Friday, August 13, 2010

South Africa Driving Tour Part III (July)

After leaving Underberg where we had climbed the mountain (by car) to Lesotho, we headed for the coastal town of Port St Johns. Since we had been unable to get our GPS in Durban, we decided to drive the long way around and pick up our GPS at King Shaka International airport where one was available. That was a good move. While we didn't need the GPS too often because Anthony was an excellent navigator, it did come in handy on several occasions and we all felt better having it.

The road trip to Port St Johns was an easy shot out of Durban where we sped along on the N2, a mostly four lane highway with shoulders and passing lanes. This was followed by a rather lengthy loop that took us through the black African villages of Bizana, Flagstaff and Lusikisiki in the province of Kwazulunatal. What I came to understand after several weeks of driving through rural south Africa is that while the mornings are relatively calm, the afternoon is a time of frenetic movement in the more rural areas. Perhaps it is a confluence of factors between people completing their shopping before an early nightfall (remember we're pretty far south in winter in the southern hemisphere), kids leaving school in droves (and in well starched uniforms I might add) and those holding traditional jobs finishing work for the day. Whatever the case may be, not only was it very intense to drive through these towns but the roads out to the villages were full of people walking both directions on both sides of the rode -- shoulder-less roads I may remind you. I don't think I every really got used to it -- and I can hardly describe the intensity of it with all the descriptive words I'd like to share with you. But I can say that it was an experience I won't forget, and that I suspect most western tourists won't ever see as they enjoy their very delicate wine country tour through the towns of South Africa's very cushy wine country. We saw the real thing :)

PS In Port St. Johns, we stayed at a hostel called the Jungle Monkey. I had promised my travel companions that we would stay at a mix of places and not just 5 star lodges. Here's where I made good on my promise. Lonely Planet had described Port St Johns as a bit of a hippy town. Well, I think that was a wild exaggeration. What we discovered at the Jungle Monkey is that a bunch of hippies had developed some backpacker facilities some decades ago and likely had been living and smoking pot there ever since. But to their credit, they did have a decent place to grab a meal and a well-trained cook who had an authentic pizza oven much to our surprise and delight.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

South Africa Part II - The Road Trip Begins (July)

After our amazing safari, Shaul, Anthony and I flew to our next destination, Durban, where we would stay the night before picking up our rental car. Durban is on the coast and is also adjacent to the largely white owned sugar cane industry. While we expected Durban to be more of the city that it is, we were both pleased and a little put off by our accommodation which was the Durban Gay Guest House. Behind several layers of security, we were greeted by our friendly host, LLewellyn, who showed us into a very nicely designed, modern guest house. The only off-putting element was the extra security gate at the bedroom level AND the security alarm in each room. This was the part of south Africa that I had, thankfully, put out of my mind. On the very positive side, we spent the evening with a Dutch friend of Anthony, a physician who is working on an HIV prevention study in women, who took us out to a bustling place where the final from the world cup was on TV. Since none of us really cared (except for the straight Dutch guy) we had an emotion free evening as the World Cup finally came to an end. It was interesting to see the somewhat evenly divided crowd of fans, since the Dutch had been fairly brutal occupants of South Africa during the colonial days. There was an entire article on this in the NY Times for those interested in why the oppressed would root for their former oppressors.

Following Durban, we drove to Himesville, about 4 hours away, without the GPS I thought we had ordered from Avis. The map looked simple enough -- north and then west. And it turned out, for once that, it was, in fact, that simple. We stopped in a lovely colonial town called Howick for lunch that had a charming little town centre, a waterfalls, a quaint local museum (common in South Africa) and a good number of very reasonably priced antique stores. It was too bad that I was following my discipline of not buying antiques as I struggled to keep my weight down -- both personally and, for this purpose, the weight of my luggage.

We also ran into an interesting phenomenon that begin in Howick -- no two people in South Africa agree on how long it will take to drive from point-to-point. What started out as a simple inquiry turned into a bit of an unstructured survey. And I received at least 4 answers for the time it would take to get to our final destination of Underberg. For the curious this was: 3 1/2 hours, 45 minutes, 90 minutes and 2 hours. Turns out that 2 hours was about the right answer given that we were on two lane "tarred" roads which were beautifully scenic as we were rising in altititud but where the occasional very large truck gets in front of you. One learns to appreciate 4 lane highways but also to appreciate the a ride in the countryside does not require that you pass every vehicle in sight -- just many of them. Or you will never get there.

Anyway, we were pleased to get to our next accommodation, Moorcroft Manor, which was a combo motel and charming guest house with a roaring fire, lovely dining room AND internet access! We enjoyed several nights stay there though since we were about 1400 meters in altitude it was a bit chilly.

This stop included our visit to the mountain top visit to Lesotho which involved about 8 hours of driving on gravel roads up to the Sani Pass. For those who want to see more, please use this link: http://www.drakensberg-tourism.com/sani-pass.html

And for those who want to know more about this very long day, please feel free to query me over a glass of wine. It is one of those places you will only see once in a life time. The scenery is spectacular and the people you see living in the barren land on the mountain top REALLY challenge every concept one holds but what it really takes to survive in this world.

On that note... I will post now. More of the driving tour when I return.

Friday, August 6, 2010

The Beginning of South Africa -- A Memorable Safari

A journey through wondrous South Africa
After nearly three weeks traveling with my friends Anthony and Shaul, we have been fortunate to see more of South Africa than many South Africans themselves. At least that’s what we’ve been told. There were SO many adventures that I hardly know where to begin. So perhaps it’s best to proceed in chronological order.
Our wonderful Swazi guide, Sendile, picked us up at 8:30 AM at the Maguga Lodge in Swaziland for our drive across the border and into the region where the famous Kruger National Park is located. Sendile had driven numerous guests to the Kruger Park area but never to the safari lodge we were going to. He came prepared with the a map printed out from the lodge’s website – which it turns out were decent but not very complete. At some point, about an hour from our destination (we now know) the tar road ended and the rocky dirt road took over. As we passed one of the last towns denoted on the map, we were left more and more to instinct and a few odd signs. Fortunately, there were two favorable conditions: Sandile had pretty good instincts and the dirt road we were on came to an abrupt halt at the entrance to a game reserve. It just wasn’t the one we were going to. We then recalled the small sign a few kilometers (KM) back that MIGHT have been our turn and headed in that direction. About 25 km later – still on dirt roads (e.g. rocky as can be) in our standard Toyota auto – we arrived at the Aruthusa Lodge in the Sabi Sands game reserve. It was about 2:45PM and we were greeted by numerous lodge staff all in their safari gear who told us our first game drive was at 3:30. Did we want to eat or go on our drive? That was a no-brainer even for us.
So first, we went to our accommodations which were these luxury chalets of about 1000 sq feet each about 10 minutes walk away from the main lodge. No, we weren’t roughing it but we were definitely in the wild. We were strictly instructed not to walk alone at night on the paths back and forth from our rooms as animals, including lions and elephants, are known to wander through. That made some sense since there was a watering hole about 300 feet from the back of the dining area. So we always had to be escorted by a guide who carried a flashlight and checked for game that might have gotten into the camp. Exactly what the guide would have done for our safety with a flashlight is beyond me but I obeyed the orders anyway. Better to be cautious, right?
Over the next 4 days, and about 8 game drives, we had the time of our lives and without further ado, I will share with you that we saw the “Big 5” – lions, leopards, water buffalo, elephants and rhinos. Even though I had just been on safari in Tanzania, this was different. First of all the rhino sightings were my first. But more than any safari I’ve been on, this was the closest I’ve been to the animals themselves. This is attributable to the fact that we were in a private game reserve and this enables the guides and trackers to go “off road,” an experience unto itself.
But the “Big 5” wasn’t all we saw. There were giraffes, kudu, wildebeasts, antelopes, warthogs, hyenas, zebras, mongoose, hippos, jackals, guinea fowl, rodents of every kind and even a tree snake. But of course, this wasn’t a zoo so we saw many of these animals on multiple occasions on our early morning and late afternoon (into darkness) game drives. But also because this wasn’t a zoo, we actually saw the predation process live. And that came in several forms. On our first evening, we saw a rather large leopard up in the tree eating her catch. While it sounds a bit gory (and I couldn’t watch it all) there is something special about seeing what you’ve seen on TV upfront and in person. We were probably only 10 yards away as the leopard devoured her dinner. We saw this scene several times over.
And, even more true to the documentaries, we saw the ultimate of nature’s wonders: a leopard killing her prey. I will spare you the details. But I will say that often times leopards will carry their kill up to a tree in order to enjoy their meal. In this case, however, there was no tree of any size around. And after taking what seemed like forever to put the warthog out of her misery (about 15 minutes), the leopard was approached by two hyenas. Sure as shooting, the hyenas stole the warthog away from the leopard. And this may be hard to believe but many of us actually felt badly for the leopard. After all, she had done the hard work. Is there justice?