Finally… the long anticipated update of my journey through Africa! My apologies for it taking so terribly long but my site has been difficult unless I have a proper internet connection. So, here I am… with a proper internet connection! Today is January 5th which means it’s been exactly ONE MONTH since I left Canada. That is hard for me to believe for two reasons. One - that it’s been that long, and two - that I haven’t had an ounce of home sickness. I think I could stay here forever (sorry mom and dad)! Since I’ve got so much to catch everyone up on, I’m going to write a long (but hopefully entertaining) story about what I’ve been doing and then I will attempt to post lots of amazingly incredible pictures… Ok here goes… I flew into Cape Town on Saturday evening – December the 9th. I had planned to drive from Johannesburg but the flight was only 65 CAD and I was still quite freaked out about driving on the wrong side of the road. The drive from the airport was spectacular as it was down a twisting road overlooking the city and coastline completely lit up. I got to my backpackers place at 11pm and it was pure insanity. I’ve never seen so many people in one area. The street was packed with young people out ‘having fun’ and so I decided that I had to join. I ended up going out dancing until 4am (nothing ever closes here) and met a lot of people. None of which were from Cape Town. Talk about tourism. The next day (or I guess the same day) I got up bright and early at about 8am and went to see the infamous Table Mountain with Ed from England. We got there only to find out that the cable cars weren’t running to the top because of the wind which is a normal occurrence. That wasn’t going to stop us though. We hiked as high as physically possible over about 4 hours and the views were incredible. I couldn’t walk without pain for the next three days but it was still worth it. I joked around before I left about how I was going to hike the mountain not thinking it was possible or allowed…. But now I’ve done it! The next couple of days were spent on the beach, checking out the markets and relaxing. Along with, of course, some more adventures out in the night! The ocean along the western coast Cape Town area is far too cold for me to swim in. It gets water straight from the Antarctica (I hope I have that right) and my ankles would numb immediately when I set foot in it! Anyhow, I spent this time with a girl named Ava who was in the bunk next to me in my dorm room. She was from California, LA to be exact, and a great partner in crime (thanks AVA)!! Finally the long anticipated arrival of STEFAN! Although the backpackers messed up and didn’t pick him up from the airport, we managed to connect after about 3 hours of both of us roaming the city looking for each other. Stefan admitted to finally understanding why everyone worried about him while he was traveling as he was sure that I had been kidnapped and that scary people were going to find him wanting ransom! Anyhow, we spent a few days in Cape Town which mostly consisted of more beach days, delicious seafood dinners, market browsing… and other good stuff! I had discovered how fun it was to ride on the local mini bus around the city so that is how we got around. Basically it’s a giant van and they pack it with so many people you can’t breathe and play music so loud your ears are going to explode but it is great fun!! And… an awesome way to get away from all the tourism and meet some of the locals. Oh right…. We did take a train one day down the Cape point to Simon’s Town where we taxi’d to Boulder’s Bay. This is the home of the African Penguin. Pretty incredible. See pictures for further excitement. Right, and the day that Stefan bought his first street fruit and bit into an otherwise yummy looking apricot only to find out that he’d swallowed a bunch of worms. GROSS! After looking into travel costs to head east along the coastline, we found that it was far less expensive to split on a car rental. The Baz Bus was something that sounded great but turned out to be a lot of money and more geared for people traveling alone. Anyhow, this is how we met Chico. A nice little blue Volkswagen who we’ve since been talking to as though he is just another passenger along the way… and apologizing to him every time we hit a huge pothole. We headed out the following Saturday the 16th from Cape Town and decided to take the scenic route through the mountains for part of the way. This was because the ‘Garden Route’, otherwise known as the coastline highway, was swarmed with people because of it being the Holliday season. So… we drove and drove and sweated A LOT because Chico doesn’t exactly have air conditioning. We stopped at a place called Robertson and did some wine tasting and pretended to be sophisticated when really we didn’t know much about it at all. It was fun though and we got to try a lot of famous South African wine that hasn’t yet made it into Canada. YUM! We wish we had of bought some now. Before the end of the day we also stopped to go for a short hike before losing complete sanity in the car and killing each other! We had stopped to hike up to one of two apparent hot springs but neither were what they were said to be. They’d been taken over by the tourism industry and built into swimming pools with lots of children most likely peeing up a storm in them. But… the hike was well worth it. We hiked right by some of the best rock climbing in South Africa as well… which Stefan was more excited about that I was, but it was still interesting. We finally decided to stop for some sleep in Ladismith at a B&B. It was impossible to find accommodation but FINALLY after frustrating searching we managed. No complaints though, we are playing everything by ear so we set off expecting to have to spend at least one night in the car and that hasn’t happened yet! On the 17th we set off towards the coastline to connect with the Garden Route at George. We stopped at a place called Wilderness which is definitely somewhere I’d go back to and spend some more time. We had some lunch and a beer or two at a little pub before renting a canoe for the afternoon. We paddled up a river as far as it would go and then parked on shore and hiked quite a ways up a mountain ridge to a waterfall. We spent a couple of hours swimming and tanning and basically had the entire place to ourselves other than a couple of people that came and went. That night we landed at Buffalo Bay or “Buffelsbaai”. This place was a bit off the beaten track but we listened to our Lonely Planet guide and checked it out - A very small town but a beautiful beach and a restaurant with a huge deck overlooking the ocean. We slept for the night and then stayed for most of the day walking up and down the beach and spending some time playing in the waves (which finally were getting a little warmer). On the 18th we didn’t drive too far. We stopped after a couple of hours at a place called Plettenburg and settled into a new dorm! This was a really nice backpacker place and we finally had a real African “Braai” which is basically just a more camp-style barbeque. We were excited to cook for ourselves since we hadn’t yet so we headed to the grocery store and got a cooler bag stocked with goodies for the rest of our journey and some Ostrich burgers to test out that night. They were quite tasty until the next morning when I woke up at 6am literally barfing ostrich (sorry for the visual). I’ve never felt quite that sick -although I seem to say that every time I get sick. Stefan felt a little sorry for me but was still somewhat amused by my illness and disagreed that it was the ostrich until a few hours later when he joined me praying to the porcelain Gods (otherwise known as getting sick in the toilet). We tried to suck it up and drive on but within a short distance of 20 km we’d stopped to sleep on the grass in agony. We pulled into Tsitsikamma which was the plan anyways… in the hopes of conquering the world’s highest bridge bungee jump. We took a few looks at it… practically crawling everywhere we walked in the area until deciding that we’d have to book into the backpackers there and sleep off the dreadful ostrich illness so that we could do the jump the next day. We woke up feeling completely regenerated and did the jump at 9am. I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in my life. Not at the jumping part but at the part where I opened my eyes and realized I was free falling 250 something feet straight down towards trees, boulders and river. All I was thinking was please let this bungee cord work!! Finally the rope caught and I was able to enjoy it a little. I don’t think I will do it again… it’s on my list of “been there, done that’s”. My first, and most likely last, bungee jump. THIS WAS JUST THE START OF A GREAT DAY. THE BEST DAY SO FAR! We then stopped at Jeffery’s Bay… home of (at one time) the world’s largest surf. We had to go and see it just because of all the talk and say that we’d been there. But…. It really wasn’t that wonderful and we only stayed about an hour. We then headed more north towards Addo Elephant National Park. We were bummed to learn that we’d previously driven right by a Cheetah farm where you could play with the cubs so we were determined to find another. We lucked out huge! We finally arrived at this little Cheetah place that was a million miles down yet another dirt road. Not before, of course, stopping to admire the monkeys hanging out on the fences watching us and the mini alligators running across the road in front of us. So… here we were at the Cheetah farm - The only people there. We thought for sure this will not be so great. But…. We were up for the adventure. Turned out that we got to pet two, 4 year old, celebrity Cheetah’s. Yes that’s right, celebrity Cheetah’s! They were two of the 13 that played the part of Duma in the movie Duma that we had previously watched together. So… we left feeling more cool than when we had arrived and drove further towards the park. Finally we made it to the town of Addo and stopped randomly at a place called the “croc and lion ranch”. It said it had accommodation so we went in just thinking that was the name. We ended up having a tour of the lions and crocs in a small family owned place and played with three, three month old lion cubs. They were about 20kg each so not so light and they roared and growled but just wanted to play. This was a huge highlight and we wish so much that we had of stayed an extra night just to play with them some more! They had all sorts of animals there like this baby rock rabbit (see pictures) who was best friends with the 8 week old kitten. They also had a neat little bar where local people went… we finally felt a bit more like we were really in Africa!!! The next morning we woke up early and drove for about 2 hours through the park and saw lots and lots of animals. We were lucky enough to see a lion in the wild along with a ridiculous amount of wart hogs and elephants… some zebras and many; many others (again, see pictures). After that we drove back down to the coast through Port Elizabeth, then Grahamstown (where we stopped to use the internet because it had been non-existent for a few days), and a detour through a little village called Hamburg, before stopping in East London to figure out where we would stay for the night. East London was a fairly big city so we decided to call ahead to a backpackers in Chinsta to see if they had room. Lucky for us they did so we headed a bit further. Chinsta has a backpackers called Buccaneers which ALL of the backpackers talk about. It is perched up on a mountain side overlooking the WARM Indian Ocean. We stayed at this place for three nights and tried some surfing, a lot of sunbathing where I burnt my perfectly sunscreened skin into a peeling frenzy, beach picnics… and then worrying that we had no place to go after because they were booked over Christmas. We spent the last day on the phone for a couple of hours and finally had the 27th through January 1st booked but were still homeless for three nights over Christmas. We tried our luck driving around Chinsta and ended up with a great place! A nice older couple rented out a 2 bedroom house to us in a gated posh community for not much more than a backpackers would cost for three nights. We went out to get more groceries to make a Christmas dinner. The first night we had a Braai with Chicken and corn on the cob… followed by Christmas day with a pork roast which Stefan stuffed with some delicious concoxion of heaven along with lemon herb potatoes, squash, salads etc. We were quite impressed with how delicious it was even though during the cooking process we realized we were going to run out of wine… So we went for a drive with a glimpse of hope that somewhere would be open for a couple of glasses. I spotted a little farm house with an open sign so we pulled in an indulged in some red wine, scotch, and of course the smell of the beautiful African air. Although the food was well cooked when we returned it was incredible. This was a good Christmas. Finally after 6 nights in Chinsta we felt completely rested and headed for Coffee Bay where we would spend 4 more nights. Finally we were slowing down a little an enjoying our days rather than driving so much. We stayed at both the Coffee Shack and the Bomvu Backpackers, each for 2 nights. Basically Coffee Bay is a small Xhosa community. We went on a day tour to Mpanzi which was a village down the coast. We walked along cliffs and saw some amazing caves and even did some cliff jumping. For me, ‘some’ equaled one and it was painful for everyone else because I took so long to jump. Ironically it was about 10 feet and I’d just bungeed over 250 a few days before without hesitation. We then had a picnic lunch near the caves consisting of ‘toasties’ which are really just flame grilled sandwiches with cheese, tomato and onion. I hate one in guilt and then split a second into five pieces for the group of young boys who’d gathered around starring up at me with hungry eyes. Later I snuck the stray dog everyone’s crusts as well. It’s like the orphaned children and stray dogs sense my weakness and know I’ll give them whatever I have if they just give me the right sad look. We also had a traditional Xhosa dinner in Coffee Bay and we are absolutely addicted to –Xhosa bread. It’s got a sweet taste to it which is strangely delicious. After dinner we broke into a bottle of red wine and went to sit around a camp fire and watch some traditional dancing. Next was the real impressive part – African drumming. Talk about talent. These six guys had everyone’s full attention for a good two hours. Finally it was December 31st. The last day of 2006. We had to leave Coffee Bay and drove a few hours to Port St. John’s. The drive was stunning. This place was full of thick forests and everything was so green. Once arriving at Amampondo’s backpackers we met an African guy named Phillipe and his girlfriend (who he referred to as his queen). We took them to our New Years dinner reservation and spoiled them with escargot and spinch/feta crepe appetizers followed by an enourmous seafood platter and steaks. Very tasty. Back at Amampondo’s it was some strange Bushman’s theme for New Years so we ended up being painted with crazy stuff all over! We celebrated New Years with champagne while Stefan and Phillipe shot firecrackers at the crown (including us girls) with evil little boy being bad looks on their faces. We set off on January 1st for the Drakensburg Mountain area. Port St. Johns was our last stop on the coast line so we packed up our bathing suits reluctantly (or ‘costumes’ as they are called here). We stopped at a place called Underberg for the night anticipating crossing the border into Lesotho the next day. We drove in hopes of taking the “Sani Pass” into this mountainous country but were disappointed to realize we couldn’t drive up it without four wheel drive. So… we parked our car at a hotel and took yet another mini bus up to the top into Lesotho. Poor Chico would be left alone for a couple of days. We spent our first night in Lesotho at the Sani Top Chalet also known as the HIGHEST PUB IN AFRICA, about 2000 feet plus. Two young guys that had just finished traveling Canada were running the place and gave us great deals on everything. That reminds me how far over my budget I am… oops! The morning was spent doing a two hour horse ride guided by a local Lesotho Shepard. We had to wait a while for them to go and fetch the horses because animals here just roam freely. We went to a lokout where all you could see were amazingly beautiful rolling hills that led back into South Africa. This view alone was worth the entire trip. We hopped on a minibus after that and rode a couple of hours to a village called Molumong. A woman on the mini bus was excited that we were from Canada and insisted that we now be ‘pen friends’ so we’ll see if I receive any mail from Lesotho. We stayed at a guest house in this village and once again I was ill. I think it was a combination of the altitude and the heat and I wasn’t moving anywhere too quickly. I had a long sleep and woke up early for a 2 hours hike around the village with Stefan. We walked along the high grassy ridges surrounding the village in once again blistering heat. Everywhere we went we had an audience. One child would spot us and yell to the others and then they would all run over to us to watch in amusement. They often put their hands out asking for sweets but we’ve refrained from this since I’m well aware of how bad this is for their teeth especially when they have very poor (or complete lack of) dental hygiene. A few hours later we found ourselves sitting beside the dirt road hoping a mini bus would drive by and wishing Chico hadn’t let us down. We got lucky and some police men picked us up. A few minutes later they also picked up about 10 women and we were once again all sitting on each others knees trying to make room! We got let off at the intersection that would take us back towards Sani Pass to our car. Instead of waiting for a mini bus we hopped in the back of a pick up truck in which some locals were delivering groceries to villagers and heading down the pass into South Africa. We definitely had the best view in the back of this truck even though we sat there for a long three hours. Friendly faces greeted us everywhere along our journey and we often took pictures of people and then showed them what it looked like on the screen. All the villagers were very amused by this sort of technology and couldn’t believe their faces could go to Canada! Finally we were back with Chico and drove a long 6 hours to Johannesburg. We arrived back at the place I stayed at when I first arrived here at about 11pm. We will stay tonight once again before setting off early tomorrow morning for Victoria Falls. We will take the route through Botswana and then Zambia before returning to spend a few day seeing Jo’burg again. FINALLY! I am caught up. I’m sure I’ve missed lots of detail but I must save something for a story to be told when I return. I’m going to try to post some pictures now so I hope you enjoy!