Western Cape, South Africa

Well, I'm in the final leg of this journey. I've been in South Africa about a week or so now, mostly in Cape Town, but I've just spent a few nights up in the Stellenbosch and Franschhoek Winelands areas. The first thing I have to say is that this doesn't really seem like the same continent that I've been on for the last few months. It's way more first world - for the most part. There are little things that pop out every now and then that remind you its Africa - like far too many people simply walking down the road miles from anywhere. It is an amazingly beautiful place though.

I'm flying back to SF a week from today and I have to say I'm pretty excited about it. I def feel like I've seen and done a ton of things and I have a much better idea of what this place is all about. I think I made good use of my first few months of unemployment and I'm ready to get back and enjoy some fun in SF with Tully. She was originally going to join me for some version of this final leg of the trip, but she wasn't able to get enough time away from the office to make the ~30 hour flights worth it. I'm heading back a few weeks earlier than planned (but having accomplished everything I wanted to accomplish) and we're gonna hit something a little closer to SF soon (almost anything is closer to SF!). So there may be a few non-Africa posts on here soon...

I may or may not get around to posting again before I head back. If we keep getting a good mix of crappy weather like we have been, maybe I'll get on again, but hopefully I find some things to occupy my time and stay away from the Internet cafes. Its is low season here and there are not many people around...pretty sleepy in general - even in Cape Town.

We were foiled trying to hike up Table Mountain during our 5 days in Cape Town. The 3 pictures here are from the best weather day we had, which still had Table Mountain cloaked in the "tablecloth" of clouds. We hiked nearby Lion's Head instead and got these shots (top to bottom: Camps Bay section of Cape Town with the 12 Apostles behind, the upper part of the City Bowl and some Table Mountain - with and without me).

The final shot is of the little rental car that Purvis and I are cruising around in for the next week with the Franschhoek Valley in the background. Yesterday (when this pic was taken) was nice here, but its shitty again today and we're taking off for some mountain driving and then the coast and hopefully some great white shark cage diving on the way back to Cape Town. It took me a bit to get used to the left-hand driving (including a few high pitched screams from the passenger), but now I'm settled and I'll prob need to do some adjusting when I get back home. Quite a bit more traffic here than on thesouth island of New Zealand, whcih was my only other left-hand drive experience before this.

Victoria Falls

Here are some of the other pics I mentioned from Victoria Falls.

There are 2 aerial shots from the helicopter showing the falls - one that shows the falls and the zig zag canyon downstream that we rafted in (including the bridge that the bungee goes off of). The second shows more of the full width of the falls so you can see how low the flow is right now (the wall shown is 100% falls in the high water season).

I also included 2 shots from our trip to Devil's Pool at the top of the falls. You can see how close we are to the edge we are here and, I have to say, it was pretty scary. We swam out to the rocks where our guide, Prince showed us the pool and we were like "we're jumping into THAT?!?" Once we got it it wasn't so bad, but i never felt comfortabel enough to come fully out of the pool and sit up on the rock like Prince is. You could definitely feel the current pushing!

Zambia Swimming

I'm in Cape Town chilling on a rainy morning so I thought I'd throw up so words to go with the pics I put up yesterday. Someone was waiting for the computer at my hotel so I threw up the pics only yesterday.

We were only in Zambia for a few days, but we (and especially me) crammed in alot of activity. I did the bungee jump, gorge swing, zipline combo over the gorge below the Victoria Falls the day we got there. The next day we went whitewater rafting in the morning and then did a short helicopter ride over the falls to get a very enlightening aerial view. I'll add some of those pics later if I get a chance.

The whitewater rafting was fairly insane, but a TON of fun. We did a half day which is about half the rapids you can do, but they are supposedly the craziest ones. We did 9 of the 10 "official" rapids - they didn't count the class II/III rapids in the 10 count and one of the 10 was a class VI called "Commercial Suicide" that we walked around.

Victoria falls is on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe (the Zambezi River marks the border). It is 1.7km wide and about 105m high (the bungee from the bridge was 111m). Once the river reaches the bottom of the falls, it runs thru a narrow, zig-zagging canyon, which is where we rafted.

The first rapid is a gnarley class V called The Boiling Pot that you have to approach sideways because of where the entry point is. They used to enter upstream a bit to hit it head on, but years ago a giant boulder fell up there and killed some porters so they had to move the start for safety reasons. We didn't make it thru on our first attempt, but made it out to try again and got absolutely pummeled on the second try. That's the photo you see where only John and the guide, Potatoe guide are visible because the rest of us are underwater. The other shot with the rocks in the background (at the bottom of the post) is right before we enter the full rapid.

I just watched the video they filmed of us and it looks like we were each underwater for anywhere from 10-14 seconds! I was not as scared as I probably should have been. I'm not sure if I was held down or had been sucked down deep (the river is about 50m deep there) - probably some of both, but I did start realizing how long I was under and then finally came up right before I couldn't hold my breath anymore. Quite an intro to the river and the day at 9am.

The 3 pics where we are heading right to left (including the one where more than half the boat is underwater, but upright) are from one of the class Vs that we actually stuck- believe it or not.

The other 2 shots where we are going left to right are from our second class V wipe out of the day, which came fairly early. We were starting to feel like we didn't really need the boat at that point. It was a quite crash, but none of us where held under for nearly as long as the first rapid.

The other boat with us ended up flipping on 2 rapids as well, but they were completely different ones then we flipped on. The guides mentioned that the day had "alot of action."

Some of the people we rafted with recommended sitting in The Devil's Pool which is a little pool at the top of the falls literally right on the edge - something you can only do in low water months like now (low water months also make for crazier rafting). Rob, Tim and I got up early to do that the next day before our flight to Cape Town. I'll put up a pic later.

I wish it would stop raining here already.

Whitewater Rafting the Zambezi River

Some kick-ass crazy Class V fun in Zambia/Zimbabwe!

Chobe National Park, Botswana

From Okavango, we took another 4-passenger flight to Kasane airport in the far northeast corner of Botswana. Kasane is very close to the Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe borders. We stayed in a lodge very close to Zimbabwe and did day trips into the Chobe River section of Chobe National Park.

This place kicks ass. Probably my favorite wildlife experience in Africa. There were more cats in the Serengeti (although we saw THREE leopards and followed a lioness and her 3 non-hunting cubs on a hunt of cape buffalo during out 3 days here), but the scenery here is amazing and much more varied and interesting than anything we saw in Tanzania. The Chobe River is home to many crocodiles and tons of hippos and many other waterloving creatures (monitor lizards and a ridiculous number of birds). The river creates the unique scene and we saw many different things while cruising around - African wild dogs (whcih are quite rare), hyena, and the list goes on.

The big thing is the elephants are everywhere here. The park has something like 70,000 elephants and the greater area has suppossedly 120,000. In fact, we're staying at the Elephant Valley Lodge, which has a watering hole in front of it that attracts all kinds of wildlife, but mostly elephants. My tent (nicest "tent" I've ever seen) doesn't look over the watering hole (some do), but all the common areas do and today I took the afternoon off from game drives and river cruises to just chill and enjoy the activity right in front of the lodge (pictures of me and the elephants at the lodge are below - or wherever damn blogger decides to put them).

One kind of weird thing about this place is that the lodge is very close to the Zim border and the land just over the border in Zim is owned by some high ranking gov't official who uses it for HUNTING. Yes, he takes enormous payments from people to come and hunt anything and everything - sounds like mostly buffalo and elephant though. Hunting is being phased out in Botswana (but does exist in some small areas), but Zim is a free for all - especially if you are connected to the gov't. This afternoon we watched a herd of elephants get scared off by a huntng jeep. We heard a gunshot, but saw no evidence of any successful hunting.

More hunting evidence: the elephants in the NP actually do a daily commute across the Chobe River into Namibia to graze and then they run back across the river every evening becuase they remember the days when large scale hunting in Namibia was commonplace. It still hapens I guess, but not as much - but they remember! Chobe has been a NP near the river since the 60s so its been protected here for awhile (and apparently Botswana gov't makes enough from its diamond mining that it doesn't feel the need to take payoffs from poachers like the Tanzania's gov't more or less openly does).

Chobe rules. Botswana is pricely (not really any midrange accomodation options here and lots of expensive flights), but worth it.

Tomorrow off to Victoria Falls and then Cape Town on Tuesday.

Finally some of my own pics on here.

Okavango Delta, Botswana

From Mozambique we took a series of flights ending in a small (4 passenger) flight to an airstrip in the middle of the Okavango Delta in Botswana. The Okavango Delta is the world's largest inland river delta. The Okavango River flows down into Botswana and empties ito the Kalahari Desert creating a huge oasis for wildlife in the middle of a very arid landscape.

We had a relatively luxurious (free wine, beer and booze) tented "camp" out in the middle of the wetlands and we took mekoro (local wooden dugout canoes) everywhere we went, which was basically back and forth to the main island in the delta to look for wildlife.

The first thing that hits you when you get there are the sounds. The place is teaming with so many birds, frogs, hippos, etc. that the air is costantly filled with a chorus of songs - especially at night and in the early morning. We saw plenty of hippos in Tanzania, but never once heard one. We heard them almost constantly in Okavango. They would start their part pig snorting part dog barking in the early evening and start venturing out to graze on the long grass that was everywhere in teh shallow water. I feel very sorry for the hippos in Tanzania after seeing this place - this is definitely hippo heaven. Unfortunately we didn't really get to SEE many hippos becuase of the tall grasses and their refusal to come out into open pools when we were watching.

We also did some walking safaris here, which are very cool and very different than driving in a Land Rover like you usually do. The big game is less common here (which I guess is why they can do the walking safaris safely), but we did come across giraffe, elephant, zebra, and many different species of antelope on there terms, which felt pretty cool. We spent most of one day tracking some lions (following prints, looking for vultures that might be heading towards a kill, etc.) but never found one. Finding them would have been amazing, but fun nonetheless.

A very cool introduction to Botswana!

These are Rob's pics again as all mine from here are in fancy non-compatable with regular software format.

Maputo, Mozambique

Maputo is thecapital of Moz and we stopped there for a few days at the end of our trip before flying up to Botswana (via Jo'burg).


Shot #1) a view of the Maputo skyline from out hotel in the upper part of town, Hotel Cardoso. Maputo still shows plenty of signs of the long civil war years (burnt out buildings, torn up roads and sidewalks), but they look like they are getting things together somewhat. There is a massive cleaning effort going on and many of the hotels and other facilities are newly refurbished. It was nice to be back into some sort of civilization after spening so much time in the middle of nowhere. We were able to catch some live music in the Africa Bar Saturday night and we watched Moz beat Kenya in a World Cup qualifer soccer game in a local bar on Sunday. Pretty cool stuff.

2&3) The Maputo Municiple Market from the outside and me, Wortman and Eberly inside. This place is one of those markets that has everything thta the locals need to live - literally eveything is under this one roof.

4&5) Frelimo is the ruling political party in Mozambique and they are gearing up for the October 28 election by posting signs all over town. Frelimo was the group that lead Mozambique to independance over the Portuguese in the 60s and 70s and then they were the group fighting Renamo (now the other polical party in Moz) for ~16 years in the country's devastating "civil war." Kind fo crazy that they went from civil war opponents to peaceful political opponents. And from the sounds of it, Frelimo still relies heavily on the "hey we won independance for you guys" platform when it comes to elections.

Some more Moz transportation pics:
6)Its hard to tell from this picture, but this chapa (going from Tofo to Inhambane) is crazy full inside and then these guys are riding the outside of the chapa with the sliding door open. Thankfully we were NOT on this chapa or one like it.

7) Me going thru airport "security" in Inhambane airport with my passport (and a beer - Laurentina, a nice Moz brew)

8) While waiting for our flight from Inhambane to Maputo, which was delayed by 4+ hours, we noticed the Inhambane airport workers firing up a tractor and then loading it with lanterns. They were to light the runway for our plane to land and then take off! Nothing like flying by candlelight.

Thanks to Wortman and Purvis for their pics on this post. I've been taking shots with my DSLR that are incompatiable with these computers so my shots will have to wait until I'm back in SF to be shared.

Transportation in Mozambique

I have some time so I'm going back and throwing up a few more pics from Mozambique. These are some pictures from various transportation scenarios we ran into there. As I mentioned before, Moz was amazing, but the transportation really leaves much to be desired. Thankfully flyng wasn;t so bad. A 4x4 would have been SWEET.

From top to bottom:

1) Eberly and Me waiting for the flat tire to be fixed o nour 14 hour chapa ride from Beira to Vilankulo. It was only bearale becaus e knoew I didn't ever have to step foot on one of those things again. At least we had Pringles. P&G has some good distribution on those things.

2) The ridiculously cracked windshield of said chapa. Its a wonder he coudl see teh road. He drove about 25 mph after the flat tire anyway so i guess it barely mattered.

More Moz pics

A couple other shots from the Quirimbas

1) a pic from our small plane flight to Ibo of one of the other very small islands of the Quirimbas Archipeligo (near Pemba)

2) Rob and I enjoying a post dive beer on the deck of our dhow dive boat in Ibo with one of the DMs (a South African named Stet) in the background.

Moz Pics

Our itineraty in Mozambique has been from north to south:

Pemba
Quirimbas Archipeligo (Ibo Island)
Beira
Vilanculo/Bazaruto Archipeligo
Tofo Beach, Inhambane

These pics from top to bottom:

1) Leopard shark that my Dive Instructor (his pic) and I saw this morning at the "Amazon" dive site about 15km off of Barra Point near Tofo

2&3) 2 shots from my second dive at "Giant's Castle" in Tofo (a drift dive at about 30 meters near a manta "cleaning station") where we saw MANY huge manta rays (about 5m from wingtip to wingtip) on both dives

4) One of my first underwater photographs! Using my instructors camera for the photography section fomy Advanced PADI course. I think this is a Stoen Fish, but whatever it is, it looks cool.

5) a humpback whale calf jumping just a few yards off of my dive boat earlier this week in Tofo. My Instructor, Ed took this shoot and I didn't have my camera, but this calf and its mother hung by our boat forever. An amazing site, but I've gotten used to whales here - they are everywhere.

6) me standing on to of a crazy ~600 foot high dune at the southern tip of Bazaruto Island in between dives on Two Mile Reef.

Mozambique rules

Sorry for the lack of posting recently. Internet has been pretty tough since we landed in Mozambique on August 19th. The one time I had a good connection, we had shitloads of power outages that prevented me from doing more than just taking care of business. but I'm here in Tofo Beach, Inhambane, Mozambique and I just finished my PADI Advanced Scuba Diving Course.

Mozambique has been unbelievable. The vibe here is much more laid back than in Tanzania. The things we did in TZ were fun (Kili, safari, diving in Zanzibar), but the country itself and its cities we visited really lacked something and the people we ran into had a sharpness too them that I have to say was a little unpleasant - especially compared to what we've been experiencing here over the last 2 weeks. Most of the places we've been in Moz are not that heavily touristed yet - I hope the laid back vibe of the people doesn't get corrupted too much when tourism floods in a bit more, which it undoubtedly will at some point.

We ended up taking a much easier route of travel than I had originally planned to get here. I think the realites of days and days on cramped buses really hit me once I got to Moshi and I was more than happy to sign up for flights vs. buses - especially in Moz where there aren't really any "tourist" buses yet - you are riding with the locals and all that goes with that.

We ended up skippign Malawi entirely and going from Dar right to Pemba, Mozamabique, which made for an easier entry visa experience - we heard some crazy stories of the Tanzania/Moz border and the "ferry" (3 small wooden dhow boats tied together with planks for one car at a tiem on top "piloted" by drunk people) they use to get cars across the river - nuts! Iwouldn't pu my car on that thing, but I wouldl love ot have my truck right now.

I did want to experience the local "chapas" (buses) at least once and we were forced to when we left Beira (the second largest city oin Moz) for Vilankulo and the Bazaruto Archipeligo. Chapas all leave form a central spot at around 4am. We went the evening before to line things up with the driver and found what was the shittiest looking bus in the area with the "Vilankulo" sign on it. I won't get into too much detail, but what was suppossed to be a 9 hour ride, turned into 14 hours on seats with almost no padding and crammed into with too many people and everything they all owned. Add in a flat tire at one of teh amusing stops along the way and it spelled for a painful ride, but a worthwhiel experience. We had no realistic flight option for that leg and the fact that we even got on the bus and got the seats we asked for the day before made it seem not THAT bad (but it was). We found out later that a new "luxury" tourist-focused line runs the same route in less than have the tiem ti took us, but the word isn't rerally otu on that yet. Oh well.

Now I'll post some pics from Moz.