking or sandboarding. Having always wanted to skydive, I thought this would be the perfect place for it. Up in the plane and jumping out the plane, one was able to see where sea met desert.

Day 21:

Day 21 we headed to Sesriem where we went to Namib Naukluft Park. There, we climbed Dune 45. A massive sand dune where we got to fully experience the landscape around us. So not to get sand in my camera, I didn't take mine up, but here are a few pictures.

Running down the dune that we climbed

Day 22:

Next, we drove to the world's second largest canyon: Fish River Canyon. We were dropped off and we hiked a little bit of the rim and we were met at the end with wine and crackers.

Day 23:

Day 23 we headed back into South Africa and visited Orange River, the longest river in South Africa. At the campsite, we spent the day in the river and playing cards all day at the bar area. 

Day 24:

One of our last days on tour we spent wine tasting in Cederberg. We were able to camp right in a vineyard with the wine grapes surrounding us. South Africa was definitely colder and windier than we were used to, but we had a great time trying out the different wines that those grapes were used to produce. 

My favorite being the African Ruby Vermouth which was Rooibos infused (The short one in the middle)

Day 25:

And we concluded in Cape Town! It was a bittersweet feeling seeing Table Mountain looming over the beautiful sea-side city. While I was ready to explore one of the most beautiful cities in the world and most ready to see my family, I was sadden by the notion that soon I would have to leave the great friends that I met on this adventure. 

However, I was pretty lucky that most of my travel mates had planned on staying in Cape Town for an extended time. So, until my family arrived, I was able to hang out with them and new friends I met there in Cape Town. 

While I am happy to have moved onto the next chapter of my African adventure, I treasure those moments spent on tour and would return in a heartbeat.

I know that I must have missed details and pictures here and there, but, as I stumble upon more memories or more pictures, I will be sure to post more.In a few days or so I will also work on a post about my adventures with Mom, Scott, and Ian.

Much love to my friends and family and many promises to keep better in touch now that I am settled in Durban.

El