Wild Places and Open Spaces

Day 19

See pics here.

Off again on our second safari – leaving just as it started to get light outside (about 5:30am), with high hopes.

There are a few lodges in the area we are in, and all of them keep in touch with one another via radio. If someone sights an animal, they will let each other know, and that way more people get to experience the wildlife. All the drivers and trackers are very respectful of the animals – never are there allowed more than 2 vehicles near an animal/animals. The drivers and trackers are very knowledgeable about the animals in the area, regarding biology and behaviour, but they also know the animals in their area intimately; knowing for instance when the young were born, how old a certain individual is, where they like to hang out, and they even anticipate where they will walk to once spotted. Another important note to mention is that the animals are habituated to the vehicles, and do not seem bothered in the least by them. The animals go on about their daily routines and even make kills in front of vehicles – they simply go about their business without giving us a second thought. Having said this, we stay quiet and seated in the vehicle, and do not make sudden movements.

The ground we cover on safari drives varies – there are dirt tracks we follow for the most part, but these guys will drive through anything…and we have! The land cruisers must have amazing shocks, suspension and powerful tires, because we’ve driven through stuff that we never thought possible. Through thick bush, through water, over rocks….keeps life exciting that is for sure.

Okay, so back to the animals. Our ‘sister’ land cruiser spotted a leopard….and so we were off to find it. And find it we did! She was beautiful…sauntering along the man made path without her cub. The guides said she was looking for food. We thought we may see her take an impala (they are known as ‘McDonald’s’ here – because of the sheer numbers of them ie. fast food for cats) but no luck.

Next, a pride of lions and cubs. There were 3 lionesses and 7 cubs. We watched them laze about and the cubs play with each other. One lioness nursed a bunch of them, and we learned that lionesses will nurse each other’s cubs – they help one another out. Then, in comes walking a Black Rhinoceros – one of the cubs backed away because this beast was new to it, but the rest of the lions were comfortable and did not stir from their positions. It wasn’t until the rhino wandered off again that the little cub felt at ease to come back to the group.

We would later find the rhino again, and get a close up view of it – an immense beast – and came across the leopard again but only for a glimpse and then she vanished into the bush.  Next, a Blue Wildebeest…what an interesting looking fellow!

Well, that was a very successful safari drive…..we have now seen ‘the big 5’ that everyone strives to see when they come here: buffalo, lion, leopard, elephant, rhino. How lucky are we, and we are only on day 2 here!!
Evening Safari Drive

Well, we weren’t sure how Patrick, (our guide/driver) and Tyrone, (our tracker) could outdo the morning drive, but they did. We heard over the  radio that  a male leopard had been spotted. This in itself is amazing, however, that wasn’t the best part…..the leopard was up a tree eating it’s dinner! Patrick got us to him quickly, and right up close and personal. I know we mentioned this before, but it is worth mentioning again – the animals do not seem at all bothered by our presence. The leopard did not even look up at us when we arrived in the land cruiser. It was dusk, but with the help of a light we were able to get an excellent view of the main course that leopard was eating. He had caught a young impala, and all that was left of it at this point was part of the body and a couple of legs dangling from the tree. Not only was it visually stunning to see such a sight (this is major Discovery channel/David Attenborough material), it was also stimulating to our auditory senses…we were within a couple of metres of him and could hear him licking the carcass and crunching its bones. Although sad for the young impala, this is nature at it’s best, and it was absolutely incredible to be witnessing it.

It gets better…..from the bush the leopard heard something and looked up. Hyenas had shown up, hoping to devour any scraps that the leopard dropped. (Remember we said that the leopard did not stir when we showed up? It was so interesting to see that his senses were so acute to other noises in the bush – obviously he and other animals have learned to discern between us and the animals around them). The hyenas were in luck – they found a few scraps. The leopard spares nothing when it eats prey, but whatever is dropped is quickly eaten – nothing is wasted in nature.

We left the leopard, such that others could move in and get a look. By this time, it was dark – the sky clear and full of stars. We could see Jupiter and 3 of its moons. Tyrone had his spotlight out, scanning the area. He told Patrick to stop and go back…..he had spotted something. We got to a tree and he points to a chameleon, no bigger than the size of a child’s hand! How he ever spotted this, we’ll never know. Then, about a minute later, he spots an owl up a tree. Amazing! These guys are good!

Getting back to the lodge, the staff had dinner set up for us outside as usual, but in an area with a fire in the middle, everything lit by candles and lanterns, and all the food done on a large barbeque area over fire. They called this a BOMA – and we found out that this stands for British Officer’s Mess Area, referring to the past British military presence/wars in South Africa. The area had a very pretty ambiance, albeit difficult to see what you were eating. However, it was lovely as usual. Off to bed with a full stomach and anticipation of what tomorrow’s safari may bring!

Day 17

The day has come – today we drove to ‘The Kruger’. Kruger National Park is world renowned for the diverse wildlife it is home to. Our drive from Benoni (just outside of Johannesburg) was interesting – our GPS decided to go haywire, so we had to rely on the ‘old school method of reading a map’. The landscape went from relatively flat fields/crop areas (and 3 coal burning plants) to beautiful rolling hills/mountains and valleys. We passed by banana plantations and some housing villages that we did not want to get stranded in.

After driving for 6 hours, we found ‘Paul Kruger gate’ and entered the park at 2pm. We had already booked a night in a permanent tent in ‘Skukuza’, and upon registration, we were pleased to find that the tent was equipped with bedding, a fridge, electricity, and a fan! Now this is luxury! We share a common bathroom and cooking facilities.

Immediately we went for a walk to check things out by the river. Before we got there, a very large warthog wandered into our camp area. Not knowing whether he would be dangerous or not, we kept our distance, and he just walked about, not bothering with anyone. Then out of a tree jumped a vervet – a small, very cute primate. This is incredible!!! Off to the river….believe it or not, we immediately spotted a hippopotamus and a buffalo! Too good to be true!

Hunger was setting in, so we ate at the restaurant here (yes, this is a very well equipped ‘campground’) – a simple chicken stir fry that hit the spot. Then, off to do our own ‘safari’ with our car. There are plenty of roads to do self-drives, but everyone has to be back in the camp by 6pm when the gate closes.  The entire campground is surrounded by electric fencing – if it was not, it would not be safe. We saw a variety of wildlife on our first short drive – numerous birds including a hornbill; mongoose, crocodile, hippopotamus, baboon families, a large herd of impala, and numerous other creatures we have yet to identify!

I just have to say, this is an absolute dream come true. We are in our element, scoping out wildlife that we’ve never seen before. Every corner we turn we see something new. We liken it to our time spent in the Australia bush – everything is new and exciting to us. We are already planning our next trip here!

The sun set by 6:30pm. Just prior to this, a hyena had come out and was pacing the fence by our tent.  At 7pm we watched a movie on elephants and lions in Kruger (they are the ruling rivals), and then went for a brief night walk. Then, it was laundry time – a washer and dryer were located beside the washrooms, and it cost 10 Rand (about $1.00) for a wash and another 10 Rand for a dry.

Tomorrow will be an early day – we want to do a ‘self drive’ safari in the morning. They open the gate at 5:30am, and we plan to be there!

Day 18

Up before dawn today….we were at the park gate eagerly awaiting for it to open at 5:30am. We saw a ton of stuff on our own – vervet monkeys, chacma baboons, helmeted guinea foul, impala, buffalo, and the highlight: a herd of elephants!! There were 15-20 elephants at the river, drinking and socializing. Then, in a span of 2 minutes, they wandered up the bank into the bushes and vanished. Simply incredible that such huge animals can be hidden by the bush in a matter of minutes.

After our successful self safari, we needed to pack up and be out of our tent by 10am. Today is the day we meet up with our friends again!

The next place we are staying is Dulini Lodge, in the Sabi Sand private reserve. It is connected to Kruger National Park, and no fences divide the two.  The drive to Dulini was interesting…the roads continued to get rougher and rougher the closer we got to the lodge, and a we even ‘bottomed out’ with our rental car once. Again, this reminded us of our travels in Australia on many of the rough ‘roads’ we had taken there.

I’m not going to talk about the lodge, except to say that it is incredible. I’ll leave it up to you to look up if you wish.

Our first wildlife sighting was Nyala – elegant, slender antelope. The females and their young were playing on the grounds of the lodge, literally right in front of us while we ate lunch outside. Then, we saw the male – he looks much different from the females and has long horns.  Later, another male showed up, and the two males did this interesting ‘dance’ where they each held their heads low and would walk extremely slowly with deliberate movements – almost like they were trying out for a ballet. We really thought the two of them were going to ‘go at it’, but they must have worked it out because no battle ensued.

Each day for the 4 nights we are here, we have morning (5:30am-9am) and evening (4:30pm-7pm) safari drives. We met at 4pm for ‘tea’ and then we were off – our first ‘real safari’ in a land cruiser, with the driver, tracker, our friends and perhaps most important, a rifle……just in case.

We saw a buffalo straight away. Next, an elephant – up close and personal.  A young (about 10-15yrs), lone male. We were so close that we could hear him munching on his grass. It truly is amazing that many of the large animals (buffalo, giraffe, elephant) are herbivores, and that a diet of mainly grass, leaves and or bark can sustain their enormous body mass.

Later we saw dwarf mongoose – cute, curious creatures that came out of the scrub to check us out. After 2.5hours we headed back – our driver and ranger sounded disappointed with the drive, and told us that they hoped we would see more in the morning.

A late dinner followed, and we headed to bed, as 5am comes early!

Day 9

Sue and Rob drove us to the airport hotel for noon. We were sad to say goodbye. They treated us royally, and we had such an enjoyable time with them. However, it is not goodbye for long – they will be travelling to Florida in September, and we are going to try to swing it that we could meet up with them for a couple of days. Thank you so much to Sue and Rob – our London experience was amazing because of the two of you.

So, just as Sue and Rob pulled up to the hotel to drop us off, Per literally met us at the driveway – we were handed from one set of friends to another. How incredible.

Per and Jim have been best mates since they were kids. As you may recall, it is Per and his wife Jacquie who have made this trip possible for us. Per, Jacquie  and their kids Dylan (15) and Kyle (10) had flown into London earlier this morning.

We decided to go back into central London together, and visit the British Museum. The main exhibit here that we wanted to see was the Rosetta Stone – an ancient Egyptian stone (stele) inscribed with 3 different types of script (ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, Demotic script and Ancient Greek) – which provided the key to the modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphs. Within this museum as well are large permanent Egyptian and Greek exhibits; they even have the Elgin Marbles (large wall-like sculptures) from the Parthenon.

Then onto Piccadilly Circus area – Per has been to London many times (actually born here), and knows it quite well, so it was like we had our own personal tour guide.  Lots of people, lots of shopping, lots of street performers. It was here that we were amused for quite a while watching the antics of a guy whose show centred around him fitting himself through a tennis racket.  We visited the largest toy store we’ve ever been in (I think in total it had 5 floors) where kids can play with the toys to their hearts content. Lots of very expensive, name brand stores too – they have it all here. Unfortunately, we missed the Tin Tin Shop by 5 minutes….sorry Per!

Ate Japanese for dinner, and were educated by Dylan and Kyle of what to order and how to eat it. Jim and I need to get a bit more cultured to keep up with these two!

We walked, and walked, and walked to get night views of the Tower bridge and the London eye again. Poor Per, Dylan and Kyle were pooped – they had not gotten much sleep after their long flight to London, and we didn’t get back to the hotel until 10pm.  We planned for Windsor Castle in the morning.

Day 10

Off to Windsor Castle. This is where the Queen lives; at least on weekends. When she is in residence, the monarch flag flies as it was today. However, we knew that the Queen had unfortunately been admitted to the hospital on Friday due to gastroenteritis. We noticed a few hours later that the flag had been changed to the Union Jack to reflect her absence.

Windsor Castle is beautiful. Some of the features reminded us of Versailles in Paris, only on a smaller scale. We had not actually planned on visiting this castle, however, our friends had suggested it and we are glad they did. Windsor Castle is used for many royal functions, and was the site of Kate and William’s wedding.  After visiting, we had a quick lunch in Windsor, and then got back to the airport to pack our bags…..our flight to South Africa is this evening!

Later…….

Day 10 continued, and Day 11 – March 4-5

See photos here

The flight from London to Johannesburg South Africa was an overnight flight with South African Airlines. Wow, what a nice flight compared to Air Canada. The food was edible, and there was much more leg room and overall was much more comfortable, even though the flight was a few hours longer.

We arrived at the airport just after 8am. Finally, WARM WEATHER!!! We didn’t have much time before our next flight to Cape Town would be leaving. We stood in line to recheck our bags for the domestic flight, when suddenly some men showed up and whisked us and our luggage and away – explaining along the way that we needed to hurry such that we would not miss our flight. At first, Kristin and Per were somewhat concerned that unknown men had sprung up from nowhere, but it all worked out okay. They were porters, and really, were honestly trying to help and hoping for a tip in the meantime. Needless to say, we made our flight, and our luggage made it too.

We picked up our rental van at the airport that we had previously booked. After a fair bit of tedious paperwork and rental of a GPS, we were off. The van was great – lots of room for all of our luggage, and very roomy for the 6 of us. Jim drove, and Per was the navigator. No sooner did Jim start driving that he said ‘hey, look at that bird’, and did a jerk of the wheel. Kristin then proceeded to explain to all in the car, that yes, Jim does bird watch while he is driving, and at times this can become an interesting conflict of interest – safety vs birding.  We reminded Jim that not only is he in a new country, but also one where he is driving on the opposite side of the road, so perhaps his bird watching should take a back seat to safety. He agreed (although it did come up from time to time!)

CAPE TOWN to be continued…….(we’ve gotten busy….trying to keep up!!)

So….the drive to Chapman’s Peak Hotel was good. ‘Chapman’s Peak’ is a mountain on the western side of the Cape Peninsula and is opposite the inlet on which the town of Hout Bay is centred. Great scenery and Jim did very well driving with Per’s navigation. The Hotel is in Hout Bay, a very picturesque place with our room looking out at mountains, the beach and ocean. Our room itself is beautiful -roomy, modern and the nicest hotel room we’ve ever stayed in. We freshened up (much needed after the long flight and now warm weather!!) and met for lunch.

The Chapman’s Peak Hotel is well known for it’s food, and our first meal there was fantastic. They have an outside, covered area where you can eat, and we ate lunch here, overlooking the bay. Our friends and Kristin had sole, Jim had prawns. We were all amazed that here we were, in South Africa, eating lunch together. The trip that had been a dream for a year was now happening!!

After lunch, we went for a short walk on the beach, then to the store. When crossing the street from the hotel to the beach, we got somewhat harassed by people trying to sell us trinkets. They sit there day in and day out, trying to sell their wares to any passerby. It’s kind of funny that months before we had ‘google earthed’ the hotel and went on ‘street view’ and saw these people sitting on the curb waiting for anyone to sell to, so we knew that this would happen. The grocery store was similar to ours – like a small town IGA or something like that. We got a few drinks and munchies for the next few days.

We said goodbye to each other around 4pm or so – we were all pretty tired from our long flights, and we had a busy day ahead!

Day 12 – March 6

We woke up to a beautiful day. Sunny, blue sky. Who could ask for more. Breakfast – lovely. They had a really nice spread of fruit, cheese, muffins, croissants, cereals, yogurt, etc. and hot breakfast if you wanted.

We drove to Cape of Good Hope, and Cape Point, all part of Table Mountain National Park. The drive was beautiful – not far from our hotel we stopped numerous times to take in the beauty of Chapman’s Peak Drive. The road has many twists and curves, which often were a bit scary (it was only Jim’s second day driving on the wrong side!!) with sheer drops to the ocean below and mountains rising above our heads. Very picturesque, and it reminded us of the drive we had done previously along the California coastline.

We hiked up to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. The Cape of Good Hope was once thought to be the most southern point of Africa, where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet. This actually is not the case – the most southern point of Africa is Cape Agulhas, about 150 kilometres to the east-southeast. The currents of the two oceans meet at the point where the warm-water Agulhas current meets the cold water Benguela current —a point that fluctuates between Cape Agulhas and Cape Point (about 1.2 kilometres east of the Cape of Good Hope……don’t you just love wikipedia!!). A stunning walk, due to the beautiful sunny, clear day we had to enjoy the spectacular views. The last time Per and his family were here, they were unable to see anything because of the clouds and fog. We were so glad that we got to share these vistas with them! The weather can change quite quickly and drastically in this area, and at one point it did begin to cloud over and spit rain, but that did not last long. Along our hike we saw lizards, birds, rock hyrax, mice, and warning signs for ‘cobras‘. This was our first day out in the sun, and we all got a little bit red in the face.

After our day hike, we loaded up into the van and drove around the national park with hopes of seeing some birds and other wildlife to try out the binoculars. We were in luck! We came upon some Cape Mountain Zebra – something that none of us had expected. This was incredible. Just us 6 in the van, nothing else around except these majestic animals. It was an amazing sight. Our first large animals of South Africa! We also saw some Bontebok, a type of antelope grazing, then crossing the road. What a great day. Sun, a great hike, beautiful vistas, amazing animals and best of all, friends to share it with.

The park gate closed at 7pm, so we had to ensure we were out of the national park by then. We drove back to the hotel for our first dinner at the hotel. WOW. The food at Chapman’s Peak Hotel is incredible. A late dinner, and late night, we were all pretty exhausted when the day finished.

Day 13 – March 7

At breakfast, Kristin disclosed that she felt a bladder infection coming on, and was paranoid that this would develop into something while in the bush at Kruger. Although at dinner last night she drank a ton of cranberry juice, she was afraid that it had the potential of spoiling part of the precious time in the bush. She planned on going to the doctor tomorrow when it had been decided to ‘shop’ in Cape Town, but she was talked into going to the doctor in Hout Bay – probably a good decision since Hout Bay is much smaller. It sounds like the medical system is two-tiered here, that is that she could have gone to a walk in clinic that was free, but was told that she would be waiting all day to see someone. Instead, she went to an office where she paid $42.00 to see a doctor then $11.30 for a prescription and was done by noon. A sigh of relief to have this dealt with.

Today was to be ‘penguin day’. Per and family, having been to Cape Town before, were our amazing tour guides, and took us to part of the national park at Simon’s Beach where the African Penguins hang out. It was another beautiful day, with blue sky and sun. The penguins build little burrows in the sand, and many of the penguins were on eggs. The penguins are cute little creatures – this species is small, growing only to about 70cm tall. They are white and black, with black spots on their chest which are unique to each penguin, kind of like our fingerprints. Above their eye is a pink patch which apparently is a gland that assists them with thermoregulation. It did look as though they were all quite hot sitting on the beach, most with their mouths open looking like they were trying to cool down through this method as well. It was funny to watch them come in from the surf, making the transition from swimming (where they are quite agile) to waddling (where they look quite awkward). There were many penguins on this beach, and it was interesting to see some of the social interactions occurring, between penguins themselves, but also between penguins and seagulls. We witnessed a seagull steal a penguin egg from a nest and proceed to eat it – very sad, but, that is nature.

Then, off to Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden. This botanical garden is often claimed to be one of the great gardens of the world – it is set against the eastern slopes of Table Mountain, and covers just over 1300 acres of land. Everyone needed to eat, so instead of going straight into the gardens, we went to the Moyo restaurant they have at the gardens. What a great choice – it was a very interesting place with great food. Instead of just eating, we had an experience! The restaurant itself is beautiful – we sat beside a large, open stone fireplace. The staff were all dressed in traditional African dress – the restaurant tries to embody everything Africa, from the staff, to the decor to the traditional food. When looking at the menu, our friends helped us decipher some of the dishes – they are much more travelled then what we are. We decided on tagines, which are meals that are north African and are cooked in special earthenware pots that have a flat circular base, and a top that is a cone shaped dome which sits on top while the meal cooks. Before our meals were brought out, the staff did a traditional hand washing ceremony where they poured warm water over our hands to cleanse them prior to eating. Unfortunately, Kristin had gone to the washroom and missed the ceremony, but Per had kindly videotaped it so she could see what happened. The meal was terrific – what a nice birthday meal for Jim!

Unfortunately we were visiting South Africa in their fall, so the gardens certainly were not in full flower like they would be in the spring/summer. Nonetheless, the gardens were stunning. The landscaping that they do is beautiful, and they label everything, most of which is native African flora, some being very endangered. It is also known to be a haven for birds in the spring and summer. Just another reason to return to South Africa! We hiked up the hills toward the eastern slope of Table Mountain, but certainly didn’t have enough time to see the entire gardens. Well worth the visit, even though the weather turned chilly and cloudy.

It was evening by the time we returned to the hotel. Per and Jim had a couple of beers, and we all hit the sack.

Day 14 – March 8

We had all decided that today would be a ‘sleep in’ morning and would visit the V & A Waterfront for some sightseeing/shopping as it was supposed to rain. We headed out mid morning, and drove the scenic roads north from Hout Bay to central Cape Town. Per recommended watching the movie ‘Safe House’ with Denzel Washington on the plane home, as the movie was filmed in Cape Town, and we’d now recognize the scenery. Sure, but no one wants to think of the ride home quite yet!!

V & A stands for Victoria and Albert. Prince Alfred, the second son of Queen Victoria , began construction of the harbour in 1860 and this led to Albert Basin. The second basin built was named after his mother – Victoria Basin. The waterfront area is very touristy, a large shopping and eating area. We had some lunch in the food market – an amazing building that houses nothing but great food – vendors selling anything from sushi, to samosas to shawarma – all fresh and beautiful looking. We also made our way over to the Nelson Mandela Gateway to get our tickets that we had reserved for tomorrow to go to Robben Island. A relaxing day, sightseeing the waterfront area in the rain.

We returned to the hotel for another incredible dinner – by this time we’ve probably gained 10lbs between the two of us.

Day 15 – March 9

A busy day! After a lovely breakfast once again, we headed out to ‘Bird World’ – Africa’s largest bird sanctuary. At this site is also ‘Monkeyland’, a sanctuary for some primates and other mammals. Now, we are not big on visiting ‘zoos’, as a matter of fact, we have been to very few on our trips…off the top of my head I can think of only a couple: Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey California, and the Australia Zoo – Steve Irwin’s zoo in Australia. We had our reservations about this sanctuary, but once there we realized that indeed it does appear that their animals are there because they have been injured in some way, and the sanctuary provides a good life for them for the rest of their life. The sanctuary does appear to be well looked after, and actually a large number of wild birds visit the area as well.

We then headed again to the V & A Waterfront for lunch, and were at the Nelson Mandela Gateway for 2:30pm to catch the ferry across to Robben Island for 3pm. We had booked this a few days before, and were glad we did, because tickets were now sold out until next week. Phew! Kyle has a school project to do on Nelson Mandela, so it was extra special that he got to visit the prison first hand so he could report back to his school mates about it.

The ferry ride to the island takes about half an hour. It was a beauty day, and the ride across was good. However, Jim did mention that the way back would not be as easy due to the wind – little did we know what amazing foreshadowing this was on his part.

A funny thing happened on the boat ride: Jacquie ran into someone she knows!! This person was on vacation in South Africa, and she had no idea that he was travelling there, let alone booked the same tour over to the island that we had. VERY small world!

When we got to the island, we were loaded onto buses that took us around the site. Unfortunately, Jim and Kristin found the accent of the tour guide quite difficult to understand, and we got very little from her. The bus drove us around the island, and when we got to the building that housed the cells, we were unloaded from the bus and allowed inside with another tour guide. He was a past political prisoner at the island, which was pretty neat. However, we found him difficult to understand as well, and we found that he ‘preached’ to us, rather than educated us. We saw Mandela’s cell – amazing that he was imprisoned here for 18 of his 27 years behind bars. We were allowed to walk from here back to the waterfront where we would catch the boat back to the mainland. The views of Cape Town from Robben Island are spectacular – at least that is one thing that those imprisoned there had…that is when they were allowed to have these views.

As foreshadowed by Jim, the boat ride back to the mainland was rough….very rough. The boat is fairly small, and it constantly was crashing down against the waves and the swells were fairly big. Water soaked many that were sitting outside and within minutes, people started vomiting. As most know, Kristin gets seasick pretty easily, and on this trip both her and Kyle struggled, but neither (thankfully!) went as far to throw up. The half an hour seemed like forever, although for Per, Jim and Dylan, I think they actually enjoyed it – they stood near the back of the boat, exhilarated by the ‘fun’ ride.

The sun began to set, and we returned back to the hotel. Jim parked the car down the street, because tomorrow morning the roads around the hotel are shut down due to the Argus. More on that later.

We had another wonderful dinner at the hotel. We are getting used to this!!

Day 16 – March 10

Our last breakfast at Chapman’s Peak. When we got up this morning, the cyclists were already speeding down the hill outside our hotel. Today is the Argus race – an annual bicycle race held in Cape Town, and is the world’s largest individually timed cycle race. It is 109km long, and the fastest time in the past has been 02:27:29. Now that is fast. This year, Richard Branson is doing the race. This is interesting, because when we go to Dulini Lodge in a couple of days, Richard Branson’s lodge is beside Dulini. Maybe we are meant to meet him?!

Anyways, the reason we had to park the van away from the hotel last night, is because of this race. The streets shut down completely for the race, which can make it quite difficult to get around. We checked out mid morning, and made the trek (approx 1km) with our luggage to the van. It was a neat atmosphere, because bikes were zooming by us, and the streets were alive with music and people cheering the cyclists on.

The drive to the airport was just fine – Per was right, we did not need to leave early. We dropped the van off at the AVIS rental return and checked our bags. We kept busy at the airport for the few hours before the flight. The flight itself was okay – there were a couple of big ‘drops’ when we hit turbulence (not nice feeling at all!), but other than that it went okay. After collecting our luggage, we said a quick goodbye to our friends – we were splitting up for a couple of days, and we would meet them at Dulini Lodge. Jacquie had work to do in Johannesburg, so they were going to stay in town for a couple of nights then fly to the lodge. We were renting a car, staying outside of Joburg tonight, then driving to Kruger National Park tomorrow for one night.

We were at the ‘vodacom’ store renting our GPS and cel phone when Per and the boys showed up. They had already checked into their airport hotel, and had come back to the airport to see how we were making out. How nice of them!! We got our equipment, said goodbye again, and we were off in our Chevy Cruise. Took us a while to figure out how to start the car – it is keyless.

Jim had booked the Outlook Lodge in Benoni for us to stay the night. It did not take long to get there – it is just outside of Johannesburg – and we arrived just as it was getting dark. It turned out to be a perfect place to stay the evening. We were greeted by Francios, who asked us if we had dinner plans. Of course, we had none, and were happy that he offered to have us join the rest of the guests for dinner. Our room was small, but quite nice, and had an attached bathroom/shower that we had to ourselves. I think it was meant to be shared with the room next to us, but it did not appear that anyone was staying in that room.

Dinner was great. A beautiful salad and lovely main course. There was a couple from New York and a young Canadian girl from BC. She had just finished a stay in Malawi and was on her way to Kruger to do some safaris.

A gentleman showed up as we were finishing dinner, and he proceeded to start up conversation with us. He was somehow involved with the lodge – we think he may have been the owner or manager. Anyways, he was hilarious. He lives in South Africa, but he has done a fair bit of travelling, including spending some time living in Canada, travelling through it and the US. As soon as he learned we were Canadians, he was very excited and began telling of his escapades he had when in Canada and the States. He said he loved Canada, and it was obvious from how he spoke of it. He had us in stitches.

We had a good sleep after the good food and great conversation. Tomorrow our adventure begins in Kruger National Park.

Day 6

(see pics here)

We left our cute abode at 6:30am….we wanted to make sure we beat rush hour traffic on the metro since we had all of our luggage. During rush hour, as you can imagine, there is no room to move on the subway, and luckily our plan worked – it was a relatively easy trip, although we still had to walk up and down a few staircases with our heavy luggage.

The Eurostar – the train that runs between Paris and London – runs at speeds up to 300km/hr (186mph). Across the water (the English Channel), the train runs in a 50.5km underground channel tunnel (the ‘chunnel’). Remarkably this trip only takes just over 2 hours to complete……now that is a fast train! It was very comfortable, and a good ride.

We managed to navigate our way to the Twickenham station via the Underground (their version of the metro) and train. Here we called our friends (which was a bit difficult due to the public phone not working – a nice guy working at the station let us use his phone – I guess we are living in the dark ages still relying on public phones) who arrived to pick us up. (We would later learn that it is much cheaper to use public transit in Paris than it is in London!)

We had not seen Sue and Rob since 2007, when we had met them in Fiji. We immediately recognized them, as they did us, and it was like no time had passed.  We visited for a bit, then they suggested we spend the afternoon in a nearby Palace. They drove us to Hampton Court Palace – this is where British Royalty used to live, and predates Buckingham Palace. We learned of the Tudor (1485 – 1603) and the Stuart (1603 – 1714 ) periods, and much about King Henry VIII – he is perhaps best known for his 6 marriages, and is often regarded as having been an egotistical, harsh king. See pics here.

Rob and Sue took us out to experience the real ‘English Pub Scene’, and we had a fun night, tasting many, many English beers. We stumbled to an Indian Restaurant for a late (very late) dinner, and enjoyed Rob and Sue’s company while indulging in amazing food. We closed the restaurant and Sue had hailed us a cab for the ride home. We later learned that Sue is on a first name basis with the cab company…..

Day 7

Took a bit to look ‘bright-eyed and bushy tailed’ this morning, after a very late night (albeit very fun) yesterday.

Rob and Sue took us to Stonehenge – it is quite a distance from the city, and without them, we may not have gotten to visit this incredible site. We were surprised of all the rolling green space outside of the city. Stonehenge itself needs no description, as it is so well known, but we can say that it is much bigger and more sublime than we had imagined. See pic here. It is perplexing that it is not known why, how, or exactly when Stonehenge was built but it is estimated through carbon dating that it was constructed between 4000 and 5000 years ago. Sue remembers a time when she was younger when Stonehenge was not roped off and protected – she actually has pictures of herself playing and sitting on the stones – now you cannot get close to the stones at all.

After a lunch out where we discovered ‘jacket potatoes’ ( a better version of our ‘stuffed potatoes’), Sue and Rob dropped us off at the train station and we took the underground to the Natural History Museum. We had really been looking forward to this museum, but were somewhat disappointed. Although some of the exhibits were quite good, many were old and in need of restoration. We were expecting a phenomenal museum, but perhaps we have been spoiled because we have visited the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History – a truly amazing place.

Back to Sue and Rob’s place, where Sue had prepared a lovely dinner for us – chicken, lots of veggies and scrumptious potatoes – YUM! Then, out to the pub again of course! Another fun (and late!) evening visiting with Sue and Rob and friends.

Day 8

Spent the entire day visiting tourist spots in London.

Started with The Tower of London – a grand palace which is actually a complex of buildings and towers – which once served as a royal residency. The initial castle, The White Tower, was built in 1078! One of the most interesting parts of our visit was viewing the royal jewels. Unfortunately, no pictures are allowed, but we can say that the jewels are stunning. The wealth that the British royalty holds is staggering. It is interesting that many of the objects on display are still used in ceremonies today, and we saw a video of how they package crowns, maces and swords when they need them. We even saw the crown that will one day be placed on the Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton’s head.

Next, Tower Bridge (which we originally thought was London Bridge – see below for explanation). Absolutely stunning. We were both amazed by the size and beauty of this bridge. Nothing more can be said, other than this is definitely a highlight of our London trip. See pic here and here.

Travelled to St. Paul’s Cathedral, another lovely church, where there clouds cleared for a bit and we got some blue sky. We got lunch ‘to go’ from Mark’s and Spencer (oh how I miss our Mark’s and Spencer) and ate on the steps of the church as we ‘people watched’.

Just a thought….it is interesting that there probably wouldn’t be many amazing buildings had there been no religion or war. Hmmm.

It was around this time that we started to get a bit tired, so we hopped on an old double decker bus to view some of the city…wow, wouldn’t want to be a bus driver (or any driver for that matter) in this city! Cars going everywhere, no room, it is organized chaos….not really even organized.

Next on our list: Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey (where William and Kate wed), Palace of Westminster (parliament buildings) along with Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, and the London Eye. The sun stayed out and we were lucky to get some decent pics of some of these sites.

Back to London Tower and the London Eye for some night shots. This is kind of a funny story – this is when we learned that Tower Bridge is not the London Bridge. Earlier, we had assumed that the big beautiful bridge was London Bridge. However, when we got off on the London Bridge underground stop, the big beautiful bridge was still far away. We were totally stunned, and wondered why they would name the underground stop “London bridge” when London Bridge wasn’t even there. Then a ‘light bulb’ went on a little while later, and we realized that we had messed up the name, and that London Bridge is the bridge (tiny in comparison to TowerBridge)  that has the history of being bought by an American, then shipped and reconstructed in Arizona.

Back at Sue and Rob’s by 9:30pm, where they had left us a note that they were out – at the pub of course – and if we wanted to join them to give them a call. Of course! While waiting for them, we enjoyed the company of Romeo – an African Grey Parrot that is the much loved pet of Sue and Rob. Every morning Romeo takes a flight from his (or hers, we aren’t quite sure) cage upstairs to visit his beloved Rob to wake him up. Sue and Rob had spoken about how vocal Romeo can be, but we hadn’t really witnessed it until this evening. Jim started singing, and Romeo sang along, and generally was quite chatty. We were picked up by Sue and Rob, and had another enjoyable evening at the pub listening to a great female singer, and hanging out at with Sue and Rob and friends.

Tomorrow we’ll be leaving Sue and Rob to meet up with our friends Per and Jacquie.

Day 5

Early start today…..Notre Dame church was first on the list. A beautiful building with Gothic style architecture, it’s groundbreaking dates back to 1163! Because we are visiting during the ‘off season’ we were able to walk right up to the church and go inside – during ‘busy season’ long line ups are commonplace. See pics here.

Next, the Catacombs. The Catacombs gather the remains of approximately six million Parisian, transferred between the end of the 18 century and the middle of the 19th century, due to the closing of cemeteries for reasons of crowding and unsanitary conditions. We arrived shortly after 10am (when it opened) and were surprised to find a very long line up along the street, and we were behind a large school group – took about 1/2hr to be admitted. The catacombs are underground, and we walked down a long spiral staircase (19metres underground) and walked through narrow passageways to get to the bones. If you are picturing an underground mine lined with neatly stacked skulls and bones, you are right on the money – it is exactly that. Tunnel upon tunnel of bones, bones and more bones. A really interesting place, but admittedly, Kristin found it to be a bit too macabre after a while. No flash photography is allowed in the tunnels (not that people followed this but Jim did), so Jim used his photography skills to get great pictures (see here and here).

After the long walk through the tunnels, we were in need of a washroom. This has been at times difficult in Paris to find. However, we happened upon a toilet on the side of the road – we had come across these occasionally – and decided to give it a whirl. It was a large structure with buttons on the side of it, one indicating that it was not in use and we pushed it to open the door. We both walked in, but the door would not shut because it (the washroom that is) realized that two people had walked in, and there was only one toilet (understandably, having two people being allowed in the washroom on the street could lead to an infinite number of issues). Kristin used it first. After using the toilet, and vacating the washroom, it (the washroom that is) goes through a ‘cleaning’ cycle, where it literally washes everything in it using water jets. When the next person walks in, the washroom is wet, having had gone through this cycle. Interesting….seemed a bit odd, but it sure came in handy for us.

We had lunch out, at a very crowded restaurant, where we were literally shoulder to shoulder with the next table. This seems to be the norm – I guess in a busy city, space is at a premium and it appeared that many restaurants were like this.

Next tourist stop – Sacre Coeur – another beautiful church, this one in the Montmartre district. Unfortunately, most tourist stops have a number of ‘resourceful crooks’ where you have to be really careful or you will get pick-pocketed or worse. There are signs everywhere warning of this, and here we were mobbed by young women asking for our signature for some ’cause’. Knowing that this was a scheme (if you take the time to sign, you can be assured that your wallet and any other belongings they can get their hands on will be gone) we quickly got out of there with Kristin literally having to push them away as they will not take no for an answer. Too bad – often it is these situations that fouls the attraction itself.

We carried on, and took the metro to Les Invalides – a complex of buildings which now serves as the military museum, a retirement home, and a hospital. Really, this stop was just to view the architecture of the main building – it is expansive with a large gold dome at its centre. It was during the walk from the metro to the complex that we came across quite a loud muslim demonstration outside of the national buildings – we could not make out what the protest was about, but the streets were lined with both Prefecture Police (sort of like our municipal or city police) and the National Police (sort of like our RCMP), ready in riot gear if needed. Needless to say, we didn’t stick around for long. We didn’t want to get in the middle of it.

We finished the long day with a visit to Musee d’Orsay, where we took in some art by Monet, Degas, Renoir, Cezanne, Gaugin, Van Gogh and the like. Neither one of us are overly ‘artsy’, but it was impressive standing only inches away from such well known artists.

Ahhh, a busy day and we were happy to pick up some dinner at the market to take home and rest our feet. We packed our bags, as we are leaving tomorrow for London!

Overall, we loved Paris – much more than we anticipated. A beautiful city, where we found everyone willing to help us when we needed it (our French is embarrassingly awful). A city where we saw not one overweight Parisian – they all are quite thin and always look well-kept and stylish. It is a city that appears to wake up later in the day, but is active late at night. We hope to return one day….it would be beautiful in the spring, but I’m afraid we wouldn’t be able to deal with the incredible crowds that would undoubtedly be present.

See pics here.

Day 3

Rained and snowed today – not hard but constant precipitation of some sort – and the day started off warmer than yesterday but got colder. We got a late start due to jet lag issues, but still managed to have a full day. Remember when we said that the metro was ‘easy peasee’? Well, perhaps we spoke too soon. Yes, it can be easy, however, when doing multiple transfers, it can be quite tricky. Let’s just say that more than once we’ve gotten on the wrong train and many ‘heated discussions’ have taken place because of it. Truly though, the metro has been a source of fun and adventure, and it really makes things cheap and easy to get to.

We visited the Arc de Triomphe – a monument that honours all the French who fought and died in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The monument itself is very impressive in detail and sheer size; it stands 50m tall and 45m wide. At the base of the monument 12 radiating streets begin, like spokes on a wheel. Let’s just say that this intersection is quite difficult to navigate on foot and I’d image much worse if in a vehicle. Somehow the Parisians do it, and never do you hear a honking horn.

We wandered around Champs-Elysees, one of the streets radiating out from the Arc – a beautiful tree-lined street with many French monuments on it. Paris is truly beautiful – both of us have really been taken by it’s beautiful architecture and feel of openness despite every road being packed with apartments/shops/people. The people of the past really knew how to build beautifully. I often wonder how a city as old as this keeps up with the infrastructure so well, when a new city like Toronto seems to have so much difficulty. Perhaps it is due to tourism dollars. Whatever it is, Toronto and the GTA should take note.

Ahh, then the Eiffel Tower. We were both amazed by the immensity of it – we climbed to the first level, but due to the poor weather (rain and high winds) we did not go higher.

See pics here.

Day 4

Kristin’s email got hacked yesterday. That was the end of going onto the internet in Paris – we were too afraid that the connection was not secure. So, apologies if anyone got any strange spam email from Kristin – she didn’t send it. This is also one of the reasons that we haven’t been posting anything……the other is that we’ve been plain busy night and day, but we’llget to that later….

We got up early and made our way to Paris’ main train station where we would be leaving from in a couple of days to take the chunnel to London. Having never been there, we wanted to make sure that we got our tickets and knew where to go and the logistics of the trip. From our studio apartment in Bastille, we only had to take one metro line to get there (no transfers), which would make Thursday’s trip with all our luggage a bit simpler. Walking into the main train station was like going back in time – we could visualize how it was ‘back in the day’ – and felt like we were in an old movie watching the big board flicker with the changing arrivals and departures. After a somewhat confusing discussion with the ticket seller, we had our tickets (Expensive: 100 euros each!!) for Thursday, departing at 9:13am.

Then, off to the Palace of Versailles for the day. Versailles is at one of the terminus’ of the metro station, and is quite far from the centre of Paris, so it took a while to get there. We lucked out – no rain today – the sun actually peeked through for a bit and we saw some blue sky. Still cold though!

The Palace was the centre of political power in the 1600’s until the royal family was forced back into the capital in the late 1700’s. As an aside, the Palace of Versailles was built because it was felt that the Louvre Palace was too small to live in any longer (the Louvre is HUGE, so huge). We are so happy we decided to visit this palace – it truly was a highlight of the Paris segment of our trip. The rooms are massive, every ceiling is painted with elaborate scenes (most of which depict women with little or no clothes), and every surface is carved and or painted as ornately as possible. It is hard to imagine that people actually lived and functioned in such extravagant conditions.

After a quick grocery store run (oh yeah, did I mention how cheap wine is here??!!) we ate dinner back at our apartment, and had a much needed break for our feet (even though it is only day 4, our feet are already feeling the number of kilometres we’ve been walking) we ventured out in the evening to see the Eiffel Tower lit up at night. It did not disappoint! Coming out of the underground of the metro, we were immediately awed by the lighted tower – it is truly stunning. And, it gets better….every hour, the tower ‘sparkles’ for about 5 minutes, with thousands of mini lights flickering on and off all over it. Yeah, a bit of extravagance, and perhaps a lot of energy for this to all take place, but we have to admit, it was quite a sight to see!

See pics here.

Leaving Toronto

Day 1

Well, the trip that has been a dream for a year (and longer!!) became a reality once we were on the plane. The weather in Toronto cooperated; so did customs. Our luggage was not weighed, nor were our ‘liquids’ examined; however, we did have to remove our shoes and belts. It was an overnight flight with Air Canada, and we were awed at the lights we were able to see as we crossed Canada, most specifically New Brunswick and Newfoundland….we actually saw the flashing light of a lighthouse! The flight was uneventful, and we watched the sun rise as we headed east.

Day 2

We arrived in Paris at the Charles de Gaulle airport to snow and on the tarmac, literally. We disembarked the plane on the tarmac – which is normal at this airport – and stood on a bus for 20min, freezing with the door open, until a passenger complained and the driver looked up from whatever device he was using and hurriedly sped off to the terminal.

Customs at the Paris airport was a joke – the customs police officer did not even look at either of us as he stamped our passports to allow us in. Perhaps it was because they figured that the military dudes in full garb with machine guns (nope, not joking) would keep us in line if anything went awry. The airport itself is shockingly unaesthetic; made Pearson look beautiful and classy. A driver holding a sign with our name picked us up and whisked us (in a black, beautiful Mercedes Benz) to our rented studio apartment where we met Joel.

Joel, owns a few studios in Paris (Paris At Home), and we are so happy that we rented this one: Studio La Cerisaie. Very small (12ft x 12ft) and quaint…. picture a bachelor apt (only smaller) with all IKEA furnishings – it is all we need and more for $100euros/night. A major bargain in Paris, and only 4 metro stops to the Louvre. Because we arrived prior to ‘check in’, we dropped off our luggage at the studio, and went to get some groceries (and more importantly WINE) before the shops closed – they close by 1pm on Sundays (so nice to see that people still do this).

Oh yes, and the wine…..we bought three bottles of French wine for less than $9 euros. Yes, you read correctly…3 bottles for under $9 euros!

We didn’t want to waste our day by waiting until 2pm for our studio to be cleaned, so we took off for the Louvre. First impressions of the transit system – easy peasee. First impressions of Paris – absolutely beautiful. The Louvre is massive, and to be honest . it took us a while to find where to go inside! We headed to probably what most people head towards first – the Mona Lisa. Hoards of people were surrounding her, and even though there are signs everywhere stating ‘no flash photography’ they certainly don’t enforce this rule – there were flashes going off every few seconds. She is under glass, and actually larger than I thought she would be. And yes, I did get shivers being there, looking at her.

We walked around one wing of the Louvre, and quickly jet lag began to set in….we became wandering zombie-like creatures who desperately needed to sleep. We left, and made our way back quite easily on the transit system. We hit the sack by 7pm, after only having a couple of hours of sleep in a 24hr period.

Pics to come!

Wow, feels good to be back writing this blog! It has been 6 years since our year long adventure, and although we have travelled a few places since then (Florida, Texas, South Carolina, Washington D.C., Maine, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Moose Factory/Moosonee), and had amazing fun together with family and friends, no place has quite the allure as our next adventure….SOUTH AFRICA!!!!

So you are probably wondering how all this came about for us. Well, it was a surprise to us! It is quite an incredible story…..

Last year, we were invited to Jim’s friend’s home for dinner. Per and Jim have been friends since they were 6 years old. Per and his wife Jacquie have 2 boys, Dylan (grade 9) and Kyle (grade 6). It had been a while since we had last seen them – you know how life gets busy – and we enjoyed a wonderful dinner together that Jacquie had prepared. Right after dinner, Jacquie and the boys excitedly asked Jim to open up his birthday present that had been sitting wrapped on the table since we had got there. Jim opened up the card first, and after reading the message, he blurted out, “I’m not 50 yet!!” Per said, “I know, I know, but you’ll understand later when you figure out the gift. The card actually gives the gift away, so try to figure it out before you open it!”  Well, the card had a cartoon character on the front, saying something about turning 50, and on the inside there was a punch line with a picture of a globe and an arrow pointing to Africa. After some discussion and seeing that the wrapped gift looked like a book, Kristin said, “I know, it is a Fodor’s guide to Africa!” Per gave Kristin a high five, and Jim opened the gift – it was a guide book to Safaris of Southern Africa. Jim thanked them, saying this is great, someday we’ll get to Africa. It was then that the family was all smiles and Per said, “Well….that is not the only gift. We’d like to take you to South Africa!” Dumbfounded, Jim looked at Kristin and then back at Per, and said, “WHAT?” Per said, “Yeah, we’re going to take you to South Africa….we’ve been there and we know you’d love it there, and we’d love to go with you….you only turn 5o once!” Well, needless to say we were speechless.

The year to follow was full of excitement and planning. Per looked after booking our flights and since we are able to take more time off at the moment than what Per’s family can, we extended our trip an extra couple of weeks (you only live once, right?). We’ve never been to Paris or London, so we factored in 4 days in both on the way to S. Africa. We’ll meet Per and family in London and fly over together.  We’ll spend 5 days in Cape Town, separate for a couple of days ’til we meet up again in Sabi Sand Reserve. Here we’ll stay in an absolutely gorgeous resort (way different from the tent that Jim and I usually travel in!!) spending dawn and dusk doing safaris for 4 days. After this luxurious retreat, we’ll say goodbye to our friends and head out on the road spending the next 6 days at camps through the well known Kruger National Park.

How can we ever thank our friends enough for this incredible opportunity?! When we tell people of this trip, most often the first thing out of their mouths is, “How do we get friends like that?” We are so very fortunate. We are so excited to go on this adventure with them – the memories we’ll have together will be incredible and forever ingrained in our hearts.

A bonus to all of this (yes, it is amazing that it can even get better!!) is that while in London, we’ll be staying with a couple (Sue and Rob) that we met while on our year-long adventure while we were in Fiji! We haven’t seen them since 2007, and when we contacted them to let them know we’d be in town, they immediately invited us to stay with them. We are so looking forward to seeing them again and rekindling the fun we had when we first met.

So, all in all, we are the luckiest people in the world.

Depending on internet connections and overall exhaustion (we plan to make the most out of each day!!) we’ll do our best to keep our blog updated and add a few pics too  – no doubt we’ll take thousands.

See you in Paris!

We’ll post photos here.

One year later, 11 flights, 72,000 driven kilometeres, 3 cars, 200 different campsites, 20 states, and several pairs of shoes, we are back home. We aren’t exactly pleased at the abrupt conclusion of our pacific adventure, but we have succeeded in creating a lifetime of wonderous memories in a relatively short time.

Apart from some minor mishaps ie stings, scrapes, falls etc. we were very fortunate to have endured our journey without any significant snags. Remarkably we only lost a bird book and a few other minor things along the way. We wore out several pairs of cheap shoes and a normal amount of clothes.

We were also fortunate to have a terrific supportive cast from home with our parents taking care of our stuff and affairs while we were gone – not to mention taking care of us before, between and now after our trip.

A lot of people ask where or what our favorite part of the trip was, but that is extremely difficult to give a simple answer. The best part of all was probably breaking away from our ‘normal’ boring existence and daring to break the rules. Like we said before we left, “If we can be of any inspiration to anyone small who wants to think bigger, then we would be happy”.

After that it has to be all the incredible people we met along the way, as they have served as inspiration to us! Our lives were touched by so many amazing people, that they alone made our trip worth every step. We especially thank our friends and family in Australia who helped us and gave us a place to stay and get organized, as did both our Canadian/Kiwi and Canadian/Alaskan friends in both respective places. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for helping to make our trip easier and more fun.

That being said; we set out on this journey to experience wild places and open spaces, and we did just that. The highlights are many – too many to list- but between the vast open spaces of the colourful southwestern US landscapes, the open untouched tundra and large animals of Alaska and Yukon Territory, the beautiful scenery of the Inside Passage, the warm weather and waters of Hawaii, the wonderous animals of Australia, the rolling landscape and friendly people of New Zealand, the amazing reefs and underwater life of Fiji, and the lazy days of lying on the beaches of Samoa, we truly had a thrill of a lifetime discovering thousands of amazing treasures everywhere we went.

The problem now is we have the travel bug, and even the great distances we’ve travelled and all the things we’ve seen, the bug has only opened our eyes to how much more there is to encounter – places we’ve never even considered prior to our travels.

Now we just need to find the means and the money to continue our journey. One of our friends told us if he won the lottery he’d fund our travels just so he could keep reading about them….That sounds perfect to us! We’re pulling for you……and thanks!

Nobody knows what lies ahead and we don’t either, but the mystery is part of the fun, don’t you think? For now we’ll settle back into our ‘boring, structured lives’ but we will be dreaming of further travels in the near future and that will always get us through!

We have no regrets for the money we’ve spent, and we intend on doing it again soon. Our only advice to everyone is ‘dream big, then do it!’.

We, as usual, did not have any accomodations booked when we reached the island of Savaii, but did know we wanted to go to the ‘town’ of Manase. Bridgette and Scott were headed that way as well, so we decided to share a cab. They were headed to an upscale ‘resort’…their fale had airconditioning and they paid 300 Tala a night. We opted for the beach fales that were 50 Tala per person, and had natural airconditioning…ie no walls. Yup, our fale had no walls – it did have thatched ‘curtains’ that you could pull down if you wanted, but we only did that for half of the fale, because our view of the water was incredible – our fale was literally right on the beach – 10 steps from it we were in the ocean.

Our new friends were only a 2 minute walk down the beach from us, and we ended up hanging out with them most of the time. We decided to take a ‘tour’ of the island with them – and booked with a fellow who was recommended by the Lonely Planet Guide. The tour guide ended up being an interesting 80 year old man, who used to be a geologist with a special interest in volcanic processes. Although the tour was very interesting, at times he went a little overboard with the information, and because of this we ran out of time. It was on this tour that we saw the highest blow holes we had ever seen – so high and strong that when a coconut was thrown down the hole just before the waves crashed in, the coconut would be catapulted hundreds of feet into the ocean. Very impressive.

After 3 nights of paradise in Manase, we decided to follow our friends back to the mainland to another ‘hot spot’ called Lalomanu. Again, we had no accomodations, but this time decided to stay at the same spot as our friends, since it was cheaper than the outrageous 300 tala before. This spot ended up being even more of a paradise than before, and after Scott and Bridgette left we ended up staying there for nearly the rest of our trip. The beach was amazing, and the snorkelling even better. This truly was paradise. Our fale was nicer as well – this one had walls and was lockable, and had a nice porch on it that we spent many hours on. Again, we were right on the beach, with only 10 steps to get to the water. I even got my luggage back here – we never got the full story what happened to it, but it was delivered to us by the airline. By the sounds of it, it never got offloaded from the plane, then the plane did another trip to Fiji, then it got offloaded a week later with the new flight’s luggage. A few minor things were broken in it, but all the important stuff was there thank goodness. And finally, I could take my glasses off again because I had my contacts!

The only unfortunate thing we found at Lalomanu, were the cockroaches – they tended to come into the fale at night. This wouldn’t be so bad, except that the roaches had an unforgettable smell to them – as soon as you tried to scurry them away (or kill them for that matter) they would release this TERRIBLE smell and it would permeate everything. It was the grossest smell I think I have ever smelled.

We managed to pull ourselves away from the paradise (and cockroaches) at Lalomanu to visit another small island called Namua. There are no roads or villages on this island, only a few open fales on the beach. When we arrived we found that we would be the only people staying there, so it was very quiet. Unfortunately, the mosquitoes were very bad, and they got the better of us. It was hard to go from paradise just across the water to a place where the food, beach and snorkelling were not as good, not to mention we got eaten alive. After our night at Namua, we decided we’d leave that afternoon, but not before we’d walk around the island.

The weather that day started off beautiful, however, it quickly turned overcast, and while on our walk around the island it started pouring. Jim was carrying his camera without a waterproof bag, so we had to seek shelter under some rock walls. With the camera in a dry spot, we amused ourselves for a couple of hours by playing baseball with driftwood as bats, and shells, nuts, rocks as balls. We had a hoot getting soaked while having contests on who could hit the furthest out into the ocean.

As luck would have it, the skies cleared up around 4pm – exactly the time we were to leave Namua. We had wanted to head to another town that evening, but we found out that all the accomodations were taken. So, we went back to our old standby at Lalomanu – our paradise and they were glad to take us back. We didn’t even mind the stinky cockroaches after being eaten alive at Namua.

The rest of our trip was relatively uneventful – after Lalomanu we headed into the capital again for 2 nights, and from here we would fly home. We chose a relatively expensive hotel for our last 2 nights of our travels – just some splurging before reality set in again. The hotel had airconditioning and a pool, both of which were welcome in the extreme heat. We treated ourselves to dinner one night at a VERY expensive hotel (we couldn’t afford to stay there) and had to fend off some barking attack dogs with stones on our walk back to our hotel. We visited Robert Louis Stevenson’s house/museum during the day, but it was too darn hot to walk the 45min up a hill to his grave site – neither one of us needed to have a heart attack on our last day of our trip!

It was so strange when we were sitting at the airport in Samoa, waiting to board our plane to Los Angeles. Neither one of us could believe that we had been gone for a year. How time flies when you’re having fun! Samoa was a great place to end our trip – a paradise where we were able to relax before returning to reality again.