Hiking

OK... I can be a little slow sometimes but I'm starting to sense a theme here.  Most of you know by now that Jen did 99% of the planning on this trip.  I got a few destinations/activities (Tanzania, Cape Town, the Delta, Vic Falls and the Kalahari & Namib deserts)  into the schedule but for the most part, she did all the hard work as she was off last summer and I was happy enough to go along with the plans.  Jen hates the cold so I wasn't too surprised to see our itinerary stay within about 20 degrees of either side of the equator for the most part either.  Shawn wanted Costa Rica, Rachel wanted NY City and Paris (so much for Jen's 20 degree rule on that count!) and Jen wanted some time in France to teach the kids French.  All fair enough.... and I agreed with all of it.

She's also wanted me to lose several lbs so I wasn't too surprised when she added some hiking into the equation especially since she's always loved her long walks with the dog and had done some hikes on her other trips.  Seemed like win-win...Usually though, she'd couch it in her politically correct style of "we should go see xxxx as they have this cool waterfall where we can swim" and I'd fall for it and then discover to come those views or swim in those pools I needed to drag my sorry carcass up 500 meters of steep cliffs or somesuch.

Well this time I finally clued in... With about 24 hours after our 14 hour flight she plans a little more excursion to go to this reserve in the heart of the city that "has 120 different animal species and more plant diversity than North America".  Well, as you've probably figured out by now, I love looking at animals so that was enough for me.  The kids happily go with her on hikes anyways so they didn't need the sales job I got.

So we take the bus out and miracle of miracles somehow she's managed to find the only other mountain right in the middle of flat old Singapore (the hotel she booked is on the very top of the other one)!  Well, it doesn't look too high... So off we go. The three hikers and me dragging myself 50' behind as they sprint along with enthusiasm.  "At least it'll have a good view of the city" I tell myself.

Well this hike is on a concrete path but the next thing you know, we start passing all these Chinese people walking backwards.  That should have been my second clue.  Its not long before the path becomes so steep I'm hanging on for dear life. It's 90 miles north of the equator at 11am in the morning on a hot, humid day and we're climbing a mountain again...

Well I'm happy to say, we (or more correctly I - there really was never any doubt the skinny ones would be ok) made it to the top - where there was a bench and NO views because the trees went up another 200'.  Oh, and the 120 "animal species?" - well it turns out that 90% of them are insects!  We did see one rather large lizard...

And of course, we saw him at the bottom (after the hike).

Unfortunately, her efforts to slim me down have been hampered by the good Costa Rica and African Beers... And because it's so hot, I've had more than usual.  I guess that's why where we really staying now has no fridge!

I have to admit, she's got me really concerned with the mountains of Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam!  They'll have some seriously high ones and they define humidity!  And I get the sense we'll be in beach bungalows without fridges too!  Run Forest, Run!!!

Singapore and shopping

One of my least favorite activities is shopping as most of you who are close to me will know. I hate malls and generally like to do most of my shopping online so I can look up the product details, etc myself. I guess working at Black's Cameras in my teens wrecked me for life (although it did give me some good sales experience that serves me well today). The ironic thing is that back at IBM some wag decided that I was well suited to selling to retailers so every time a retail opportunity comes up I get tagged with it. Retailers are the cheapest customers on the planet and the most frustrating to deal with! One of the big reasons, I decided I needed some time off was due to my last deal at a major Canadian retailer! So the last thing I wanted to do on my "sabbatical" was to go shopping.

One of the things I most appreciate about Jen is that she is generally disposed the same way I am to shopping and so we don't spend a lot of time doing something neither one of us likes! And if by chance we do need to do some shopping (like for groceries and whatnot) she will generally suck it up and do it without involving me! Unfortunately, the flip side of that is that when we do have to go shopping together for some reason, tempers are usually short on both sides so the occasional eruption does happen which of course reinforces the perceptions both of us have about shopping in the first place! Of course, it's never my fault...

Somehow, both Rachel and Shawn (I think they get it from my sister Gina) have never seen a shopping opportunity they can't take advantage of and have become great little negotiators for the bracelets and trinkets (Rachel) and rocks (Shawn) they have become obsessed with on this trip.

Anyway, yesterday, I HAD to go shopping and Jen wanted to go shopping (or more correctly Rachel wanted to go shopping and Jen was quite willing to go along with her). Shawn had also been bugging the crap out of both of Jen and I to take him to what he figured must be the biggest Apple store in South East Asia. He'd asked just about everyone we met where it was and had three different locations in mind to check out. About the only thing Jen hates more than shopping is electronics and computers so the idea of going into an Apple store had zero appeal to her so it was fairly clear to me that to keep the peace in the family, I had to swallow my Apple bias and spend the day with the OTHER fruit company's number one iFan listening to how they are so much better than BlackBerry.

The reason I HAD to go shopping... well you may remember the South African Airlines fiasco on our first pass through Johannesburg trying to get to Victoria Falls to start our overland... while waiting for our bags (which of course never showed up), the kids were playing with the trolleys and managed to drop and/or sit on our day packs which had the NetBook inside. Unfortunately, this wasn't a trusty IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad which over the years have proven they can take a lot of abuse... I'd given in to my Scottish side and spent all of $199 on it so it was a little plastic HP job that had already developed some cracks around the edges. This treatment by the kids caused some very large cracks in the screen with corresponding large black areas over the screen so typing was typically by braille and/or moving the window around so you could see what you are typing. It was very frustrating and we'd tried to get it fixed in Cape Town but were told that it would cost about $300 which is $100 more than I paid for the WHOLE NetBook in the first place. I guess the IBM Gods were getting me back for buying an HP!

Anyway, all of us were pretty frustrated with it but had been limping around it for about 5 weeks until Jen accidentally pulled the NetBook off the table as she had her foot wrapped around the cord (this happens when you jam 4 people and all their possessions for 10 months into one small room). Now we lost another quarter of the screen (so only one quarter left). Needless to say, this didn't help tempers much either... so in a calm moment, we agreed that I would take Shawn to find his iFruit store and try to get the screen fixed and/or buy a new cheap NetBook where electronics should be dirt cheap.... and Jen would go in a 180 degree different direction with Rachel and we'd somehow manage to do those tasks that we both hate more than almost anything without having the opportunity to take it out on each other (or the poor clueless kids who actually like shopping).

So off Jen/Rachel go down Orchard Road in search of God knows what and Shawn and I head deep into Little India in search of three electronic super malls where we'd been assured we could find nearly anything. (I wanted to get the computer addressed before I tackelled the iFruit store with him as he'd be insufferable after seeing all the recent stuff they are pumping out to the iFanbase and I'd have to listen to it all day). We'd heard that these "malls" were pretty big so Shawn was cool with that.

Well after a couple of miles, Shawn and I run into the first place called Mostafa Centre. It looks like Mostafa used to run one of those stalls where he'd lay out some goods (watches, camera's, electronics or what have you) and try to sell them to unsuspecting customers walking down the sidewalk. Business must have been good for him because it looks like he must have then set up two stalls... one with watches and one with cameras... and then business was even better so he set up three stalls and added electronics to his little empire. Then he decided to setup more stalls... one for each brand of watch/camera/electronics... and so on. Well old Mostafa seems to have done pretty well for himself because he's into everything from watches (probably 20 stalls of different brands) to clothes to pharmaceuticals. He now has a store that is about the size of the Eaton's Centre with 6 floors crossing multiple blocks with all of these stalls in it. Shawn thought he'd died and gone to heaven.

I think if you wanted to find any watch on the planet, Mostafa must have it. Ditto for cameras and electronics. Unfortunately, like everything else in Singapore, the prices are ridiculous compared to what we can get back home. My $199 el cheapo HP NetBook... $699 for a model that wasn't even as good! Doesn't seem to matter for Mostafa though... it looked like he had thousands of employees at these stalls all vying to sell them to you! I will say that Shawn and I were about the only Muzingu - Swahili for white people - in the place, so I guess it doesn't matter what we think of his prices.

My watch crystal had broken and it leaks when I'm any deeper than the bathtub with it so was hoping to either buy a new one cheap or get mine repaired... no such luck. Other than cheap knockoff Bolice watches which were $10 for three, my watch was about 3 times what I paid for it back home. One of the vendors gave me the address of the manufacturer and said they could repair the crystal for me and it turned out they were beside our next stop at Sim Lim Square so off we went in search of OC Tower (17th floor).

Well this wasn't too hard to find... there aren't a lot of 17 floor skyscrapers in Little India so other than negotiating the sidewalk vendors and awnings built for people that think 5'6" is very tall, we didn't have any issues until trying to figure out how to get into the building... they'd wrapped the entire first floor in plywood as they were doing construction on it but eventually we found our way in and Shawn quite enjoyed the 17 floor elevator ride. Unfortunately again, the manufacturer couldn't help me as the crystal was special order and would take 6 weeks.... but they were more than happy to sell me a new watch at FOUR times what I paid for mine. No thanks... so off we go across the street to Sim Lim Square.

You have to see this place to believe it. Imagine a eight floor office tower with each floor having a shop about the size of a small store in a Canadian mall... in other words, about 20 of these per floor. Now imagine, that each of these sold ONLY electronics (although some specialized in say iPhone cases and some in Cameras, Computers, Cell Phones, AV Projectors, etc.). Each of these stores were owned and run by either a Chinese guy or an Indian guy... two of the toughest sales guys on the planet. I thought Shawn was going to be overwhelmed... but every time one of the sales guys would ask him what he wanted, he'd dream up some question that would send them scurrying off looking for supply. (He was keen on seeing some Lenovo computer he'd saw on the Future Shop website before we left for $267). The sales guy would then go through all kinds of contortions about how great his particular computer (usually a Lenovo of some sort) was and then Shawn would take pity on him and tell him that it was 4 times more expensive than what he was able to buy it for back home.

To give you a bit of an idea how big this place was

I tried to get Shawn to say "just looking", and explained to him that there was no bloody way he'd ever find a deal for what he/me would be willing to pay but he seemed to be having too much fun to stop and frankly anything that gets him that excited, is always nice to see and the sales guys didn't seem to mind losing a sale to Canada... just as long as we didn't buy from Rajiv or Frank next door!

Anyway, about half way up the mall, we found a shop that actually claimed to fix laptops and asked them what it would cost to fix our poor NetBook. I got a quote for between $120 and $160 which I figured we could live with so we finished up the tour of EACH and EVERY store (yes, Shawn had to go into every one!) and then headed back to the room to get the damn thing and bring it back (I had zero confidence we'd find a spot to fix it because I'd called HP that am and was told just the part was $300).

So a couple of miles back to the hotel, and a couple of miles back to the mall (still no sign of Jen/Rachel... they must be having a good time shopping) and we hand it over. Well of course, I have the expensive version of the screen and it's going to be $150... but with no other option, I give over the machine and we head downstairs for some lunch while we wait.

All the way leading up to this trip, Jen and I have been telling the kids they were going to have to lose their pickiness around food as they wouldn't have the choice they do around home. Unfortunately for Jen and I, everywhere we've been so far has either hamburgers, pizza or pasta and Shawn's attitude has been "I'll try the alien food when I absolutely have to... until then I'm sticking with what I like". And the kids haven't changed their eating habits one iota. I'd figured well we're finally going into Little India and there seems to be bugger all there in Western food so this is a good time to get him to try something else. Unfortunately, I'd spied a Burger King of all things on the corner block of this mall out of the corner of my eye. So I carefully tried to exit the mall and head outside into the food court without letting him see it. Well the little bugger has his mother's eagle eyes because he saw a reflection on a window and pointed it out to me! "Under no circumstances are we going to eat at a Burger King in Singapore... it'll cost a fortune!" says I.

Well Shawn and Rachel have both been very good about realizing we're on a budget and things we might not have given a second thought back in Canada are out of reach here so he agreed we'd try the food court downstairs... so down we go... and it's all Chinese food and Indian food (not a McD's or A&W in sight) and I'm thinking great.. well of course he's wandering the stalls and seeing hanging pigs and chickens and isn't that keen on any of it... I point out one of my traditional favorites (Singapore Noodles) which has pasta, chicken and shrimp but he points out it also has mushrooms and he hates mushrooms. I order the dish thinking perhaps I'd get him to try one and doesn't he find a booth next door that has German sausage, fried eggs, french fries and garlic toast. He is so impressed with himself that he's tried "Asian" food and likes it! I give up.

So by now, the computer should be ready so we trundle our way back up 6 floors and sure enough... it's looking better than ever. We'd walked what seemed to be 50 miles and we'd found out that the fruit company has no store in Singapore (no bloody way they could compete with the three hundred or so Rajiv/Frank stores that also sell Apple stuff). So back to the hostel we go to to see if the better looking half of the family is done with their particular torture session. They were (and hadn't bought anything I could see) but hadn't had anything beside a tea and a croissant for lunch so back out we go because Jen has seen on the map that besides Little India, Singapore also has a Chinatown and she's got a hankering for Chinese food (she had no appetite for going to the IT mall of Shawn's dreams). So off we go again... this time to explore Chinatown.

Singapore has three different temples on each corner down there and each of them are spectacular so she wanted to see (and show the kids) them so we went off in search up and down each of the streets. Unfortunately for me, each of those streets was lined with stalls of stuff... generally clothes, dollar store trinkets or the odd electronics. Neither Rachel nor Shawn had had their fill of shopping so up and down we go... Jen's got more patience and likes watching Rachel get excited about this or that skirt but I'd about had enough. About the time that I was going to boil over, Jen said that her stomach was telling her that it was time for food so off we go in search of something the kids would eat along with a Chinese food fix for her.

We quickly ruled out any indoor restaurants as the menu items for just dishes of the meal were more than we'd spent on average for entire meals for the 4 of us (even though the places were not overly fancy). I guess I'm spoiled by the dozens of good Chinese food places around Toronto. By now it was about 9pm so none of us felt like eating a huge meal anymore (plus it seemed like it was 39 degrees in the shade) so Jen and I ordered up a couple of dishes from a street vendor and the kids tried a bit. Shawn did his usual... "I'm not hungry" and had a couple of my shrimp but Rachel actually tried my dish (and her Mom's) and liked mine so ate half of that which was fine with me. Jen thought she wasn't hungry but quite enjoyed her dish and polished it off... then for more shopping and back to bed.

I think we walked 25 kilometers and most of it was shopping and we all survived without nuclear holocaust...so I'll call that a decent day - but I made it quite clear, that I was done shopping!

Safe and sound in Singapore

We had an uneventful but long flight from Johannesburt to Kuala Lumpur on Malaysian in one of thier new Boeing 777's.  It is a very nice airline.  Then we had a three hour wait for our flight to Singapore and a 3 subway train trip into the city to get to our "Hostel".  It's a 3.5 star 7 floor hotel as far as I'm concerned.... we have a separate bathroom and the only thing I can see is missing is a TV in the room (there is a common room on our floor with one).  All these stories Jen has told me about roughing it in Hostels.....  :-)

Yesterday we met and spent the afternoon/evening with Wilma and Hector.  Wilma is our good friend Ed's sister (some of you will know/heard of Karen and Ed from Ottawa).  They are here for 4 years on assignment and are in a great little spot about 10 blocks from here.  They had some very nice swimming pools which the kids (and Jen) enjoyed and then we had a very nice pasta dinner and a few beers with them.  They gave us a bunch of good suggestions for all of South East Asia.  Today we plan on getting our laptop computer screen fixed (half of it is black where the kids cracked the screen so you have to type by feel - I'll blame that for my spelling mistakes), our visa's for Vietnam and our laundry done - Yeah!!
Will add pictures when we get them... for now, imagine Singapore as a much cleaner, neater version of Toronto!  Great friendly people and everything is in English (it's the main official language).

Our last days in (South) Africa...

Well it had to come to an end sooner or later... but for all of us, it was much too soon!  If you haven't been able to tell by now, we loved Africa.  One of my (and Jen's and now Shawn's) favorite authors is Wilbur Smith and Wilbur's always written that there is something about Africa that calls you back... and I strongly believe it now...  its unlike any other place that I know of.  It is so unique, and yet at times also very familiar.  It is often dangerous... but also very relaxing and peaceful.  We loved every minute of it - even when the big elephant was chasing us!

After the last Safari at Nambiti Private Game Reserve, we headed back into Ladysmith and then down the N11 to a little town on the North end of the Drakensburgs called Clarens... it is very much an artsy little town that has a bustling B&B scene with lots of crafts shops to keep the kids interested.  As we went to get to it we drove through another park (Golden Gate National Park) which had some amazing vistas...  and to my surprise, we also passed two cloaked up 2013 Mercedes Benz CLS test mules out for test drives on the twisty roads!  When we passed the first one (head to head), I exclaimed "that looks like the new CLS under all those blankets" and then moments later we passed another one and I was sure.

Then we pulled into a gas station to fill up and one of them came in after me.  They were obviously VERY skittish about me with my camera out so I put it in my pocket and wandered over to have a good look at it. They were Germans and not at all comfortable about me looking at it and wouldn't answer any of my questions... even when I told them I owned the current model.  One of them did say that's why they cover them up.  It didn't have a finished interior but I could see that the have changed the seats so that each of the 4 seats is now a sculpted chair with fixed head rests.  This one also must have been the souped up AMG version because it sounded like it had a turbine engine - that's the supercharger. I've read that it's got nearly 600 horsepower (versus the nearly 400 in mine).  The whine was VERY loud... you couldn't hear the engine over it  and everyone at the gas station looked up to see what was making the racket.  it whined like a jet not roared like a car...  Not that pleasant actually.  They had a nice new E class as a chase car and they had lots of electronics and laptops in both cars taking all the measurements.  I managed to snap a couple of pictures from a window when I got a chance.  I'm not sure that I like the new design from what I could see but I've seen pictures that also look very nice...  so we'll see I guess. It seems to be the most copied car around now (the VW Passat CC, the Audi A7, Porshe Panemera, and even the Hyundi Sonata all steal design cues from it) so they had to change it.  I caught word of them telling the gas station attendant to only put 25L in it as they had to load it on the plane the next day and it couldn't have any gas in the tanks for that.  It was a beautiful location to test it...  I'd love that job!

Anyway, enough about the car (I although I have missed mine with the great roads in the South African mountains).  We spent the night at a nice B&B in Clarens which we found by meeting a Canadian couple at one of the lookouts in the park.  They were a very friendly couple from Vancouver.  He's a Child Psychologist and she runs medical clinics and had been running one in a very rural area of South Africa and were doing their own car trip up to Botswana and Namibia before going back to Cape Town so essentially starting our trip again!  I was a bit jealous!  He's 67 and she's about 60...  they had a little Honda CRV 4x4 so were well equiped for it.  Anyway, they'd told us about this backpackers place in Clarens that was in their travel book so we went there together to check it out... it was a bit too rustic for our tastes but we split a home (they got the bottom apartment and we took the top).  Total cost to us was  just over $50 for the night... our cheapest room yet!  They are also heading to South East Asia so we sat on our balcony for a bit with some Gin and Tonics and swapped plans/locations.  Then we walked to a nearby restaurant (just the 4 of us) and had a nice dinner of Pizza's and Chicken Pot Pie.

Next morning, it was back into the car for the 4 hour drive to Johannesburg.  Great roads, big plains and then LOTS of traffic.  Typical crappy road signs so we spent a few minutes finding our B&B but we arrived in the early afternoon and the kids spent the rest of the day swimming in the pool, playing on the trampoline or with the dart board while Jen and I arranged the packs and threw out anything we didn't need anymore for the long flight to Singapore the next am.

We had a nice breakfast the next am and then filled up the car and returned it to Budget at the airport with 4200 more kilometers than when we got it... that means we drove over 10,000 Kilometers since we got to southern Africa 5 weeks ago.  It WAS a lot of driving but we really feel like we got a good OVERVIEW of this end of the Continent.  We really know where we want to come back and spend more time...  Jen would put Plettenburg Bay up there because of the best beaches, and Oudtshoorn for its variety.  I'd like to see everything we missed. - the Wild Coast, Kruger and the interior.  We'll definitely be back!

Our flight was departing at 1:40pm so we had lots of time to hang around the shops in the airport where Jen hemmed and hawed about spending a few hundred for a beautiful hand woven table runner before finally deciding it wouldn't fit size wise. I wasn't overly concerned as I figured this is one more thing that I could use to drag her back to Africa with!  We did see LOTS of things that we'd have loved to buy here but with our schedule (and budget) there was no way we could do that.  Next time, we'll make sure we can bring back lots of stuff.

On to Singapore after our last batch of Africa pictures...

That's Lesotho (the country) in the background.

See why they chose this place to test the cars?

The stealth Mercedes....

There she goes....

Pretty nice country.

Leaving the Drakensburgs.... and Africa.

Jo'burg security (every home has this... this was our Guest house).

Our South African Safari

Due to the fact that Kruger was for all intensive purposes closed due to extreme flooding in the south, we (well me with a lot of arm twisting on Jen) decided that we'd do a one day safari at one of the local game reserves near Ladysmith called Nambiti.  It turns out that Nambiti is owned by a French gentlemen living in Durban but he has 10 concessions on it for lodges and tented camps of about 10-20 people each.  Each resort has its own vehicles and can prowl the 10,000 Hectares of the reserve.  The reserve has all five of the big five (Lions, Leopards, Elephants, Cape Buffalo and Rhino) as well as enough plains game to sustain them.  It was about an hour and a half north of Wits End and a pretty drive up through where much of the Anglo/Boer war was fought so I gave the kids a running history lesson on what I'd learned about the battles and the war on Wikipedia (I love that resource!)

We had a quick lunch in Ladysmith and then headed to the main gates of Nambiti where we were told where to park (inside a 10K volt electric fence) and then our ranger would come in the big Land Cruiser to fetch us and take us to our tents.  These tents were like the ones in Tanzania...  you'd be happy to live in them.  Ours had a king bed and a double birthed bathtub as well as an outside shower looking over the hills.  Ditto for the kids!  Anyway, after we got things settled, it was time for our evening game drive.

We went out knowing that with all the rains, the animals wouldn't have to be bunched around water holes and therefore may be hard to find.  They hadn't seen any of the 7 lions in about a week (which was my main reason for wanting to do this).  Jen gave me a knowing look....  but frankly, I enjoy all the game so was not put off in the least.  It was good to be on the prowl again!


We didn't have to wait long as even on the drive from our car to the tents, we had to make way for a couple of very large male Kudu.  We saw lots of birds, Zebra, Wildebeast and even a few Rhino when we got the call that they'd found three lions and we headed right there.  When we arrived, there was another Land Cruiser was parked (stuck actually) in a mudhole about 15' from two large males (2 years old so not fully grown) and a lioness.  We watched them for a good 45 minutes.  They didn't move around much but rarely took their eyes off us although each of them looked very pettable (not that you'd likely survive the attempt!).  The other Land Cruiser managed to extract themselves from the hole and we had a great view of them.  Then it was back to have a picnic drink next to some Zebra, Wildebeast and Impala before heading back to the lodge for a nice dinner.  It was quite cold so Jen was very happy that they'd drawn the bath for her upon our arrival at camp! We could get used to that!

The next morning it was up at 5am for a 5:30 game drive to see the animals as they are more active then.  We found lots of antelope and even some thousands of extremely small frogs (smaller than a dime) migrating to a water hole when we got the call that they'd found some hyenas.  We took off in chase of those when Jen's eagle eyes picked out a lone lioness about 500 yards away in the long grass.  I'm constantly amazed at her exceptional eyesight.  To give you an idea, I had the camera at 63 times zoom and could barely make out the lioness at that distance.  The guide was blown away and said that took the prize.  We then drove up to her (this was much different than the Tanzanian game drives where they were not allowed to leave the roads) and watched her from a distance of 15-20'.  Her name was Trashcan as they found her by the garbage bins one night.  Trashy was part of a pride of two lionesses and a male that they'd imported to the reserve to bring some needed genetic diversity but the existing male lion (about 2 1/2 times the size of the males below), killed the other male and the female.  Trashy had recently given birth to some cubs but the pride leader of the other pride got to them and killed them so Trashy was on her own.  She's supposed to be an exceptional hunter and they've said she's brought down stallion Zebra by herself which usually takes 4 lionesses to do!

We were pretty excited about that and by this time, they'd lost the hyena's so we decided to see if we could find some elephants.  I'm proud to say that while the rest of the truck were spotting a jackal, I spotted a couple of Rhino!  (Not that they were hard to pick out as they were dead in front of us!).  We watched them for about 10 minutes while the guide told us the issues they have been having with poachers.  You'll notice they'd taken the top off the horn of the mother to prevent poachers from killing her for it but they've had other Rhino killed right on the reserve (to get at the rest of the horn).  He told us that in all likelihood within 20 years, the Rhino will be wiped out due to Chinese buying up the horns (as a cure for impotence - which has been proven not to work).  Its very sad to see these majestic creatures and know that they are at a such a low level now that they'll likely not make it as a species.

Then we headed on again and had a warm drink of coffee by a water hole which was much needed (it was freezing cold).  Off went again and I picked out some Elephant!  We'd seen lots of Elephant in the last three months but this big boy (they called him Beefy - Big Friendly Elephant) was massive!  He'd rolled in some red sand so looked red from head to toe.  We pulled up about 30' from him and shut down the engine.  He was in the process of ripping a 5' bush right out of the ground with his trunk.  Then he decided that we were interesting so wandered over to have a look at us.  Our guide by this time was getting a bit concerned as we had Elephant all around us and whispered for us not to make a sound.  Then Beefy wandered right up the side of the Land Cruiser that a British women (Hanna), Rachel and Shawn were on!  He put his trunk right over Hanna's leg and then walked by Rachel (who had scooted right up beside Jen on the other side of the Jeep) and then stood beside Shawn with his (sole) tusk about 12" from Shawn's face!  I'll give Shawn a lot of credit... he didn't even blink!  Beefy then walked a little further back so that his tusk was behind the vehicle and our guide said for us to hang on and he started up the vehicle and took off... with Beefy in hot pursuit!

Shawn and the women were pretty freaked out but we all appreciated the close look.  I got the whole encounter on video so when I figure out how, I'll put a version up so you can see how close we (and especially Shawn!) got to him.  The guide later told us that he's never had that happen before and that he was pretty concerned. I wasn't overly concerned (rightly or wrongly) as it looked to me like he was just curious and wasn't showing any signs of being upset... even when he chased us, he wasn't displaying the ears out and trumpeting or anything... and he was calmly eating his food as he was inspecting our Land Cruiser.  Jen was a bit more concerned but then Shawn said that Beefy was now his third favorite animal after Simba and Rocco so I guess he thought it was cool.  We certainly got more than we paid for!

Then we saw some hippos and then it was back to the lodge for a fantastic breakfast and checkout.

One of the two male Kudu's we saw on the drive into the lodge from the car park.  He's about 6 years old.  You can tell because he's got three full turns on his horns (one for every 2 years).  He's also got some white at the tips so he's getting on like those of us with grey hair!

Unlike the time of year in \Tanzania, we saw lots of young Plains Game here at Nambiti.

We saw lots of Giraffe too.

LIONS again!!! (Living up to their name... just lyin around)

I never get tired of looking at them.. These three have left the pride (they are siblings) and about 2 years old.

Notice how well they blend in....

Stretch!!!  She's been doing most of the work.  She's a great hunter that feeds the three of them.

Now you'll understand why we called our dog Simba...  the resemblance is uncanny.

Hey Jacob baby.... you think you have teef?  Look at these!

Just letting it all hang out.

Chillin...

Easy to see why they call a herd of Zebra a "Dazzle".  It's almost impossible to pick out the individuals when they are together... makes it hard for the lions, etc to find just one to go after.

No swimming here!

He had a very pretty song... Nice Mohawk!

You can't see me!

Our guide Dave showing us a Millipede

This is what Jen picked out from a quickly moving vehicle.  This picture is 63.8 times zoomed to give you an idea.  Shawn saw it as soon as she said she saw her.  I had to use the camera to find her and this is what I was able to see.  They blend in SO well.

This is Trashcan.  Notice the black follow me spots on the back of her ear(s).  This is so her cubs can chase her through the plains...  they really help you notice her from the back end... but for us prey, that's not the real issue is it?

I've got Teeth too Jacob!  Notice the satellite tracking collar they had to put on her - because she's escaped three times now.  The last time they frightened her back in with guns and fireworks and it seems to be sticking but there are cows the next ranch over that can be seen in places from here that must be VERY tempting for her.... they are worried that the Zulu ranchers will kill her.

Flat cat.

See these eyes so green... I can stare for a thousand years....

Sure looks like Simba...  but you wouldn't want to try to rub those ears!

I think this female Kudu can get 57 channels with those ears!

This is our new friend BFE (Beefy).  It stands for Big Friendly Elephant.  Here he's effortlessly ripping a bush out of the ground with his trunk by the roots.

About 5 seconds later, it's almost all gone.

This is where we stopped

He's only got one tusk (remnant from a fight with a smaller bull) but its handy for resting that heavy trunk!

Let's have a look at those silly tourists!

Now for my close up...  notice the weeping musk glands... one of the females is in heat.

Giving us the chase...  those ears are just flapping for bugs... he wasn't upset... but he can run pretty fast!

Hey, I'm huge too!

Mom and "Baby"

Watch out... here I come!

See how they cut off Mom's horn to try to stop the Poacher's from killing her?

Mom

Baby

Half in / Half out... very rare

A Secretary Bird..... notice the backwards knee joints... its easy to see they are descended from Dinosaurs.... if you ignore the crazy hairdo!

The Drakensburgs

Well... that rain that we hadn't seen full days of since we came to Africa, finally showed up!  I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised as the Drakensburgs are mountains next to an Ocean (the Indian) and would be natural spots to create clouds that would drop excess moisture but it also went as far North as Kruger National Park which experienced the worst flooding in over a decade and actually shut down the south end of the park (which was where we were planning to go for our last few days in South Africa <sniff>).  This caused us to reevaluate our plans and we decided to spend more time at Wits End (this was becoming even more apropos!) and perhaps do an overnight safari at a private game reserve later in the week.  

We ended up staying for 6 days at Wits End and didn't let the rain slow us down too much as we were able to get out and do some fantastic hikes in the Drakensburgs on most days.  We (or more correctly, Jen) did take one day to get the kids refocused on school work when it was raining and cloudy all day.  This worked out well.  We hiked to a few different waterfalls well up in the mountains and did a lookout hike on another day as the pictures will show.  Wits End also had a great swimming pool (or 3 of them interlocking with waterfalls from one to the next) and a Braai which we used a few more times before finally giving up with the whole wait 3 hours for your dinner to cook on it gig.  I'll never swear at our gas barbecue again!

We also got to see much of the Drakensburgs and the local artisans and Jen bought some unique leather rugs for our hallway back home that we've shipped to Gina along with our sleeping bags now that we don't need those anymore.  Now for the pictures...

The Drakensbergs... and Shawn/Rachel leaving me for dust!

The Champagne Valley where we stayed

||||||Rachel (nee Steve Jr).

A waterfall after 2 hours of hard hiking

That water was FREEZING!!!  Rachel got into her suit before testing it... she didn't swim in it!

Another waterfall

Here's our guide...  we were looking for the right way to go as we entered the forest and it was raining buckets and this guy shows up, elbows us out of his way and heads up the path.  So we follow him and he takes us up the path at a nice slow pace to the man gate and then turns around and heads off.  The kids were really impressed.

Great name for our home in the Drakensbergs