ComparetheMeerkat.com
Cheetah spotting
A tired Lemur
The birds
Simples!
Ostrich Riding
Now that's a Great White!!!
The view from the cage (less than 1 meter/yard away)
hallo, ho gon dit?
What did you expect English in South Africa? Well, it seemed everyone spoke English last time I was here, but definitely not the case. Dutch, I mean Afrikaans is the most widely spoken language in South Africa. Essentially a very old version of Dutch with an African twist.
Back to a sad topic from our previous blog - HIV/AIDS. I mentioned that a major is the lack of guidance from parents, teachers and the government. You may think that was a bold comment, but even South African President Zuma said that you can avoid catching HIV by taking a shower! The Health Minister said that by eating onions and beetroot you can avoid catching the disease - AND we wonder why Africa is plagued by this disease.
Having been to quite a few countries on this trip, I can say South Africa is one of the world's best destinations for adventure sports - just wait until you read below at what we have been up to. If you think Las Vegas has a lot of activities, a little town in South Africa can sometimes have more!
Post Apartheid: Unfortunately racism is still rife in South African society. As apartheid ended in the 1980's, blacks have trouble moving on and many whites still have pre-apartheid mentalities. Just to elaborate on how bad the situation was; mixed marriages were prohibited, interracial sex banned, and every individual was classified by race; actually this is still the case by the National Insurance or Social Security Numbers having certain numbers based on skin color. During Apartheid, based on race, South Africa had separate buses, beaches, toilets, schools and blacks were forced to live in specific areas of the country (which was only 14% of the land area for 80% of South Africa's population) and blacks were not allowed to travel without written permission. I have trouble imagining Apartheid was only a few decades ago!
Back to smiley topics - you would NOT believe what we have been up to! This past week seems to be some kind of MessageLabs Presidents club trip!
Our route: Storms River > Plettenberg Bay > Oudtshoorn > Mossel Bay > Cape Agulhas > Hermanus
Sunday - World's Tallest Bungy: Well, this is South Africa and what else could you expect. Connecting a huge 216 meter (713ft) gorge connecting the SA states of Eastern Cape and Western Cape is a bridge. Not just any bridge, this bridge hosts the world's tallest bungy! Marina was a bit sensible so for you in Russia don't worry, but I couldn't pass this up. Walking down the catwalk seeing straight down into the gorge wasn't scary; watching someone else step up and jump, not too nerve-wracking; although, once you get to the edge, knowing you HAVE to jump and looking down 216 meters - well its enough to make your feet heavy and stomach light! The jump was exhilarating, with a free-fall of what seemed to be 3 seconds! The view down the gorge led directly to the ocean so the upside down view was magical. That night we celebrated partying with a few others who jumped having a Brai (BBQ) in the rain, but on top of the world!
Monday - Cat Sanctuary: On the way to Plettenberg Bay where we stayed for two nights, we stopped off at several places. Only in South Africa do you just happen to see a picture of a Cheetah, pull off to check it out and its phenomenal. We would have driven a day for most of these activities this week, but in SA its all so close. The Tenikwa Cat Sanctuary was so fun! Firstly we saw meerkats for the first time in Africa, but the highlight was the cats. We had Servals (often called Mini Cheetahs)and Caracals (Lynx) rubbing against our legs. Servals are the second fastest land mammal in the world, after its bigger brother Che. The real highlight was Che, the cheetahs - we sat next to a six month old and then met the big brothers, two three year old males that we could stand next to and all but touch - no cages! Our next stop was MonkeyLand - a monkey sanctuary which we walked through seeing many types of monkeys including Lemurs from Madagascar. The last stop of the day was Birds of Eden; a huge aviary right out of Jurassic Park hosting some of the most amazing birds I have ever seen.
Tuesday - Deep Sea Fishing: We were fortunate enough to find our own boat and captain to take us out fishing for the morning. They really talked it up and soon we understood why. There were a few areas which we had bites the entire time our bait was in the water. There must have been a lot of small fish as often it was hard to hook anything, but on the six occasions we did, we pulled up very nice keepers. The fish were all Red Romans (similar to Red Snapper) so excellent eating. I was happy to have caught the biggest one and the fish pictured was 4kg (9lbs). They cleaned the fish for us while we had lunch and a beer and that night we enjoyed our fish on the Brai. Nothing tastes better than eating your own catch.
Wednesday - Ostrich Riding: Oudtshoorn claims to be the ostrich capital of the world. I'm not sure if they are, but there sure are a lot of ostrich farms. One novelty which is a bit cruel, but a must for tourists is riding ostriches. They put a bag over its head, I hopped on, held the wings (no saddle or handles) and as they pulled the bag off he went nuts running all around the area. Eventually you fall of, but we certain beat 7 seconds! Marina summed up the courage and jumped onto one herself after forcing the workers to promise to catch her. We went to the Cango caves later and walked around by ourselves after sneaking off the tour and explored a bit on our own. That night, still having ostrich on the brain, cooked up ostrich sausages and ostrich burgers.
Thursday - Ostrich Omelets: A funny thing about the guesthouses in Oudtshoorn; they all provide free ostrich egg for breakfast (as much as you want, but you need to cook it). An ostich egg, which by the way is so hard a person can stand on it - yes I did this and it didn't break, but back to the point - it holds about 18 eggs. We didn't use it all, but made ourselves monstrous omelets. We then drove to Mossel Bay and had a nice walk down the coast to burn off the ostrich.
Friday - Great White Cage Diving: Every since I saw this on television 10 years ago, I always knew I wanted to dive with Great White Sharks. South Africa is the premier destination for this. The diving is all done through a cage and they use chum and huge fish heads to attract the Great Whites. Now the time had come, we cruised to seal island and all the six tourists on board jumped into the cage with the first sighting of a Great White. Marina was the first in the cage and there we waited in 17 degree C. water (62F). After 15 minutes they came in waves and we had Great Whites in our face trying to eat that huge head of Tuna. The huge jaws filled row after row with razor sharp teeth were only 6 inches from my face. The sharks were not scary, however, we both agreed the water temp was the scariest part.
Saturday - Southern Tip of Africa: This morning we drove to the Southern most point of Africa. There we relaxed and hiked to the top of the lighthouse for a birds eye view of the area. Now we are in the quaint village of Hermanus. Normally you can see wales just from the beach, which we hope to do tomorrow, but the winds are strong so the wales are hiding.
Next, we are heading to the winelands of Stellenbosch!
For our next blog we will be letting you in on a little secret of what's happening next month - VERY VERY exciting stuff!
See you next time,
Dan and Marina
No comments:
Post a Comment