Zimbabwe!

Beth and I were a little apprehensive about visiting the Zimbabwe side of the Falls, as there's a wee bit of political turmoil in this country.  After doing some research online and talking with our parents/sister who visted a few years ago, we decided to split our time at Vic Falls with 2 days in Zambia and 2 in Zimbabwe - a split for Zim and Zam.

We arrived this morning across the Vic Falls bridge, breezing through immigration/ customs with the help of our new best friend Chris (who arranged our tour to Chobe the day before - this man is quite a taxi driver/entrepreneur!).  Immediately, you could see the difference between Zim and Zam - Zim is much more geared towards tourists (whereas Livingstone in Zam is a regular town that's just coming around to a tourism focus).  Driving through the main town, it seemed much more sanitized and clean - clearly a tourist town and less an authentic African town (though still many many hawkers around town, so not completely sanitized).   At the same time, the roads were in major disrepair.  As our driver told us, in the '90s Zim had great roads (even better than Zam's roads) but there's no money any more to maintain them, even in the tourist mecca of Vic Falls that Mugabe has barely been able to reach (apparently this area is under control of a different tribe, so Mugabe's henchmen don't dare come to this area for fear of them). 

We headed to the very posh Victoria Falls Safari Lodge where the rest of our family had stayed previously and raved about.  Their reviews were right on target.  It's a beautiful resort - much nicer than any hotel we've stayed at thusfar on the trip.  We were greeted very effusively, and then even more enthusiastically once they discovered who we are (the head porter's son is coming to intern at Gabriel next week, due to conversations he had with my dad 4 years ago).  Thomas treated us like queens, giving us a grand tour of the lodge, upgrading our room, and asking us many questions about what life will be like in Chicago for his son.


We enjoyed the surroundings and view of the waterhole until being picked up for our helicopter flight over the Falls.  As previously stated, these falls are immense.  So immense that you can't get the full extent of them from either Zim or Zam.  So we headed up to the air to get the full view of them.  13 minutes later, we had circled the falls both clockwise and counter-clockwise (to give both sides of the helicopter a great photo op) and started to understand a bit better the power of these Falls.

After a quick nap back at VFSL, we woke up to elephants at the watering hole outside our window.  What a way to wake up.  We watched them drink and spray water on themselves, before covering themselves with dirt.  They headed out of the watering hole and even closer to our room, chopping at the trees and bushes along the way.  Su-weet.

We then headed out for a sunset cruise along the Zambezi River, which forms the boundary between Zim and Zam and also leads to the Falls themselves.  We were way upsteam of those Falls.  A few elephants, hippos, crocs, and glasses of wine later, we watched the sun set through the clouds.  A perfect end to a beautiful African day.  Our cruise was quite international with visitors from France, Spain, UK, and USA.   Luckily, the French guys spoke a bit of English, so I didn't have to try to butcher their beautiful language again.  I did tell them I loved Paris, and I swear in French they said something to each other about it being funny that an American loved Paris.  Ha!

We ended the evening with a dinner of delicious warthog (perhaps they just caught the ones grazing in our front lawn area?) at the hotel restaurant, overlooking our waterhole.  (Lagan, my warthog also came with potato lasagna - I think you would have been in heaven with the tasty carbs)  A herd of elephants and buffalo kept us company during dinner, entertaining us until our food arrived.  As we left the restaurant, a group of male singers arrived to serenade the diners with traditional Zimbabwean a capella tunes.  VFSL knows how to treat its customers well.

Two Thumbs Up For The Duty-Free Shop!

As Mike mentioned, the Mike and Jen post-mortem blog entry is still to come, but I did want to quickly toss out my two cents on my newfound appreciation for the airport duty free shop. Polei, these shops may come in handy on your way back to the States. While I normally am not too interested in how much money I can save buying bulk packages of Toblerone, the Johannesburg and Munich duty free shops were wonderful. Looking for tasty nightcap before that long overnight flight? Head to the duty free shop for free shots of Amarula liquer! Need to freshen up after a long flight? Head to the duty free shop for free samples of Evian face spritzer, moisturizer, and a wide assortment of perfumes and colognes! Looking for the perfect last-minute Munich souvenir? Nothing says Munich like a duty free "I Heart Munchen" t-shirt from the duty free shop. If only I had a need for discounted Hummel figurines and crates of vodka...

Elephants, Elephants, and More Elephants!

Today we journeyed to Botswana and Chobe National Park, which is known for their high density of elephants. We were picked up this morning by Chris, a very nice taxi driver who gave us great detail about our itinerary for the day (he coordinates everything with the people on the other side of the river). And, thank god we had him with us going through immigration - he was very swift and sped us through the process which otherwise would have been very intimidating for us. We bypassed the ferry across the river by traveling in a small boat to the Botswana side. In the middle of the river (at the confluence where the Chobe River and Zambezi River meet), you are actually in 4 countries at once - Zambia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Namibia. They told us that is the only place in the world where it happens. I don't know if that is true, but it's still pretty cool.
As a side note, as we drove both to and from the river crossing, we noticed semi truck upon semi truck parked along side of the road. The shortest way (distance-wise) to cross the border between Botswana and Zambia is by ferry (or a private boat), and the ferry can only take 1 semi at a time. Therefore, the drivers sometimes wait for weeks to cross the river. They've talked about building a bridge to replace the ferry, but it would have to also go through Zimbabwe, and they are stonewalling the project. The only other way to get from one country to another is to go through Zimbabwe, but as our taxi driver explained, most drivers don't prefer going that way because the taxes charged on the goods change on a regular basis. TIA man, TIA.

On the other side of the river, we were greeted by a very nice gentleman who again escorted us quickly through immigration, and took us to the Chobe Safari Lodge, where our boat safari was to depart. On the way we stopped at a ginormous Baobob tree, which was estimated at 1,000 years old. It was HUGE! Once we arrived at the safari lodge, we were greeted by our river safari guide, Moses, who took us to our boat. To our surprise, we were the only ones on the tour that morning, so we had our own private safari! Awesome! We saw lots of crocs, lizards, and too many hippos to count (seriously, there were hundreds!), but the best part was the elephants. Because there is a national park on both sides of the Chobe River, the elephants can swim from one side to another. And what did we see??? Elephants!! Swimming in the river!!! It was amazing - I think even the Monkeys would have been jealous, even with the hundreds of elephants they saw at Addo.

After eating lunch at the safari lodge, we were met by our guide for the afternoon game drive, Custard (who we later found out lived in the US for a year and worked at Disney's Animal Kingdom via there international program - very cool!). We knew topping the morning ride was going to be difficult, but Custard was up to the challenge. We saw HUNDREDS of more elephants, some getting as close to us as 2-3 feet from our vehicle (in our opinion, maybe a little TOO close :). We also saw baby elephants taking baths and playing in the water - Baby + Elephants + Water = Too Cute! However, the best part of our game drive came when we stopped by a couple of other vehicles who we assumed were looking at the hippos right off the bank of the river. Oh no, they were not looking at the hippos, rather they were looking at the 3 leopards that were sleeping in a nearby tree. Yes, 3 leopards. Sleeping in a tree. Do I have to say more?!? It was amazing! It was 1 female and her two cubs - they didn't move much, but were very cute! The first time we passed them we could only see 2 of the leopards, the second time we passed them on the way out, they had moved and all three were visible! It was definitely a highlight of the day. As Mike would say, it was re-donkey-donk.

After searching for the lions our guide had seen that morning (with no luck, but I really can't complain since I saw 3 leopards in a tree), we headed back to the border, where we had a very uneventful (thank god) trip back through the borders and then back to our hotel. Our taxi driver from the morning (Chris) took us home, and though he is a bit of a crazy driver, he got us home in one piece.

Tomorrow we move to the Zimbabwe side of the falls, and we've got some really fun activities planned, including a helicopter ride over the falls, a sunset cruise on the Zambezi, and an elephant back ride. More updates to come...

joburg to munchen to south carolina to ORD

After a sad farewell to the Polei, Jen and I wandered around the airport coughing and continued to support the SAfrican economy. We found the JNB terminal had more shops and vendors to explore than the terminal we were in at Heathrow - very surprising. Because I might be neurotic about timely arrivals for flights, we had about 2.5 hours after checking in, and spent every minute exploring, including a free shot (and shot glass) of Amarula! Eventually we boarded our plane with a the rest of the vuvuzela carrying folks and headed for Germany.

The SAA flight was again fantastic (sorry Sarah). All the wine and other beverages we could handle. The only downside was the dinner options were limited to chicken and lamb, and Jen doesn't eat lamb, and by the time they reached us they were out of chicken. The rest of the meal was tasty, if unremarkable.

We only had about 3.5 hours in Munchen - definitely not enough time to head into the city - so we just wandered around the airport eating and drinking and supporting the German economy. One of our first stops was a coffee stand so we could get some juice when I saw a basket of freshly baked pretzels. I wasn't really hungry enough for any encased meats, but the other 2 things we talked about eating in Germany were pretzels and beer. So I ordered a pretzel with my juice - absolutely buttery and fantastic. Best pretzel ever. We continued wandering and made a last stop for a beer and a basket of pretzels. 9am beers are great for headcolds. Really. The beer was good if unremarkable, and the pretzels were tasty but not as buttery as the previous one.

Our flight back to the US was possibly even better than the SAA flights. It was definitely the biggest plane we've ever been on, had the restrooms downstairs (which was great because it eliminated the aisle congestion) and the pleasant German staff could not pour us enough wine or juice. Literally every 15 min someone was offering us something. And possibly the greatest thing ever - metal sporks! Fantastic. We didn't get a lot of sleep, but we did watch plenty of mediocre to bad movies.

Arriving in Charlotte was sad. We were excited for the wedding and the chance to soon see old friends and family, but Charlotte is way less exciting than anywhere we'd been in 3 weeks. Because I'm dumb, instead of just driving from Charlotte I had us fly another 20 min to Asheville. Seems innocent enough, but this cost us about 4 hours of our lives we'll never get back. Somehow our bags didn't make it onto our plane, so we had to hang around the Asheville area for an hour hoping they would come in on the next flight. Luckily they did. Then yesterday when we were leaving, apparently there were storms in Chicago that had delayed the earlier flights between AVL and ORD, so we were delayed. Instead of getting home at 7, we got home at 7:45. And AVL might be the smallest airport ever. There is literally 1 employee for each airline, and that employee is responsible for all tasks - checking in, boarding planes, retrieving luggage, etc. Hilarious, but not efficient. And when we finally got on the plane, the captain came on and was like well, I have some bad news - this flight usually takes about an hour 15 hour 20, but because of the line of storms it's probably going to take about 2 because we have to fly to St. Louis to avoid them. Sweet.

Even though we were somewhat sick and severely jetlagged, we had a great time hanging out with Scott and Jess and the rest of the wedding folks. It was also great seeing Jen's grandma and aunts and uncles. We didn't *need* that ham, greenbean casserole, biscuits and oreo pie, but it was totally awesome.

Arriving back in Chicago was bittersweet. It was great to be home, and we were excited to see our furry little friend, but the adventure of a lifetime was officially over. And the sobering realities of "work" and "bills". Dislike. Pictures will be uploaded soon, and a post-mortem will be prepared. Like everyone else, Jen and I are now living vicariously through the Polei....

MO

Majesty

Now we understand why Victoria Falls is such a tourist destination.  It's hard to describe the immensity of these Falls.  In fact, because we've only seen them from the Zambia side, we haven't even seen the majority of the Falls yet.  And, still we're amazed. 

We walked along the Zambian National Park side of Victoria Falls today (the Zambezi River separates Zambia and Zimbabwe, with viewing from each side and Zim being known for the more expansive views).  We avoided getting wet for the most part, though many others around us were wearing ponchos and pretty soaked from the spray.   A few years ago, my dad ruined one of his cameras trying to capture the wet essence of Victoria Falls, so I brought a waterproof throwaway camera with me.  Hence, any close pictures will have to wait until we get home to get them developed.  It's a bit strange not to have these pics in digital format!

Victoria Falls is known as Mosi-o-tunya or "Smoke that Thunders" in the local language, and that pretty much describes the Falls.  The Zambezi is a very wide river, so when it reaches the steep edge, it falls hard and in massive quantities.  The water billows up an amazing amount of mist, which looks like smoke from a short distance.  It's also incredibly loud as you approach.

Almost contrasting that is the Zambezi River itself.  We stopped for a drink at the Royal Livingstone Hotel, with a bar alongside the Zambezi River as it heads towards the Falls.  You could see the smoke billowing up but not the Falls themselves.  The water was pretty calm though moving at a rapid pace, but it was almost hard to believe that just a few hundred meters downstream, Victoria Falls would spectactularly erupt from this river.

Beth & I walked to the Royal Livingstone from the Falls, enjoying the hotel and river as we walked along it through the hotel property.  As we turned the corner, following signs to the hotel bar, we abruptly stopped in our tracks.  Zebra.  On the path ahead.  Our time in Kruger with the guides had taught us to keep a healthy distance from any wild animals, even those as "tame" as zebra.  We inched closer, when Benny, the game keeper, neared us.  He brought us closer to the zebra and then even closer to the hotel giraffes (the mama giraffe is pregnant).  It was a surreal experience, passing close enough to both the zebra and giraffe almost to pet them, though Beth & I stayed as far to the other side of the path as possible. 

A few monkey encounters later, we enjoyed a drink at the bar overlooking the river, and then headed towards the adjacent Zambezi Sun resort (once again passing our friends the giraffes and zebras) to watch the England v. Germany soccer game.  The comment Beth & I have gotten most today when finding out we're from the US has been along the lines of "Sorry you lost last night to Ghana, but you played a good game."  We've heard that from just about every Zambian we met.  And after watching England get their butts kicked by Germany, I can be even more proud of the way the US played again Ghana, not embarassing themselves or their country.  The English team is going to have some wicked headlines tomorrow morning back home.

Tomorrow: off to Botswana to visit Chobe National Park.  We're scheduled for a 3 hour river safari, followed by a 3 hour game drive through the park.  Hope to have some cool pics to upload tomorrow (though we have to pay for internet access by the MB, so those pics may wait until our internet access is free again).

Mother Africa Wins

Last night's match had quite a different outcome than we'd hoped for when we headed over to the Royal Bafokeng Stadium to watch USA v. Ghana.  The other matches we went to were definitely pro-US crowds, but last night's crowd was a decidedly pro-Ghana crowd.  That's not to say there weren't many many many proud American supporters, but Ghana had the support of Ghana visitors, South Africans rooting for Mother Africa, and irritated British fans rooting against the US.  It was clear during the national anthems that the American fans were mostly from America (we sang loud and proud), but few of the Ghana supporters knew the words to their national anthem. 

I understood and appreciated the African support for an African team (though slightly stunned by the amount of Ghana gear and flags that South Africans own - was this all purchased in the last few days?), but the British fans were ridiculously annoying and rude.  They were upset that the US victory over Algeria meant that their tickets for this match weren't for the first place English team (since they ended up in 2nd place due to their lackluster performance versus Algeria).  We had one group of Brits in front of us who had special shirts made that said "Ghana's #1 Fans, by default" with the back stating "Donovan's a $#%!".  They all decked themselves out in South African wigs and Ghana face paint.  One of them spent the entire game standing, facing away from the pitch, yelling at American fans behind him, guzzling many beers.  Ah, Brits, you slay me.  And now I'm rooting heartily for Germany this afternoon instead of England.

But our Yanks put on a good fight last night.  We were not embarrassed by Ghana, and, in fact, I would argue outplayed them for much of the game (not counting the first 20 minutes or overtime).  We seriously lack a good striker to complement our strong midfield and decent defensive line.  Altidore drives us crazy (laziness, slowness, lack of focus, inability to finish), and clearly Bradley doesn't have anyone he trusts on the other side.   But it's been a great ride and so much fun to be in South Africa with a team to be proud of.  Donovan has more goals in the tournament than many other heralded players (Rooney, Ribery, etc).   While other country's supporters proudly wear their gear all the time, it's only been since the victory over Algeria/winning our pool that I've noticed a lot of American shirts, jackets, etc.  as we tour around (our fellow zipliners yesterday were wearing matching USA soccer jackets).  Go USA!  Hopefully the future of American soccer is strong, and we'll have an even better showing in Brazil 2014.

Off to Zambia/Victoria Falls!  More soon since we should have internet access the next few days (it's been seriously lacking the last few).

Kloof Canopy Tour

Beth and I embarked bright and early this morning for our canopy tour (aka ziplining).  The previous times we've zipped, we've gone from treetop to treetop, stopping on wooden platforms on high trees along the way.  This time, however, we zipped from side to side along a canyon ("kloof" in local parlance), stopping on wooden platforms built into the sides of the kloof.  Our highest zip was 50m above the canyon floor, and our longest zip was 150m.  It was great fun!  Beautiful scenery along the long zips, with enough time to appreciate it before getting to the other side of the canyon. 

Our guides also took a lot of time to point out characteristics of  the trees and animals in the area (Jen, there were dassies!  lots of them!), and even gave us all sorts of info about various animals that we didn't see on our tour (rhinos, klipspringers, tortoises, etc).  We learned that our lead guide was in school studying to become a tourist field guide (a la Godfrey on our safari), so he was testing out sharing his knowledge with us.  We ended our 10 slides with a steep hike up out of the canyon and were rewarded with a free lunch when we got back to the base camp.   Another successful ziplining experience!

(Johanna, I'm pretty sure you would have hated this even more than the one in Tsitsikamma - we were HIGH off the canyon floor.  And no Marius to ride with you....)

Off to Rustenburg to get ready for the big US v. Ghana match tonight!

Moonrise over Magaliesberg

Goodnight, Magaliesberg!  Beth and I had a nice day exploring the Magalies area, including a visit to the Harbeesport Dam area (the Pretoria Riviera), a country market, and Maropeng, which is one of the World Heritage Cradle of Humankind sights in the area.  The oldest human ancestors (Mrs. Ples and Little Foot) have been found in the area, so they've created a very nice museum to tell the story of the importance of the area in terms of human evolution.  The museum is modern, interactive, and even includes a boat ride through water, ice, wind and fire (kind of random and Disney-esque but fun).

We made sure we made it back to the farm in daylight today to avoid the walk uphill in the dark again, and are settling in for a night of soccer, wine purchased at one of the wineries in Stellenbosch, and a DIY dinner from the local store.  We've got to be up early tomorrow to take our canopy tour (aka ziplining).

You know how to start a fire, right?

Since Beth's and my next set of tickets is for Rustenburg, which is about 1.5 hours northwest of Joberg, we are spending a few days in the Magaliesberg mountain area (known as the Magalies Meander).  This area is used as a weekend escape by Joberg and Pretoria residents since it has some pretty hills, country charm, and a large dammed lake known as the Pretoria Riviera area. 

Hotels were few and far between in Rustenburg itself, so we're only staying there the night of the match.  Instead, we opted for the Saamrus Guest Farm just outside the town of Magaliesburg.  After a somewhat harrowing drive to the farm itself (Safricans do not like to light their roads nor do they like paved shoulders; they do however really like driving very fast on curvy roads, tailgating, and walking alongside the road in the dark), we took a very, very bumpy 2km road down to the farm.  This road was on par with some of the ones on our safari, and had us wishing we had a Landrover insead of our low-riding BMW. 

We finally arrived at the farm, where our hostess greets us by telling us she thought we were no longer coming (she had many cancellations due to England not winning their pool and therefore not playing in Rustenburg).  Our cottage was up a 400m steep, rocky hill that our BMW couldn't make it up, and her husband was too sick to drive us up in their SUV.  She then asked us if we knew how to light a fire, as our only source of heat would be a fireplace in the cabin.  Warning signs are flashing in my head at this point - trouble ahead!  She grabs a couple of her staff, finds us a flashlight ("torch" in local parlance), and sends us up the hill.  About 5 minutes of huffing and puffing later, we finally reach our cabin.  Beth & I only had our day bags/backpacks, and we felt like we couldn't catch our breath.  The nice staffers seemed to handle the walk with our large suitcases much better than we did.   They've clearly done this once or twice.

Luckily, our place was warm enough not to need a fire to heat it (absorbed a lot of heat during the day), and even more luckily, the cabin was very nice and charming.  Otherwise, I was going to cancel our 2nd night and head up to Rustenburg early to avoid the horrible road/uphill climb.  We had hot water bottles that kept us toasty warm at night, and only this morning were we chilled a bit.  I would have started a fire, but only discovered the matches outside on the patio after we were already up and dressed.  Alas.  Tomorrow morning, I've got the fire already laid and ready to go (and matches inside). 

(A side note about Safrican winters: apparently people here don't really believe it gets cold in the winter, even thought it's gotten down to between 0-5 degrees celcius (32-40 degrees fahrenheit) almost every night.  They did have a freakish cold spell last week before we headed up to Kruger, where they nearly matched their record low (negative 4 was the record, and we were negative 3), but even now, it's chilly every night.  And no one has heat.  Or heaters.  Most of our guest houses have offered us heaters, or rarely, AirCon with a heat setting, with the caveat "if you need heat, here it is."  Of course I need heat - it's 0 degrees outside!  Safricans are tougher than us Chicagoans, that's for sure.  We've spent a few very chilly nights when our heater hasn't been sufficient or worked at all.)

Sarah's South Africa Rule #1

1.  Never turn down springbok carpaccio

Why?  Because it is simply delicious.

We made the mistake early on in the trip to bypass a restaurant at the V&A Waterfront that offered springbok carpaccio, and instead had a very mediocre meal at a different restaurant instead (complete with bad karaoke 80s music).  At that time, we instituted this rule, and it's been great for us ever since (including leading us to Jan Kats in Stellenbosch, where we met our Algerian friends).

We said a sad farewell to Mike & Jen today who are heading back to the US for a wedding (Scott, you'd better appreciate their presence!).  We started the day with a very interesting visit to the Apartheid Museum which tells the history and story well - plus had a special Mandela exhibition.  We then stopped at a mall to grab a few last souvenirs for Mike & Jen and some lunch.  We had one last springbok carpaccio at Moyo, which is an upscale restaurant chain throughout Safrica.  The Monkeys had eaten at one in Durban and loved it, so we opted to go back for their last meal.  Same tasty food, but horrible service.  Luckily, we were sitting outside on a beautiful day, in a lovely courtyard, with a huge TV showing the soccer matches.  That made the l-o-n-g wait for springbok, ostrich, and kudu much more tolerable.

Throughout the trip, we've instituted rule #1a: Never turndown spingbokkies.  This is our new favorite shooter: peppermint liquer and cape velvet or amarula.  Delicious!  We celebrated the US victory over Algeria/winning their pool with several rounds of springbokkies, and we've happily found them on several other menus since we discovered them.

un. freaking. believable. period.

For better or for worse, we managed to wake up at 5:30 and leave Kruger by 6:15 to get back Pretoria by 10:30 in preparation for our final day/match. Because our B&B was within the no-drive zone around Loftus Verfeld, we tried to get to our there early, and we did. Luckily, Carien had our room ready, and we were able to get in and chillax. It seemed like there were nothing but Americans draped in flags heading to the 4:00 game at 10 am. Americans know how to pre-game it...

After eating some lunch, we headed over to the stadium. Unlike Joburg, the atmosphere was extremely rowdy. Algerians, as we learned in Stellenbosch, know how to get party. Lots of crazy Algerians, some of whom may have been chanting "F%&# USA" and "Watch out - I'll bomb you" (tongue in cheek). But, more than anything, there were crazy, fully costumed obnoxious Americans chanting and singing and acting like idiots. And by "obnoxious" I mean really fun and entertaining. We found Loftus Versfeld to be smaller and more intimate than Ellis Park. Again, lots of US flags and lots of chanting. But the Algerians in attendance were definitely enthusiastic and prepared for a battle.

To summarize what I'm sure many of you saw, we blew multiple opportunities, including at least 2 open net shots, and were tied at 0 going into the 60th, 70th, 80th and 90th minutes. I cannot find words to describe the atmosphere from about the 65th minute. I could feel my heart thumping, sitting on the edge of my seat, standing and yelling at every scoring chance, throwing my hat and yelling what the hell are you doing?!?! when scoring chances went wrong. It was totally insane. They showed 4 extra minutes at the end of regulation, and we knew we needed to keep pressing or we wouldn't make it past pool play (knowing England was beating Slovenia). In what seemed like another scoring chance, the ball was lofted in and blocked, except this time "Landycakes", as our new friend called him all match, followed up with an open goal and the entire stadium went nuts (except for our poor Algerian friends). Words cannot describe the excitement and shenanigans than followed. It was seriously the most awesome sporting experience of my life. Seriously. This made everything worthwhile. We knew Engand was winning, when we scored we knew we'd win our group and Sarah and Beth would get to see the US v. someone on Saturday.

Following the game we headed back to our "home" bar Eastwoods. The bouncer wanted us to pay 100R per person, but when he realized it was 3 girls and 1 guy, he offered to negotiate. We ended up paying 200R for me, and we're pretty sure that all went into the one bouncers pocket. We proceeded to have celebratory sprinkbokkies (amarula and peppermint liquer) and beers and platters. When it was all said and done, we had multiple sprinkbokkies, several platters of fried foods, saw Bill Clinton drive by the bar (for reals), had our picture taken with a cardboard Faux-bama wearing a Bafana Bafana jersey and a USA bandana, and sang the Star Spangled Banner (mixed in with Top 40 favorites) with hundreds of our countrymen.

While not trying to overstate things, one of our new friends called today one of the greatest moments of his life. I can't disagree. Tears may have been shed. Seriously. The unbridaled patriotism, and fantatical enthusiasm of the entire crowd was something I've never experienced before. We knew when Landycakes scored that goal not only did we live to fight another day, we won a group that had 3 other quality teams. Soccer fans are by nature, how you say, insane. But today I think I sort of started to understand why - the WC is something that brings all races and nationalities together. Even the Algerians, who just lost a heartbreaking game, were nothing but courteous and celebratory at Eastwoods, wishing us the best in our next round match.

Jen and I are sad to be going home, and extremely jealous that Sarah and Beth will get to see the US in the round of 16. We can only hope the mojo continues and we live to see the July 2nd quarterfinal match....

Already planning Brazil 2014. Are you ready? Ayoba!

MO

Wacky Weather Woes

As we've previously referenced, the weather has been a little crazy here in South Africa. It was relatively warm for Mike and Jen the first leg of their journey, but since the Polich's have arrived, it's gone berserk. The rain and fog in Cape Town was just the start of it. It's also been extremely cold, even resulting in snow pellets falling on us at the top of Table Mountain! The locals in Stellenbosch said that it is unusually cold for them - it usually doesn't get this cold until July or August. We thought that flying up to Joburg would possibly result in warmer weather because it's closer to the equator, but were were not totally correct. The days were a little warmer (and we didn't freeze at the US/Slovenia game like we thought! :), but the nights are FRIGID. It is very dry here, so it is sort of like Colorado where the days are warm, but then very cold at night. A Pretoria local we were talking to said that the all time low in Pretoria is -4* (celsius). The low five nights ago = -3* (celsius). Awesome. Added to that all is the fact that our guest house in Pretoria has a TINY heater (imagine one that you'd put under your desk at work to warm up your feet) to heat our 3 room cottage. The weather did get better while we were on safari, with the days reaching up to between 25-30* celsius, but the nights are still cold.

What does all of this means for the Polei and Monkeys? Many layers! And many pictures of us wearing the same thing - our fleeces and/or coats. Those babies are getting a lot more use than any of us anticipated they would...

DIY Safari in Kruger

We actually woke up this morning after the sun rose - it was a little odd after two mornings of pre-dawn rising! After a long stop at the massive Skukuza shop, with all of us helping the GDP of South Africa once again, we started out on our "game drive" for the day. Though our BMW is much better than the crappy Toyota we had in Cape Town, it's not the most ideal vehicle for game viewing because it is so low to the ground. We missed our ginormous Land Rover, and Godfrey and Petros pointing out all the animals to us throughout the day.

The game spotting the early part of the morning was few and far between, but then we hit the motherlode at the akljf;adskljfksle waterhole (I can't remember the name of it, but it was awesome). There it was, just like you see in the movies, wild African animals living together in harmony! When we first pulled into the parking lot, there was a giant 3-foot long lizard (perhaps a monitor lizard?) crossing the parking lot. As we ventured closer to the watering hole, a hippo sunning himself on the bank came into view. Then a crocodile. Then, we noticed across the watering hole were 4-5 waterbuck grazing and drinking. And then, the coup-de-resistance, a small herd of elephants. At first, we saw only 2-3 large elephants eating along the bank of the watering hole. Then, the rest of them came into view, including two very cute little baby elephants (you can picture the high pitched squealing that came out of our mouths as we saw them come into view). After the elephants had a staredown with the dominant male waterbuck, two of the adult elephants and the two babies decided to take a drink. So adorable! After a bit of oohing and aahing as the elephants played in the water, we decided it was time to move on...

We headed off and proceeded to see another rhino (which is rare to see because they are so shy and skitterish), lots of elephants, giraffes, hippos, monkeys, baboons, and more. We even made it back to camp in time to see the second half of the South Africa game, which was very sad for everyone who watched it. :( Tomorrow we head back to Pretoria to see the US vs. Algeria game. It is do or die time for the United States - lets hope our Algerian friends go home sad tomorrow night.

The Bribe Drive

After leaving Motswari, we stopped to pick up some food to cook at our Kruger rest camp (since we're in South Africa, we wanted to take advantage of having a braai (bbq grill)).  With the leopard detour and food stop, we got a much later start than we'd anticipated.  As we reached the Orpen Gate, the Kruger staff informed us that we'd never reach our camp on time if we traveled through the park, so we should turn around and head south to the next gate and enter there instead (speed limit in the park is 50km/hr - regular roads are 100 km/hr and no game sightings).  Argh.

Off Mike sped in our speedy BMW, until a Safrican police officer stood in the middle of the busy road and waved him over to the side.  After informing Mike that he'd broken Safrican law by passing over a solid white line, he told us that we had to go to the next large town and pay a 1000R (~$150) fine at the police station there.  Since there was no way we'd ever make it to our camp before they closed the gates if we made this detour, we ended up making a "deal" with the policeman to pay a 300R fine on the spot instead.  As we drove away, we could see him pocketing his nice bribe and looking to catch the next tourist speeding down the road.  TIA, man, TIA.

Off we continued to speed towards Kruger, and as we finally entered the gates, we breathed a huge sigh of relief.  Only a few more kilometers to go, and we'd make it to Skukuza rest camp before they locked the gates for the night.  But what do we come across just a few minutes inside of the gate?  A giantic traffic snarl, due to a leopard sighting.  The road was blocked in both directions, and the Monkeys and Polichs were out of patience.  Finally, some cars figured out how to reverse, and off we sped at our max 50km/hr speed to Skukuza, making it in just minutes before the gates closed.  Whew.  None of us wanted to spend the night outside of the gates in our BMW with elephants, lions, leopards, etc roaming around us.  Nor did we want to have to pay another fine/bribe to enter late.

We ended the day, relaxing in our very large but chilly bungalow, grilling out some kabobs, campfire potatos and corn on the cob.  We enjoyed some Ernie Els wine and Windhoek lager, and ended the evening with hot chocolate and amarula.   Good night, Skukuza

My Man Godfrey

We awoke before dawn on our 2nd day at Motswari, and headed out as the sun rose on our last game drive with Godfrey and Petros.  After having seen the rest of the Big 5, we asked Godfrey to find us some leopards.  And off we went!

For a few hours, we tracked 6 different leopards - a mom and her two babies, and an older male chasing a female and younger male. We sent Petros off again to see if he could find any of these leopards (just after hearing a nearby lion roar - good luck, Petros!  Hope your walkie talkie protects you).  Because this big bad leopard was on the hunt to mate, his movements were very erratic and difficult to track.  At one point, we knew we'd gotten really close when we saw some large impalas running and leaping over huge bushes and another group of kudu staring very alertly in the same direction.

But alas, this trio of leopards wasn't to be.  Too crazy with their behavior since they were in heat.   So we found Petros again, and he led us towards the mom and her baby cubs.  Unfortunately, she was very skittish and wasn't in the mood to be tracked.

We did find a gigantic crocodile sunning himself along a watering hole and a hibernating lizard.  But no leopard.

Our collective moods were pretty bummed as 10:00 rolled around which signaled the end of our game drive.  Godfrey and Petros had done their best and found us a bunch of leopards, but none close enough to see.  As we stopped to check out another hippo, Godfrey got the word on his walkie talkie that another camp had found a leopard, and if we were ok with a late breakfast, we could go see that one.  Heck yes, let's go see the leopard!  (One of our other American friends in the rover wasn't too happy with this decision since it would screw up their departure time/Kruger time - but the other 7 of us overruled him - the leopard was so much cooler than a few more hours in Kruger).  So off we sped, 40 minutes down bumpy dirt roads, when we crawled through some more bushes and came across a beautiful female leopard and one of her 7 month old cubs (the other one was around somewhere but we never saw him).  She hung out by her impala kill/our rover for a few minutes, then headed down into the river bed to take a nap with her cub.  Awwww....  (for those who I told I wanted to take a leopard cub into my vehicle with me, I now rescind that statement after seeing how gigantic a 7 mo. old cub is).

Back to Motswari we went, running into zebra and giraffes on the way back.  We got back to camp, quickly packed up under the watchful eyes of a herd of impala who roamed next to our rondeval, and said our thank yous and goodbyes to Godfrey and the rest of the staff.

Next stop: Kruger National Park.

sick safari

After a fairly uneventful 6 hour ride, we arrived at our first safari camp - Motswari Lodge, part of the private Timbavati reserve. Unlike many private lodges, Motswari is not fenced, meaning animals can, and as we found out do, just wander through camp at all hours of the day.
Following what felt like the best lunch in the history of lunches, we headed to the meeting point for our first official safari and met our guide, Godfrey, and our tracker, Petros. While we knew these would be the guys responsible for finding and showing us game, we didn't realize how incredibly skilled they were until we were about 25 min into our drive and Godfrey pulled over. He leaned out of the rover and pointed down to the dirt and said "see that?" After looking at a bunch of tire tracks and messed up dirt, he says "hippo tracks - fresh hippo tracks." We proceeded to a nearby watering hole where we found 4 adult hippos and 1 baby hippo soaking in the water. We thought this was pretty awesome, but in retrospect this was kind of meh.

Shortly after our hippos, we arrived at another watering hole where we saw a couple elephants and heard a bunch more. We pulled into a little clearing on the road and saw about 10 elephants, including a baby, wandering around munching on trees. By far the scariest moment occurred as Godfrey was telling us about elephants urinating and he made some joke about this elephant right next to us being a male. As he was chuckling, this male, which was about 15-20 feet away, turned and made a few quick, threatening steps toward us. The rover was turned off, and Godfrey quickly swung back into his chair, had his hand on the ignition, and muttered a quick and panicked uh oh. Jen about shat herself as she was the closest to the elephant. Turns out the elephant didn't want to harm us, he just wanted to go to the bathroom as he proceeded to let both liquids and solids fly. Scary, smelly, and funny.

After having the rest of our group brought to us, we stopped in a slightly open area and had sundowners (drinks and snacks). The rest of our group consisted of 4 Americans, all mid-50ish, 2 from NYC and 2 from DC. The 2 guys played soccer together in college at Bucknell and had been to something like the last 5 WCs. One of the guys was media, so they stayed with the team and family outside Joburg (we never did enquire about which media outlet he worked for). The rest of this drive was fairly uneventful - a few elephants, lots of impala and other antelope-like things.

The next day we were awoken by a gentle knock on our front door at 5:30 - this was how they got everyone awake for 6am coffee and tea and a 6:30 drive departure. This morning drive was far and away the best of our drives. After about 40 min, Godfrey and Petros picked up on some leopard tracks. Rather than just follow them in the rover, Petros hopped out of his perch, grabbed a walkie talkie, and took off behind us. Godfrey explained that he was going to track the leopard, we would continue on, and when he found the leopard we'd go see it. Again, Petros walked away with a walkie talkie. That's it. No gun, no signal flare, nothing. Nuts. We drive a bit and Godfrey pulls over again and shows us more tracks and quietly says "rhino". We follow them a bit and then he stops and gets out and walks around looking at them. As he's getting back in, I ask how many rhino because there were quite a few tracks. He says "it looks like 2 females being followed by 1 male" and we're all like AWESOME! We drive some more, he talks on his walkie talkie, and eventually we stop - it's coffee time! We drinks coffee and hot chocolate and eat biscuits and then hop back into the rover after 20 min (still no Petros). Eventually we come across Petros, standing in the middle of the road, motioning his walkie talkie into the bush. He hops back into his perch, and Godfrey turns the rover off the road and into the bush. I cannot describe how badass this was. We slowly meander our way around trees and shrubs until we spot our first rhino. As we stop the rover, you can barely see 2 more rhino running down the hill. Godfrey says "those 2, those are the 2 females and this guy is the male following them." Unfreakingbelievable. Not only were we 10 feet from a rhino, but he had correctly told us what we were looking for just by looking at their footprints. Because we were parked off the roads (and I use the term "roads" loosely), he radioed everyone else to tell him what we had found. After about 20 min of watching and following, he told us we had to get going because there were about 7 other rovers heading into the area. Sure enough, on our way out we passed at least 5 heading to see the rhinos Petros had tracked. Totally insane. On the way back we saw 2 more elephants that were older and thus less interested in us, and we were able to get really close. Elephants never get old. We also found several hippos outside of the waterhole, and got to watch them splashing back into the water. Cool stuff.

As our evening drive began, Godfrey asked what we wanted to see and we told him cats. He said ok we'd work on it. After driving around for awhile, we saw more antelope-like things (kudu, steenbok, impala, etc) and then came across 3 water buffalo. He explained that these were 3 older males who probably couldn't keep up with the herd. Sure enough, we later saw about 100+ water buffalo grazing on the side of the road.

It was getting late and we still hadn't seen any cats. Godfrey had been on the radio and informed us (I think) that someone had found some lions and that we were heading over. By this time is was dark (and as we learned dark = cold), and we sped along in our open-topped rover freezing. We came across some lights and it was a rover from another lodge who we had seen before. He and Godfrey spoke, Godfrey thanked him and the guy said enjoy. We drove up a bit and there was another rover just in front of is. In that rover's headlights we saw what appeared to be 5 lions walking in the road. They eventually settled down, and the rover in front of us pulled off the road to the right, and we pulled off the road to the left, and just sat and watched. It was sick. We were literally 6 feet from what turned out to be 6 lions. They didn't really care about us, except for this one who stood up to walk around and Sarah tried to take her picture and Sarah's ridiculously annoying flash went off 7 times like a strobe light. The lion stopped and stared at her, at which point Sarah said (audibly) "ok ok, sorry, I won't do that anymore, ok". The lion kept walking and just stopped and laid down in the road again. Crazy. In one day we had seen rhino, elephant, water buffalo, hippos and lions. Ridonkidonk.

Also, Jen and I had been feeling a little sick since we left Cape Town. That sickness turned into a sweet headcold/sinus infection. And because we're so nice, we shared that with Beth. She started feeling really bad on the night drive, but has been feeling better. Jen and I feel mostly better, but our throats and sinuses are pretty sore and congested, respectively. Awesome.

MO

USA! USA! USA!

National pride came out in full force today with our first World Cup match - US vs. Slovenia.  We'd heard that the traffic control/parking situation was not going smoothly, so we decided to head down to the match several hours early to deal with the shenanigans (as well as the security lines).  We encountered annoying traffic, very few directional signs, and clueless FIFA personnel about how to get to our park n' walk parking lot.  We finally made it to our high school soccer field -turned- parking lot, and then the fun began.

While Slovenians were represented at the stadium, it seemed like everyone we encountered on the mile walk over to Ellis Park stadium was wearing red, white and blue (or yellow and green for the hometeam Bafana Bafana).  Even the kids who lived along the road we walked down were waving their American flags and chanting "USA, USA, USA" as we walked by.  The many enterprising Safrican vendors attempting to sell us red-white-and-blue clown wigs and flags were definitely not selling any Slovenian -themed gear.

The outfits were pretty amazing - from American flag pants, to full Uncle Sam outfits, to Elvis, to astronauts, to colonial outfits, and above all, American flags and USA scarves being worn and waved proudly.   As we got closer to the stadium, there was a full vendor village set up outside selling various foodstuffs (boerwors?  prego roll?) and as many vuvulzelas as you could want to buy (which we decidedly don't). 

Security and ticket entry were both pretty easy.  Metal detector and requisite bag check, and then electronic turnstiles.  Then there we  were, at Ellis Park stadium, beloved in Safrican history for their 1995 rugby World Cup championship in which Nelson Mandela came out wearing a Springbok shirt to show his support for a formerly all-white team as he led Safrica towards becoming a rainbow nation.

As we got closer to the start of the game, the stands filled with their red,white & blue and green & white team gear.  The teams came onto the field for warmups, adding even more elecricity to the stadium.  Then, finally (it seemed), the teams were announced for their national anthems.   Mike would like me to mention that watching the Hawks fans scream throughout the Star Spangled Banner was more exciting than the FIFA version, but the rest of think it was pretty damn cool.  American flags waving, people singing along to "the land of the free and home of the brave", and vuvuzelas blaring at the end of the anthem (Americans and all other foreign team supporters here have loudly and enthusiastically picked up the vuvuzela tradition - in fact, I'd guess that 75% of the vuvuzelas are being blown by us tourists not Safricans).

We'll quickly gloss over the horrible first half (two goals to Slovenia??  How about a little effort there Tim Howard?) and skip to the much more exciting and better executed second half.  Donovan's early goal got the crowd back into it, and we stayed really engaged throughout the entire second half.  The place went NUTS when we scored our 3rd goal, only to have the ref disallow it for reasons we still don't understand.  While I really didn't want to tie with Slovenia, after being down 2-0 at the half, I'd take the draw in the end (esp when England couldn't beat Algeria later that night). 

Getting out of the stadium was no big deal, but getting out of the park n walk lot was a freaking nightmare.  Over an hour to leave our grassy knoll, involving us turning our car off several times when we didn't move for 10-15 minutes.  Traffic/parking control is not FIFA or Safrica's strong suit.  It's really ridiculous. 
We finally made it back up to Pretoria so we could head to a local bar for some dinner while watching England v. Algeria.  As a Brit at the table next to us, that game was "a fucking disgrace" for England.  But gives the US hope about winning our pool as long as we can beat Algeria next week (and England beats Slovenia).

things we like/love

We haven't done anything too exciting the past few days - just lots of eating and wining. Yesterday we ended stage 2 of our adventure (stage 1 for the Polei) and traveled from CPT to JNB, and then drove the 40 min or so to Pretoria, where we'll be staying until tomorrow. By far the highlight of yesterday was renting our car. The car was reserved in Beth's name, but neither Beth nor Sarah is terribly excited about driving, and I kinda love driving here, so we looked into adding me. We figured it would be like home, where it's x amount per day. No no, it's only 220R, or about 30USD, for the entire 10 day rental period. Thus I was added. Moreover, the rental agent went to get keys and came back to inform us that sadly there were no cars in our class available, so we were upgraded to a BMW. And not only was it a BMW, but it's a brand new BMW with 14km on it (about 4 miles). Awesome.

Rather than bore everyone with less exciting deets, we thought we'd take this lull to name some of the things we love and dislike about SAfrica...


Loves: cheap cell phone that has a converter for currency and temperature (among other things); the lawlessness of the roads - lines, when they exist, mean nothing - 2 lane roads are really 3 lane roads, and sometimes 4 lane roads, and speed limits are just for fun; feta cheese - I hate feta at home, but the feta here is really good (mike hates at home - we all love here); 3 course breakfast prepared daily at our B&Bs; amarula (esp. Jen or Sarah); penguins, especially when they jump or waddle; "Ayoba!"; seeing people proudly wearing national team shirts, jackets, hats and scarves from around the world; Safrican bacon; friendliness of various B&B owners; springbok carpaccio; Safrican pizza, esp with fresh avos on top

Dislike: weather - entire time in CPT and the winelands was colder and/or rainy and/or snowy; the abundance of mushrooms and olives in this country and, frequently, at our dinner tables - barf (mike and sarah); the lack of quality internets and clear televisions (esp Mike); Mike's use of the word "ridonk-i-donk" (esp Jen)

Dined and Wined

Today dawned as a sunny morning, but, as the theme thus far on our trip, the sky quickly darkened and the clouds covered the surrounding mountains. We started out the day walking through town and going to the market. We had a very successful shopping trip, marked by Sarah increasing the GDP of South Africa single-handedly, and our running into one of our Algerian friends not once, but twice around town. The word that we were from Chicago passed quickly through the market, reaching the end of the stalls before we even got there.

We then continued on to our lunch, which was another gourmet 4-course meal. The setting was the vineyard Moreson in Franschoek, at a restaurant called Bread and Wine. I think that we all agreed this restaurant topped yesterday's meal - everything was super fresh and delicious. My favorite course was my salad, which was a warm beetroot salad with slices of duck and lentils. My mouth waters just thinking about it - it was sensational! A great addition to the food were some excellent wine flights from the Moreson vineyard.

After lunch, we headed out to do some more wine tasting. Unlike Stellenbosch, which was heavily by the Dutch, Franschoek was heavily influenced by the French, so many of the wineries have French sounding names. We started out by going to Sarah and I's favorite winery from our last trip, Haute Cabriere (a shout-out to Melissa and Johanna here!). Despite our minor disappointment that they did not have the Brandy Champagne we remembered from last time, all of our wines were delicious, and we jumped into the world of wine exportation by sending a case of wine to the US. The Monkeys will get to pick up our wine from the cargo area of O'Hare shortly after their arrival back home! :)

After a another successful wine tasting at le Grande Provencale, we decided to head back to our hotel in Stellenbosch because a) it's Youth Day and a lot of the wineries were closing earlier, and b) we were tired from our copious amounts of wine drinking. We also decided we were not up for another long meal in a restaurant, so we stocked up on wine and dessert at the Pick n Pay, ordered take-away pizza from a local pizzeria, and settled in to watch the big South Africa vs. Uraguay game at our hotel. All I will say is hearts are breaking around South Africa tonight. Poor Bafana Bafana. :( We can only hope the US fairs better when we go to their game vs. Slovenia on Friday.

Tomorrow we head up to Joburg and Friday to our first game. More updates to come...

A Tale of Two Meals

We headed to the gastro capital of South Africa today - the Winelands.  Both of the restaurants we felt were' can't miss' ones were only open for lunch, so we skipped dinner reservations and instead planned out our lunches for Stellenbosch (today) and Franschhoek (tomorrow).  First stop: Overture at Happy Valley Winery.

Overture's lunch experience is on par with any fine restaurant experience in the States.  Mike & Jen opted for the four-course winter special (salmon and shrimp appetizer, mushroom gnocchi, pork belly, and a souffle for dessert), while Beth & I opted for 'only' 3 courses each (potato leek soup with ice cream, hake, and a custard for Beth, and liver pate, pork belly, and souffle for me).   Since we were at a winery, we of course added in wine pairings for each course.  Viogners, chenin blancs, sauvignon blancs, pinot noirs, chocolate grappa and muscat were all included.  Two and a half glorious hours later, we were fat, happy eaters, who had thoroughly enjoyed our meals, the ambience (beautiful restaurant overlooking a vineyard) and laughing at the one misstep of the meal (blue cheese whipped cream on our "pre-dessert" sorbet - ew). 

After this amazingly fullfilling meal, we opted to walk into Stellenbosch for a quick, easy, casual dinner tonight.  We happened across Jan Cats in the Stellenbosch Hotel, mainly due to the sign out front that it offered both springbok carpaccio and peppadews (and my #1 rule in South Africa is to never pass up springbok carpcaccio).  Little did we know when we stepped into the empty restaurant the fun that was about to ensue.

About a half hour into our meal (after the huge plate of olives, peppadews and springbok had been brought to the table), a couple of guys from Algeria wandered in.  "Bafana bafana" they greeted us (that being the South African team's nickname).  We happily responded back and found out pretty quickly that their English wasn't very good.  We had a fun stilted conversation about US v. Algeria anyway, with them predicting an Algerian victory over England (1-0) and a tie with the US (3-3).

 A few minutes later, they asked us and the waiter if any of us spoke French, as they were having trouble reading the menu.  Since none of us really remembered our high school French, we told them we couldn't help them, but after watching them struggle for a few minutes, Jen and I went over to see what we could translate for them.  We quickly determined, thanks to another Algerian man who was hidden in the corner and could speak better English, that they were Muslim and therefore couldn't eat any chicken or beef products.  Only veggies and fish.  We tried to describe what several of the fish were on the menu, but how the heck do you say calamari in French?  We finally got "les moules" after awhile to help them with the mussels translation.  In the meantime, Mike & Beth are laughing hilariously at our poor attempts at translations and descriptions (we're mimicking what a shrimp looks like), and the older Algerian gets out his video camera to capture us for eternity laughing and butchering the beautiful French language (these guys are so happy that we're trying to help that they laugh along with us).    After all is said and done with figuring out what they can eat, in walks someone who works at the hotel who speaks perfect French with them.  DOH! 


We all enjoy the rest of our meals while watching Brazil v. North Korea (wow did those Koreans hold their own), and a few other soccer fans wander in.  The Algerian guys try to swap their Algeria soccer scarf for a USA one, but we have to disappoint them that we don't have one.  In the meantime, more Algerian guys come in (and they don't know these original 2 sets of Algerians who have sat together and bonded), but luckily the menu thing goes a lot easier this time (ordering fish with lots of veggies).   Algeria plays England in Cape Town in a few days, but how did they all happen into the same restaurant in Stellenbosch, not knowing each other? 

Small world.

As we get up to leave at halftime, our Algerian friends ask for pictures with us, and suddenly we're surrounded by Algerian men taking what seems like dozens of pictures on dozens of cameras.  They find out we're from Chicago and respond "Al Capone!" with a gesture of a guy shooting someone.   Sweet.    Even the new Algerian guys who had no previous interaction with us need to get in on the photo taking - Algeria scarf proudly displayed in front of us.

Maybe you had to be there to understand the hilarity of the night, but it was a great feeling to be bonding with people from across the world, about soccer, food, and general happiness about being in South Africa for the World Cup.  And without much common language to help out.  I think even if you weren't there, you can understand how amazingly global this event is and how it makes the world a bit smaller and and more understanding of each other, if only for a month every 4 years.

Bafana bafana!

Overture restaurant

 At the Happy Valley Winery

Avoiding raindrops with penguins

We woke up this morning with the rains pouring down and the winds blowing something fierce. Uh oh - time to change our plans for the day and get some indoor activities planned. Our B&B owner agreed that this type of rain looked like it would stick around all day.

Mike & Jen really wanted to see penguins, so we decided we'd go visit them in the rain and just stay a few minutes. Penguins like rain, right? By the time we got out to the coast, however, it had happily stopped raining. Still overcast but no raindrops. We got to spend a long time visiting with the penguins, getting within feet of them at times (but no closer, as rumor has it they have a vicious bite). Jen and I happened across a few amorous penguins ("what's that slapping sound, Sarah?" "Ooohhh...."), and we also saw some cute little penguin chicks. It is amazing how damn cute these birds are when they waddle and jump up. Also amazing is how loud they are when they bray (this breed is known as Jackass Penguins, because they sound like donkeys braying). And amazing how stinky they are. Pee ew.

(Erin, you'll be happy to know we tracked down the free penguin access - no paying for penguins for us!)

With our good luck in our pocket, we continued our drive along beautiful False Bay to get over to Cape Point/Cape of Good Hope while the rains were holding off (skies still looked very ominous). We hiked up to the top of the lighthouse, where sadly the sign pointing to the South Pole was missing, but that didn't stop Mike, Jen, and the dozens of other tourists there from finding the nearest city to the their hometown on the signpost and taking the tourist picture (will post when we get better internet access). Since Chicago wasn't represented and Beth doesn't like pics of herself, we declined. We decided to head further out onto Cape Point along a very narrow path with a very steep edge down to the Atlantic Ocean. I chickened out partway through the hike out (learning later that I'd done all of the hard stuff, with a railing and wider paths just around the corner), and went back to take pictures for other tourists and stalk Mik e, Jen and Beth along the path with my telescopic camera lens. In the meantime, as I was waiting for them to come back, the clouds started breaking up a bit. Blue sky started peaking out. By the time they returned and we headed back down to the car, a bit of sunshine broke through the clouds. Good Hope = good luck!

Sadly (?), no baboon sightings for the 2nd time at Cape Point, despite all of the large warning signs to beware of aggressive baboons. On the way down to Cape of Good Hope, however, what happened into our path but 2 large ostriches. We weren't like the crazy tourists in front of us who jumped out of their car to get their pics with the ostriches, but we did stop and take several very close pictures of them. (Mike & Jen had been told by their innkeeper in Swellendam that he'd gotten rid of his ostrich because he was brutally attacked, scarring the Monkeys from wanting to get too close to these gigantic birds). As they tromped off into the fynbos, they easily and happily crunched the large bushes and brush beneath their giant feet, making us happy with our decision to leave them alone.

Cape of Good Hope was teeming with international tourists, but we did get the all-important tourist shot, just before the skies opened up again on us (this Cape Town weather is nutso). Good Hope is the south-western most point in Africa, not the most southern or even the further south in the Cape Town area (that goes to Cape Point). School teachers really need to correct this misinformation, as everyone ends up very confused by the lighthouse.

Back into the car, where we headed up the western coast towards Chapman Peaks Drive and sundowners in Hout Bay. Chapman's Peak Drive is similar to Route 1 in California - hugging cliffs, very winding/curvy, and has an access toll. Different from the California version, however, are massive metal nets that catch the many many falling rocks along this sheer cliff (that would otherwise crash into cars). Despite this netting, there are still many signs telling us to go at our risk. Um, ok.... (our engineer viewers would love the engineering of this road - it's amazing! Beth & I don't remember the cantilevered canopies from last time we were here, so we think there are some areas that got so bad with their rockslides that they added a roof over the road when the netting wasn't enough).

Driving along the coast, we noticed the the skies continued to clear, so we wondered if Table Mountain was clear yet (our innkeeper's advice was to head up as soon as we saw that it was clear, as we never knew how long it would last). We turned the corner around the Twelve Apostles and saw the top of the cable car station. Done. Off we flew for sundowners on top of Table Mountain instead of Hout Bay. The signs at the bottom of the cable car warned of low visibility, high winds, and cold temps. We're Chicagoans, how cold can it be up there?

The answer is cold. Very cold. In fact, it started to snow while we were up there. The wind was fierce. But the views were clear(ish) and magnificent, and we were so pleased to have squeezed in this trip up the Mountain when it was completely socked in by clouds earlier that morning (our B&B is on the base of Table Mountain, affording us very nice views upon waking up). We grabbed hot chocolate and coffee & amarulo (Jen's new favorite liquer) at the top restaurant and enjoyed our views and good fortune for the day. On the way down, we shared our cable car with Mexicans wearing sombreros, Brazilians wearing their bright yellow jackets, Germans in their team shirts, and several other nationalities all excited about their World Cup team. Most posts later on the cool international following we've seen here.

Off to dinner at The Africa Cafe for a family meal of pan-african cuisine (Nigerian, Malawian, Cape Malay, Tanzanian, etc), and avoiding World Cup traffic as best we could (Italy took on Paraguay in Cape Town, in the pouring rain).

A successful Cape Town day, despite the gloomy start. For a morning that had started out looking miserable and rainy, we'd managed to spend most of our day outside staying dry, enjoying the sights and seeing our Cape Town "must sees".

catching up - pre-polei

Jen and I left Plett Bay on the 12th and headed back to Swellendam via Outdshoorn, ostrich capital of the world (seriously). Under the advice of 2 B&B owners, we decided to take a different route than we took out, one that supposedly had spectacular views. It was a pretty ridiculous drive, and we pulled over on the side of the rode multiple times to take photos. When we arrived at the ostrich farm/tour place we were disappointed to find that the afternoon was fully booked - apparently school groups go on ostrich farms on Saturdays. Undeterred, we got back on the road to Swellendam to check in early and see the town in daylight.

On the way, we again went through an area known as the Karoo that had crazy mountain passes. Apparently passes in CO are far more dangerous/breathtaking/awesome, but since I've never been to CO, this was pretty sweet. We arrived in Swellendam around 3ish and drove around town, saw a wedding exit a nice old church and then checked in. Unlike last time when there was another couple at our B&B, this time it was just us. We had the same "upgraded" suite, and decided to take advantage of it. So we went next door and got a pizza, salad and a couple beers, and settled in to watch the US/England match. Great match (our host called it the best match of the WC so far, but I'm sure he thinks the subsequent German victory was better).

The next morning we got up bright and early to head to CPT to pick up the Polei from their 10am flight. Our host offered to pack us take-away breakfasts since we would be leaving too early for a proper breakfast, and he didn't disappoint. We each received a 5lb bag containing 2 sandwiches, orange juice, some chocolate breakfast drink (haven't tried those yet), fresh fruit and yogurt. Rothman Manor is the place to stay in Swellendam - Andreas and is wife are awesome, can't say enough great things about them and their lodging.

Arriving at CPT is much like arriving at ORD - interstate with planes flying over. As we were approaching, we saw this giant white plane land and we both thought it could be the Polei's plane. Except we knew they were flying SAA, and this plane was all white, even the tail (usually the tail has the SAfrican flag on it). We parked, went in, waited and eventually found out that was in fact their plane - a rented 747 to accommodate more people (see Sarah's post below)!

MO

One of the many rainbows in the Cape Town area



From the mountain passes on the way to Swellendam

South Africa, at last!!

Beth and I had a fairly uneventful trip down to South Africa.  Easy trip from Dublin to London, then found Mike & Jen's favorite pub at Heathrow (the Tin Goose) before watching the beginning of the US-England game at the airport (we were DEFINITELY in enemy territory).  Saw the England goal, but had to head to our gate before the US scored. Luckily, there were some US fans at the gate who informed everyone that the US had tied England.  When the pilot announced on the plane that the US and England had tied, you could feel the disappointment of the England crowd (and the excitement of the US crowd - what an accomplishment to tie England!).

Despite Mike, Jen, and my parents fantastic experiences on South African Airways, Beth & I had a typical trip on our overnight flight.  My seat didn't recline, nor did my TV work.  Food was average, service was decent.  Sleep was poor.  When we deplaned, we saw that our plane was completely white - no markings at all - an anonymous South African Airways jet!  (we surmised that they rented the plane for the World Cup to increase their capacity, hence the plane being older and not nice as normal SAA planes)

Weather in Cape Town was supposed to be rainy, but we ended up with some intermittent sunshine and clouds throughout the day.  Scuttled our plans for Robben Island (canceled all boats) and Kirstenbosch, and instead ended up eating and drinking in Camps Bay and a trip up Signal Hill to see the views of the ocean and the city.  Then off to V&A Waterfront where we encountered thousands of World Cup fans from all over the world (most crowds Mike & Jen have seen by far!).  The vevezulas are as obnoxious here (every.where.) as they are on TV.  The worst people at blowing them all the time are the tourists, not the South Africans.  Sheesh.  Bought some nice South African items at the craft market, looked for our favorite soap at Woolworths (warning: can't find the same stuff!  yikes!  we think they may have rebranded it - we'll keep looking), and a pub dinner at Quay 4 for fried food and beers.

The crew in Camps Bay

Guinea fowls for Erin

We were REALLY excited to see seals at V&A Waterfront.  Really excited.

South Africans love wearing these hats to the soccer games.  We may have to get some before our first game.

Some clouds, some sun, and a lot of the Atlantic Ocean.  

Requisite tourist picture

 Chicago is how far away??