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c9"My Trip to South Africa (part three)"
or
"Lions and Rhinos and Polar Bears, oh my!"
Okay, this chapter has to be the final one. My memories are starting to be less sharp, and if I want to get this all down it's gotta be now.
Probably the single most exciting thing was going to Kruger National Park. Now, before going, my idea of "going on safari" was driving around with someone native to the area or a ranger of some kind, across vast plains, seeing zebra and lion cubs and whatnot, but I figured that was a romanticized Hollywood idea, not a realistic one. I also knew that South Africa is different in many ways from other African countries further north, and really had no idea what sort of wildlife there even *was* in South Africa. Kruger turned out to be well beyond what I'd imagined.
In order to ge tto Kruger park (that map might be useful again) we had to drive partway up the Indian Ocean coast, and then either leave the country and drive through Swaziland, or remain in the country and take two extra hours to drive around Swaziland. We chose to go through. This was actually my very first time crossing what I call a "real" border -- one where there are guards, passports are required, and things are serious. Not that US customs agents aren't serious (far too serious, sometimes, right Pete?) but visiting Maine doesn't require that your car be inventoried, your cameras have their serial numbers recorded, and your passport carefully reviewed *twice*, once on each side of the border. It's time yet again for my favourite word from this trip: fascinating.
Swaziland is a member of the Commonwealth (as South Africa was until its expulsion in the 60s over apartheid), and is a sovereign kingdom almost enveloped by South Africa... and that's all I knew before driving in that day. We were warned that the roads weren't very good, and we suspected that conditions we'd seen so far would be even worse in this country... for about an hour and a half (three hours to cross the country or so), that seemed to be the case. Finally, lunch was a necessity, and we spotted a sign for the "Riverside Complex", with gas and food indicated. It was the best sign we'd seen in a while, so we hoped for the best, while expecting nothing much. We found the spot and ventured into the restaurant to find a beautiful, well appointed, restaurant, with delicious food and great service -- our fear of the unknown had led us to expect nothing of the sort! We of course immediately made plans to stop there on the way back too!! Swaziland trivia: In Swaziland (and probably South Africa, we didn't check), the Caramilk bar is not chocolate with a liquid caramel centre, it's a solid caramel-chocolate substance. Kinda like white chocolate, but caramel. Not that good, really. Another trivia thing is that cans of pop seem to be different sizes everywhere you go, especially when you cross borders. Not by much, but I saw on my travels cans of Coca-Cola that were 330mL, 335mL, 340mL, and 355mL. Plus little funny ones on the plane.
One question I've been asked many times since returning is about the food: how was it? Well, I'm afraid I can't really say. Under various doctors' and nurses' orders, we were careful to pay attention to where our food and drink came from, and with the news discussing the local cholera epidemic every night we tended to visit only expensive restaurants. And anything expensive is targeted at European and North American tourist tastes... so we had burgers and fries, coffee and Coke, ice cream, omelettes, lasagna... it's kind of odd, actually, I don't have a single bit of food experience to share. Well, one thing: sparkling (carbonated) water is very common there. Here it's not as popular, but there (especially at Kruger Park) we had to look carefully to avoid buying it instead of "still" water. It took one mistake each for Mom, Dad and I to figure that out. :-)
We reached the gates of Kruger before dark, which was good -- they lock them up tight not long after dusk. We were admonished, by signs and rangers, to stay in our car and never get out until at camp. Then we were given a pamphlet listing the rules, and telling the story of a ranger who got out of his truck to answer Nature's call, and was never seen again. We got the hint. We began our drive towards camp checking our watches, because they lock the gates of each camp not long after dark as well, to help protect the visitors. In Kruger Park there are several rest camps, with cottages and camping areas, that are self-contained towns, with food and ranger stations, all surrounded by electric fence. Some even have pools!
On the way to the camp, we actually came to a spot in the road where a car was stopped. When we neared it, we could see the occupants staring at a tree about 50 metres away. In our guidebook it stated that a stopped car means animals are near, so we should always stop and have a look ourselves if we can. So we did, and soon noticed a spotted tail swinging lazily from a main branch of the tree -- facing half away from us was a Leopard! Very rare in the park (less than 1500), it was just sitting around, relaxing. We joked that maybe it was on Park Welcome duty. Tim and I traded the binoculars back and forth, and managed to convince ourselves that we were not only seeing a leopard, but it's kill, a bloody Impala hanging behind it. We couldn't get a better angle -- and we certainly couldn't get out and get any closer -- so we had to head out without a picture, whichi I regretted. Maybe we'd see another one?
We hurried now, because at this point we still hadn't reached our camp... That first night we stayed at Berg-en-Dal, near the south-west corner of the park, in a three bedroom cottage that felt very European -- solid brick, low ceilings, odd lighting. Neat. I found a spider on my pillow. Not at all neat. Berg-en-Dal was very new, and quite large and modern. They had an office where you could register for day drives and night drives with the rangers, and a map where you could mark animals you'd seen by putting in pins. Judging by the pin count, there were plenty more animals to see!! The best times to see animals are early in the morning and in the evening, just like anywhere really, so we set our alarm (the free watch from Durban!) for way too early -- like 4:30 AM. Got up, had showers, ate a little breakfast, and hopped in the car just a few minutes after the gates opened at 5:30 AM... before long, we'd managed to spot some deer (Impala, Kudu, and Springbok) on the road and beside it. Whenever I saw them I had the urge to say "look, a deer!" because that's all I ever call them here, even though we have different species too... none with curly horns though: http://www.ajb.com/africa/first.html . We saw *hundreds* of them. We were so excited to see them the first time, but by the end of the day we would hardly even slow down!
We spotted a giraffe, then another one, about 50m away, and took a bunch of pictures. Several monkeys too. Then we got very lucky -- as we drove (about 20km/h) we were carefully scanning both sides of the road, and somebody yelled stop!! We backed up a bit and there up the hill and bit were four elephants! My pictures show them as about as big as a dime, but they were there! That was very cool. We waited to see if they would come closer, but they're pretty shy, not like some other animals we saw. We headed back to camp around 8:30 to check out and eat breakfast -- we filled up since by now we were certain we'd spend every minute we could out on the road looking for more animals to see. Our plan was to take the dirt roads that ran parallel to most of the paved roads in the park, since they would be less trafficked and hopefully have more animals nearby... they certainly seemed to in some areas. The dirt and gravel roads were noisier, at least to us, so who knows how many animals we scared off, even at 20kph!
Other animals we saw (and got pictures of): a spotted hyena (not at all shy, walked right past the car), several more giraffe (very close), a dung beetle, a monitor lizard (4 feet long!), zebras (very far away), rhinos (ditto), baboons (with cute little baboon babies riding, err, piggyback. Plus warthogs, wildebeest, a Cape Vulture, various colourful quail-type birds. It's easy to tell whether we had our animal book with us when we saw something, cause it's either "the male Red-Breasted Mynah" or "this kinda orangey thing with a tail". I haven't scanned in my pictures yet, and may not ever get a chance -- I'll have them with me on upcoming visits though, so be sure to demand them. Anyway, if you want to see some of the wildlife I saw, you can visit http://www.ajb.com/africa/htmlpix.htmand see and read about the visit of a CalTech student last year at http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~magali/SAfrica_main.html. The pictures are much nicer than mine turned out!!
Driving all day, especially in the heat of summer (southern hemisphere has summer now of course), is exhausting. We stopped at another camp, which was also headquarters for the park... this camp was more like a city, with many accomodations, an airstrip, restaurantS plural, and an entire museum! The museum was really neat -- they had stuffed animals of many of the types found in the park, and at one point I was walking along looking at a bird or something and Mom poked me and pointed up. Above us was a large tree, with a snarling leopard in it, who had with him a bloody impala carcass. So I guess we really did see what we thought we saw!
Driving in the afternoon is frustrating, because all the animals are hiding in the shade and not doing anything (like we should have been doing), but it took us several hours to travel the 120km to our rest camp. We had signed up for a night drive, so we needed to arrive not only early enough for the gates to be open, but early enough for the drive, which started at 5pm.
About 12 of us climbed into an open-backed truck with five four-person benches, shaded only by canvas above us. Tim and I scrambled to get the rearmost seats, which are not only the coolest seats (of course) but also the highest, as this truck convenient had stadium-style seating. The park ranger who drove us, Nicolai, was a hoot to listen to. He had great information and stories, and taught us a ton about rhino poop (could I make that up?). Also, he had a fantastic accent, and when he told us that hippos were the most dangerous animal in the park I had visions of an evil Bond villain sending 007 to the hippo pit to die a needlessly slow and complicated death.
Hippos dangerous, you say? Pshaw. Actually, as he explained: "I don't mean dangerous to hunt, hippo are easy to hunt, you just walk up to it and shoot it. They are most dangerous to people in the water, responsible for more deaths than any other." He then explained that the Big Five (a famous group of "must-see" animals: lion, leopard, rhino, elephant, cape buffalo) are so-called because they are the most dangerous to hunt, not necessarily dangerous in general.
This was proven to us shortly afterwards as we drove along. A driver waved at us and Nicolai stopped the truck and leaned over to talk. The driver said the magic word ("lions!") and we hurried off to see them. About 0.5km before where they were supposed to be, he had us all start searching to try and find them, but as it turned out it wasn't too tricky. There were two of them, asleep at the side of the road. Not "50m away", they actually had body parts sprawled across pavement. They would look around, stretch, yawn, and roll over. They may have been huge, but they were just cats. :-) We were only ten feet from them at one point, andd took a dozen pictures.
We never did see a Cape Buffalo, and the rhinos we saw were very far away (we could tell they were rhinos by using binoculars, they were just blobs just outside our visible-details range), but we did pretty well on the animal spotting front. We even found some zebras for Mom (the last animal we saw) that were about 250m away and almost brown (distance really helps those guys disappear!). An amazing time, hands down.
We drove back wishing we had planned to stay longer -- we had no idea how amazing the park would be. Up until the park, I knew I was having a good time, but returning to South Africa someday was still up in the air. After seeing Kruger Park, I know I have to go back -- it was really amazing, and helped bring the whole trip together into a whole package. I would absolutely love to go over there to do Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders work, and to spend a bunch of time travelling and seeing the continent. My trip was just stunning and amazing, start to finish.
I shall now refer to my notes, in which I made a list of unusual or funny or striking things to make sure I included... I've already included most, but some slipped through the cracks.
- Everywhere, there were people riding in the back of trucks. Usually, but not always, someone white would be driving and someone black would be in the back of the pickup truck. Sometimes many people were in the back. It was very common, and really struck me whenever I saw it. The white liberal guilt factor again... someone clearly poor and having to work very hard for their livelihood, being driven by someone who very likely could be their pre-democracy boss (almost owner, but not) -- staring at you as the truck passes. It makes you ashamed (often rightfully so) of your money, your job, and your ability to travel and be a tourist. An emotional reaction, and not always rational, but there nonetheless.
- On the map, there were National Highways, Main Roads, and Secondary Roads. After that came dirt tracks. It made me think of a map of PEI, it's just like it!
- I saw signs for familiar places: Ottawa, Truro, Montrose, Alberton, and (get this, Frederictonians) Patel's Samoosas. There they use two O's.
- At the cafeteria where we had lunch in the park, a very large 1.5m monitor lizard decided to take a walk through our outdoor patio area, which amused the kids and frightened the pensioners... we figured it would freak out pretty quickly, because it just wanted out but people kept jumping in front of it to take pictures. It did manage to escape into the bushes, but I'm sure it will require extensive therapy sessions.
- We saw this fantastic (and by fantastic I mean completely insane) game show on TV called Words, in which the contestants had to create the most words out of the random set of letters, and then use one set of numbers to arithmetically reach another number as the answer. Very weird to not have a slimy host or any lifelines or such... it felt like Reach For The Top, but with Afrikaner accents.
- Along the highway beside a farm we saw the billboard: "No Hooting Please, Chickens Resting!" Still not sure how serious it was.
- At the last gas station we visited, as we were leaving as noticed a cow walking in the other direction, so we stopped to watch. It was just slightly lost, we figure, and did a your of the parking lot before heading around the other side of the building, even further away from (as near as we could tell) home. We had gotten used to seeing cows all over though, so this really didn't faze us too much.
Starting when we left the park, it felt like we were speeding up inevitably towards home -- we got one day's rest at the beach again, but I have no memories from that day at all. Then it was on the road for Johannesburg, check into the B&B where Mom and Dad were staying, then out to dinner, then on to the airport.
If you ever get to Johannesburg, and are among those receiving this email interested in this sort of thing: go to Mozzarella's restaurant in Rivonia. Rivonia is the suburb where Nelson Mandela's trial was, and is now a mostly white and mostly rich area, but what makes this restaurant special is it is full of very attractive waiters. Pete, I saw three that you would leave North America for. Seriously. Good food too. :-)
Flying home was very trying, unfortunately. The flight to Athens was almost completely full, and overnight, so anytime I stood up (I can't sit still for long periods, I'm just like a little kid) the person beside me would stretch out and sleep on my seat too. I moved a couple times and over the 8-hour flight I slept about one hour. The flight to London was also full, and I had to sit in smoking!! That wasn't bad enough though, I was stuck between Tim and a stranger at the back of the plane surrounded by chain-smokers, Tim was getting claustrophobic and antsy, and had no smokes, and I was having visions of being arrested for Air Rage in Greek. Not pretty.
At Heathrow Tim only had 70 minutes until his next flight, so he managed to rip through customs thanks to some sympathy, but I stayed in line for another thirty minutes. I had been hoping to catch the same flight Tim was catching (Montreal), since mine (Toronto) wasn't for another four and a half hours. But I was given bad directions by an employee, and got lost, taking the longest possible way to get to Terminal 2. I checked in about 4 minutes before the flight to Montreal, and gave up on that idea. I asked the ticket agent if she had any ideas, and she disappeared. Five minutes later she reappeared holding a boarding pass and telling me it was time to run. She told me (while running) that I had a seat on a flight to St. John's that continued to Halifax, and that I'd be home six hours earlier than I'd expected! Excellent news! And let me tell you, if you ever want to complain about Air Canada, go fly on Olympic Airways... getting on that Air Canada / Canadian Boeing 767 and walking into economy felt like 100% first class! I have never had such a wonderful flight and probably never will
again.
Before landing in Halifax I went into the washroom and changed out of my shorts... about four minutes after hitting the ground, my tan jumped off me and headed back towards departures, clearly heading somwhere warmer.
Being back has been neat, but I'm quite ready to head over there again anytime. Seeing the changes in the country even just since the first democratic elections 7 years ago, and imagining what the country could look like in another 6-7 years, is just mind-boggling.
Hope you enjoyed my story.
Cam
P.S. Oh yeah, I forgot to explain polar bears, from the title at the beginning. On the signs for Zoos in South Africa, there's a picture of a polar bear! At first I thought I was seeing things, but I checked closer. It's a polar bear. Everybody say it with me: fascinating!
P.P.S. Apparently, tigers are not indigenous to Africa, or at least there is some debate about this. We never saw any, and they weren't included in the animal book. But in Nelson Mandela's book, he mentions that the Xhosa language (his people) has a word for tiger, different from leopard or lion, and they are exclusively from South Africa, so there must be some previous exposure. I dunno... just neat trivia.
or
"Lions and Rhinos and Polar Bears, oh my!"
Okay, this chapter has to be the final one. My memories are starting to be less sharp, and if I want to get this all down it's gotta be now.
Probably the single most exciting thing was going to Kruger National Park. Now, before going, my idea of "going on safari" was driving around with someone native to the area or a ranger of some kind, across vast plains, seeing zebra and lion cubs and whatnot, but I figured that was a romanticized Hollywood idea, not a realistic one. I also knew that South Africa is different in many ways from other African countries further north, and really had no idea what sort of wildlife there even *was* in South Africa. Kruger turned out to be well beyond what I'd imagined.
In order to ge tto Kruger park (that map might be useful again) we had to drive partway up the Indian Ocean coast, and then either leave the country and drive through Swaziland, or remain in the country and take two extra hours to drive around Swaziland. We chose to go through. This was actually my very first time crossing what I call a "real" border -- one where there are guards, passports are required, and things are serious. Not that US customs agents aren't serious (far too serious, sometimes, right Pete?) but visiting Maine doesn't require that your car be inventoried, your cameras have their serial numbers recorded, and your passport carefully reviewed *twice*, once on each side of the border. It's time yet again for my favourite word from this trip: fascinating.
Swaziland is a member of the Commonwealth (as South Africa was until its expulsion in the 60s over apartheid), and is a sovereign kingdom almost enveloped by South Africa... and that's all I knew before driving in that day. We were warned that the roads weren't very good, and we suspected that conditions we'd seen so far would be even worse in this country... for about an hour and a half (three hours to cross the country or so), that seemed to be the case. Finally, lunch was a necessity, and we spotted a sign for the "Riverside Complex", with gas and food indicated. It was the best sign we'd seen in a while, so we hoped for the best, while expecting nothing much. We found the spot and ventured into the restaurant to find a beautiful, well appointed, restaurant, with delicious food and great service -- our fear of the unknown had led us to expect nothing of the sort! We of course immediately made plans to stop there on the way back too!! Swaziland trivia: In Swaziland (and probably South Africa, we didn't check), the Caramilk bar is not chocolate with a liquid caramel centre, it's a solid caramel-chocolate substance. Kinda like white chocolate, but caramel. Not that good, really. Another trivia thing is that cans of pop seem to be different sizes everywhere you go, especially when you cross borders. Not by much, but I saw on my travels cans of Coca-Cola that were 330mL, 335mL, 340mL, and 355mL. Plus little funny ones on the plane.
One question I've been asked many times since returning is about the food: how was it? Well, I'm afraid I can't really say. Under various doctors' and nurses' orders, we were careful to pay attention to where our food and drink came from, and with the news discussing the local cholera epidemic every night we tended to visit only expensive restaurants. And anything expensive is targeted at European and North American tourist tastes... so we had burgers and fries, coffee and Coke, ice cream, omelettes, lasagna... it's kind of odd, actually, I don't have a single bit of food experience to share. Well, one thing: sparkling (carbonated) water is very common there. Here it's not as popular, but there (especially at Kruger Park) we had to look carefully to avoid buying it instead of "still" water. It took one mistake each for Mom, Dad and I to figure that out. :-)
We reached the gates of Kruger before dark, which was good -- they lock them up tight not long after dusk. We were admonished, by signs and rangers, to stay in our car and never get out until at camp. Then we were given a pamphlet listing the rules, and telling the story of a ranger who got out of his truck to answer Nature's call, and was never seen again. We got the hint. We began our drive towards camp checking our watches, because they lock the gates of each camp not long after dark as well, to help protect the visitors. In Kruger Park there are several rest camps, with cottages and camping areas, that are self-contained towns, with food and ranger stations, all surrounded by electric fence. Some even have pools!
On the way to the camp, we actually came to a spot in the road where a car was stopped. When we neared it, we could see the occupants staring at a tree about 50 metres away. In our guidebook it stated that a stopped car means animals are near, so we should always stop and have a look ourselves if we can. So we did, and soon noticed a spotted tail swinging lazily from a main branch of the tree -- facing half away from us was a Leopard! Very rare in the park (less than 1500), it was just sitting around, relaxing. We joked that maybe it was on Park Welcome duty. Tim and I traded the binoculars back and forth, and managed to convince ourselves that we were not only seeing a leopard, but it's kill, a bloody Impala hanging behind it. We couldn't get a better angle -- and we certainly couldn't get out and get any closer -- so we had to head out without a picture, whichi I regretted. Maybe we'd see another one?
We hurried now, because at this point we still hadn't reached our camp... That first night we stayed at Berg-en-Dal, near the south-west corner of the park, in a three bedroom cottage that felt very European -- solid brick, low ceilings, odd lighting. Neat. I found a spider on my pillow. Not at all neat. Berg-en-Dal was very new, and quite large and modern. They had an office where you could register for day drives and night drives with the rangers, and a map where you could mark animals you'd seen by putting in pins. Judging by the pin count, there were plenty more animals to see!! The best times to see animals are early in the morning and in the evening, just like anywhere really, so we set our alarm (the free watch from Durban!) for way too early -- like 4:30 AM. Got up, had showers, ate a little breakfast, and hopped in the car just a few minutes after the gates opened at 5:30 AM... before long, we'd managed to spot some deer (Impala, Kudu, and Springbok) on the road and beside it. Whenever I saw them I had the urge to say "look, a deer!" because that's all I ever call them here, even though we have different species too... none with curly horns though: http://www.ajb.com/africa/first.html . We saw *hundreds* of them. We were so excited to see them the first time, but by the end of the day we would hardly even slow down!
We spotted a giraffe, then another one, about 50m away, and took a bunch of pictures. Several monkeys too. Then we got very lucky -- as we drove (about 20km/h) we were carefully scanning both sides of the road, and somebody yelled stop!! We backed up a bit and there up the hill and bit were four elephants! My pictures show them as about as big as a dime, but they were there! That was very cool. We waited to see if they would come closer, but they're pretty shy, not like some other animals we saw. We headed back to camp around 8:30 to check out and eat breakfast -- we filled up since by now we were certain we'd spend every minute we could out on the road looking for more animals to see. Our plan was to take the dirt roads that ran parallel to most of the paved roads in the park, since they would be less trafficked and hopefully have more animals nearby... they certainly seemed to in some areas. The dirt and gravel roads were noisier, at least to us, so who knows how many animals we scared off, even at 20kph!
Other animals we saw (and got pictures of): a spotted hyena (not at all shy, walked right past the car), several more giraffe (very close), a dung beetle, a monitor lizard (4 feet long!), zebras (very far away), rhinos (ditto), baboons (with cute little baboon babies riding, err, piggyback. Plus warthogs, wildebeest, a Cape Vulture, various colourful quail-type birds. It's easy to tell whether we had our animal book with us when we saw something, cause it's either "the male Red-Breasted Mynah" or "this kinda orangey thing with a tail". I haven't scanned in my pictures yet, and may not ever get a chance -- I'll have them with me on upcoming visits though, so be sure to demand them. Anyway, if you want to see some of the wildlife I saw, you can visit http://www.ajb.com/africa/htmlpix.htm
Driving all day, especially in the heat of summer (southern hemisphere has summer now of course), is exhausting. We stopped at another camp, which was also headquarters for the park... this camp was more like a city, with many accomodations, an airstrip, restaurantS plural, and an entire museum! The museum was really neat -- they had stuffed animals of many of the types found in the park, and at one point I was walking along looking at a bird or something and Mom poked me and pointed up. Above us was a large tree, with a snarling leopard in it, who had with him a bloody impala carcass. So I guess we really did see what we thought we saw!
Driving in the afternoon is frustrating, because all the animals are hiding in the shade and not doing anything (like we should have been doing), but it took us several hours to travel the 120km to our rest camp. We had signed up for a night drive, so we needed to arrive not only early enough for the gates to be open, but early enough for the drive, which started at 5pm.
About 12 of us climbed into an open-backed truck with five four-person benches, shaded only by canvas above us. Tim and I scrambled to get the rearmost seats, which are not only the coolest seats (of course) but also the highest, as this truck convenient had stadium-style seating. The park ranger who drove us, Nicolai, was a hoot to listen to. He had great information and stories, and taught us a ton about rhino poop (could I make that up?). Also, he had a fantastic accent, and when he told us that hippos were the most dangerous animal in the park I had visions of an evil Bond villain sending 007 to the hippo pit to die a needlessly slow and complicated death.
Hippos dangerous, you say? Pshaw. Actually, as he explained: "I don't mean dangerous to hunt, hippo are easy to hunt, you just walk up to it and shoot it. They are most dangerous to people in the water, responsible for more deaths than any other." He then explained that the Big Five (a famous group of "must-see" animals: lion, leopard, rhino, elephant, cape buffalo) are so-called because they are the most dangerous to hunt, not necessarily dangerous in general.
This was proven to us shortly afterwards as we drove along. A driver waved at us and Nicolai stopped the truck and leaned over to talk. The driver said the magic word ("lions!") and we hurried off to see them. About 0.5km before where they were supposed to be, he had us all start searching to try and find them, but as it turned out it wasn't too tricky. There were two of them, asleep at the side of the road. Not "50m away", they actually had body parts sprawled across pavement. They would look around, stretch, yawn, and roll over. They may have been huge, but they were just cats. :-) We were only ten feet from them at one point, andd took a dozen pictures.
We never did see a Cape Buffalo, and the rhinos we saw were very far away (we could tell they were rhinos by using binoculars, they were just blobs just outside our visible-details range), but we did pretty well on the animal spotting front. We even found some zebras for Mom (the last animal we saw) that were about 250m away and almost brown (distance really helps those guys disappear!). An amazing time, hands down.
We drove back wishing we had planned to stay longer -- we had no idea how amazing the park would be. Up until the park, I knew I was having a good time, but returning to South Africa someday was still up in the air. After seeing Kruger Park, I know I have to go back -- it was really amazing, and helped bring the whole trip together into a whole package. I would absolutely love to go over there to do Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders work, and to spend a bunch of time travelling and seeing the continent. My trip was just stunning and amazing, start to finish.
I shall now refer to my notes, in which I made a list of unusual or funny or striking things to make sure I included... I've already included most, but some slipped through the cracks.
- Everywhere, there were people riding in the back of trucks. Usually, but not always, someone white would be driving and someone black would be in the back of the pickup truck. Sometimes many people were in the back. It was very common, and really struck me whenever I saw it. The white liberal guilt factor again... someone clearly poor and having to work very hard for their livelihood, being driven by someone who very likely could be their pre-democracy boss (almost owner, but not) -- staring at you as the truck passes. It makes you ashamed (often rightfully so) of your money, your job, and your ability to travel and be a tourist. An emotional reaction, and not always rational, but there nonetheless.
- On the map, there were National Highways, Main Roads, and Secondary Roads. After that came dirt tracks. It made me think of a map of PEI, it's just like it!
- I saw signs for familiar places: Ottawa, Truro, Montrose, Alberton, and (get this, Frederictonians) Patel's Samoosas. There they use two O's.
- At the cafeteria where we had lunch in the park, a very large 1.5m monitor lizard decided to take a walk through our outdoor patio area, which amused the kids and frightened the pensioners... we figured it would freak out pretty quickly, because it just wanted out but people kept jumping in front of it to take pictures. It did manage to escape into the bushes, but I'm sure it will require extensive therapy sessions.
- We saw this fantastic (and by fantastic I mean completely insane) game show on TV called Words, in which the contestants had to create the most words out of the random set of letters, and then use one set of numbers to arithmetically reach another number as the answer. Very weird to not have a slimy host or any lifelines or such... it felt like Reach For The Top, but with Afrikaner accents.
- Along the highway beside a farm we saw the billboard: "No Hooting Please, Chickens Resting!" Still not sure how serious it was.
- At the last gas station we visited, as we were leaving as noticed a cow walking in the other direction, so we stopped to watch. It was just slightly lost, we figure, and did a your of the parking lot before heading around the other side of the building, even further away from (as near as we could tell) home. We had gotten used to seeing cows all over though, so this really didn't faze us too much.
Starting when we left the park, it felt like we were speeding up inevitably towards home -- we got one day's rest at the beach again, but I have no memories from that day at all. Then it was on the road for Johannesburg, check into the B&B where Mom and Dad were staying, then out to dinner, then on to the airport.
If you ever get to Johannesburg, and are among those receiving this email interested in this sort of thing: go to Mozzarella's restaurant in Rivonia. Rivonia is the suburb where Nelson Mandela's trial was, and is now a mostly white and mostly rich area, but what makes this restaurant special is it is full of very attractive waiters. Pete, I saw three that you would leave North America for. Seriously. Good food too. :-)
Flying home was very trying, unfortunately. The flight to Athens was almost completely full, and overnight, so anytime I stood up (I can't sit still for long periods, I'm just like a little kid) the person beside me would stretch out and sleep on my seat too. I moved a couple times and over the 8-hour flight I slept about one hour. The flight to London was also full, and I had to sit in smoking!! That wasn't bad enough though, I was stuck between Tim and a stranger at the back of the plane surrounded by chain-smokers, Tim was getting claustrophobic and antsy, and had no smokes, and I was having visions of being arrested for Air Rage in Greek. Not pretty.
At Heathrow Tim only had 70 minutes until his next flight, so he managed to rip through customs thanks to some sympathy, but I stayed in line for another thirty minutes. I had been hoping to catch the same flight Tim was catching (Montreal), since mine (Toronto) wasn't for another four and a half hours. But I was given bad directions by an employee, and got lost, taking the longest possible way to get to Terminal 2. I checked in about 4 minutes before the flight to Montreal, and gave up on that idea. I asked the ticket agent if she had any ideas, and she disappeared. Five minutes later she reappeared holding a boarding pass and telling me it was time to run. She told me (while running) that I had a seat on a flight to St. John's that continued to Halifax, and that I'd be home six hours earlier than I'd expected! Excellent news! And let me tell you, if you ever want to complain about Air Canada, go fly on Olympic Airways... getting on that Air Canada / Canadian Boeing 767 and walking into economy felt like 100% first class! I have never had such a wonderful flight and probably never will
again.
Before landing in Halifax I went into the washroom and changed out of my shorts... about four minutes after hitting the ground, my tan jumped off me and headed back towards departures, clearly heading somwhere warmer.
Being back has been neat, but I'm quite ready to head over there again anytime. Seeing the changes in the country even just since the first democratic elections 7 years ago, and imagining what the country could look like in another 6-7 years, is just mind-boggling.
Hope you enjoyed my story.
Cam
P.S. Oh yeah, I forgot to explain polar bears, from the title at the beginning. On the signs for Zoos in South Africa, there's a picture of a polar bear! At first I thought I was seeing things, but I checked closer. It's a polar bear. Everybody say it with me: fascinating!
P.P.S. Apparently, tigers are not indigenous to Africa, or at least there is some debate about this. We never saw any, and they weren't included in the animal book. But in Nelson Mandela's book, he mentions that the Xhosa language (his people) has a word for tiger, different from leopard or lion, and they are exclusively from South Africa, so there must be some previous exposure. I dunno... just neat trivia.
