Friday, 25 January 2013

New Years in the 'not-Australia'


Journeying with the siblings! 

When I was first in Africa, I wanted to be out of Cape Town and South Africa as soon as I arrived; it was too much like Australia. I wanted  the 'real' Africa.  But the reason I initially rejected the country was largely what drew me back this time; it seemed like a strange parallel to my home country, only with much greater development difficulties, a different demoraphic, much higher poverty, a corrupt government and on-going racial tension. It was like that homely familiarity of Australia but with a much more complicated and challenging twist behind it and its people. I wanted, and would still like, to understand just what makes the county tick.
In some respects it almost seems to me that Australia represents what South Africa had the potential to be -- or might yet be. But the reasons I say this are extensive and require in-depth conversation far longer than this blog has room for. I'll skip to what we actually did.

After Christmas we flew to Cape Town -- perhaps one of the more beautiful cities of the world. Dramatic cliffs and coastline (like Great Ocean Road), the Table Mountain backdrop (a plateau-like mountain that sits behind the city), surf beaches, boutique to trendy cafes (with decent coffee!), food markets, amazing wine (like Australian wine..), produce and cheeses, an up-market waterfront (someone say 'Docklands'?) and some old-school colonial architechture. Of course, unlike Melbourne, you have a transition of amazing mansions and beautiful houses into... slums.

Everything is framed by barbed or razor wire and as you drive by some make-shift shanty towns complete with rusting corrogated iron, rubbish blowing in the breeze and poor sanitary systems, you simultaneously pity the people who live there and by the same token sincerely hope your car never breaks down in that area. It is these areas that South Africa's shockingly high crime statistics originate from.
We hung-about in the surf-suburb Muizenburg (sadly never went surfing) and during our time in the city climbed Table Mountain (it was admittedly stunning), explored long st once more, drove along Chapmans peak and surrounds etc.



New Years us 'kiddies' ran away from the parents to a somewhat hippy- festival; Rezonance. I'm ashamed to admit it was the first time in my life to go to a music festival too...but better late than never! There was much epic dancing (sensing a theme here...), sibling-bonding and miscellaneous friend making -- perfect way to start the new year! I'll let the photos do some talking.
           
Unfortunately come insane-o-clock (6am) New Years day, we had to leave as the parents and Clare had a flight back to Melb (Clare only returning for a visit). Leaving my sister, much like the last time I was in Africa, was nothing short of horrible! Despite being in the same country as her for 5 months, being 1000km away still made visits a difficult occurance and already it was time to be continents apart again.

So then there were four: me, James, Gavin and Maria (Gavin's gf). With less in tow, we headed eastwards to Hermanus. I'll just say; beautiful coast, quaint little town, wonderfully refreshing beach-cliff jogs and wine tasting. Incidentally, I've concluded I don't have the stamina for wine tasting, as I gave up near the end on account of almost-falling-asleep and opted for a good-ol' coffee instead. The trip ended nicely with some in-bus-boogie to The Beatles.

Next stop was the start of the garden route: Mossel bay. The town itself didn't grab me as it lacked the charm of Hermanus, but the surrounding beaches and activities were definitely worthwhile.

We sandboarded nearby sanddunes, made some new friends (Sachin and Sid) and skydived. It was my second tandem skydive and though I had vowed to never skydive again until I did my solo course due to the relatively high-cost of tandems, the beach scenery and beautiful day snagged me in once more. And boy there were NO regrets on that. Because it was my second time and I was apparently small-enough, the instructor decided to do something new; jump out of the plane with me backwards and, whilst I tucked up into a ball, do a series of somersaults/flips in the air. Despite the fact my brother was out of the plane a good 20 seconds before me, when they had opened the parachute we were still free-falling fast past them; aparently the speed we plummeted looked insane. Hell, when I saw my brother jump out it looked like he was vacuum-suctioned out.
The first time I ever sky-dived, I thought the experience was wicked. This was even better. The speed, the rush, the flips, the scenery, the gliding with the parachute... absolutely amazing. I swear I have to do my solo-course one day....

Following Mossel Bay, we headed towards Storms River village. We drove along 'The Garden Route through peaceful beach and lagoon scenery, dining in Kynsna harbour along the way.

At stormsriver we took a trip tubing in black waters (black due to natural tanins in the water) which largely consisted of jumping off rocks in deeper sections and floating through rocky shallows in others, sometimes awkwardly due to sections of low water. Of course it was obligatory to pounce on other people in their tube and dunk them in the water.
 The forest surrounding the stormsriver and village was absolutely lush and green and later that day I took a stroll through it, feeling strangely like I was but wasn't in Kinglake back home. In fact, in such a small and friendly village it was as though the crime-ridden troubles of SA cities was long-gone, scarcely a barbed wire in site and an altogether reassuring vibe from the people and area. The local-restaurant was perhaps what needed some work; an ostensibly American diner serving anything from sugar-fied sweet-chilli stir-fry to MSG intense vegetables...

Nighttime at Dijembe backpackers was great fun. Intrepid travellers, bongo drums, guitars, bonfires and (you guessed it) dancing! At one stage the owner seemed to appear out of nowhere with his horses and next thing you know there was a troupe of backpackers  and horses walking to a bar in the local township under an amazingly starry sky. Following a white horse, under a starry sky to a village bar... only in Africa.

The bar, although obviously simple, had a great feel to it. No sleazy men (and believe me, that's a rarity in bars globally... particularly Africa), no racial tension (not always the case in SA), an absolute mix of people and almost-instantaneous friends. Oh, and dancing, dancing, dancing.

The following day we ventured a trip to Tsitsikama NP where Stormsriver meets the sea and man am I so glad I didn't skip it. Definitely one of the more stunning coastlines I've ever seen with giant crashing waves, beautiful blue skies and a large gorge mouth where the blackriver merged into the blue sea. Something like cataract gorge in Tasmania meets Cape Schanck in Victoria...

We desperately wanted to linger at Stormsriver but figured we needed to get a move on (flights and such... deadlines = bad) so we headed to Jeffereys bay. Realistically we should have just stayed at Stormsriver for longer (oh.. hindsight). Jeffereys bay was really a surfing destination and, as our luck had it, the surf was terrible and near non-existant during our stay. Nonetheless, we did visit a pretty cool swimming/waterfall spot with ziplining (or 'foofing' in Afrikaans) slides into the water and large rock jumps for the brave, go swimming in the sea, jog along the beach and chill.


But this was where our 'Garden route' journey ended, dropping Maria at the airport in Port Elizabeth on the 10th before the next leg northward; Lesotho -- The Mountain Kingdom that has evaded me for too long!

Wednesday, 23 January 2013

Flip-flop hungry hyenas and 'The smoke that... (chunders ?)'


A family reunion in Botswana and Zimbabwe

Imagine a series of waterfalls 1.7km long plummeting into a wide chasm with an intense volume of splashback so large it turns the vegetation 108 m above into rainforest and looks like a cloud of smoke kilometers away. Well there is such a place and it's called Victoria Falls, or 'Mosi-oa-Tunya' -- 'The Smoke that Thunders,' and there's a good reason why.

I visited these falls two weekends in a row (once with my Canadian friend from UB and the other with my family) and was wowed the first, stunned the second. Within the period of a just a week the volume of the falls had exponentially increased although high water season was only just starting.

   



When I went with Jen we took a horseback Safari through the national park at the top of the Zambezi surrounded by stunning scenery and followed it through with a more intensive activity the next day -- white water rafting with grade 5 rapids.


I had done the exact same white water rafting in 2010 (Zambia side),during which I swallowed so much Zambezi water and finished the trip extremely cold rendering myself sick enough to need a day trip to the doctor and a good-old-fashioned-drip.
Therefore, during our safety briefing (ie what to do when the boat flips/ you get flung out/ sucked under the water/ dragged along the river/ churned about) my main concern was really the water  quality-- sincerely hoping there were less nasties to make me sick that time.
But my 2nd rafting trip, despite swallowing gallons of water, ended trouble-free. I repeated a similar trip with my family, visitng the falls and doing rafting number 3 (only the boys joined me on this one). Within a week rafting was completely different with the change in water volume, some rapids becoming more dangerous and others actually losing intensity. Apart from being great fun, even for a 3rd time, the rafting seemed to end trouble free..... seemed...

With the members of out families that have 'real' jobs deciding to do a fancy Safari for a few days, my brother and I (the 'pov' ones) decided to continue with a rougher few-days in Zimbabwe down to the Great Zim Ruins. Joining forces with a random Afrikaaner (Cornilus) we befriended, we got the overnight train from V. Falls to Bulawayo, encountering (admittedly an almost-expected) attempted break-in to our compartment in the middle of the night.

The usual encounter. 400km and a good 15 hours later, we arrived in Bulwayo only to take another bus to Masvingo (which also left and arrived on "Africa" time) and yet another minibus from there to the ruins (meant to take an extra 20mins but took 1hr 20 mins...). By the time we got to the ruins it was dark and we settled into a chalet rather than camping as James was feeling sick. In the middle of the night I awoke to the sound of him chundering out his insides (forgive the mental image).The next day we were perplexed; I had eaten everything he did (which was nothing dodgey) and he hadn't been in the country long enough for it to be Malaria -- nor did he have a temperature.


Whilst he rested, I explored the lower ruins with Cornelius and later James gathered the strength to climb to the upper ruins. The ruins were constrctured with fractured rock and no mortar but withstood the test of time quite well, having been constructed in the 11th century. Admittedly I'm not much of a history buff, but they were great fun to explore and looked pretty awesome -- particularly as one of the few standing archeology sites in Africa.

As we travelled back toward Bots, James health fluctuated on and off between severe episodes of chunder and general weakness. After a bus trip where it seriously felt like the bus was going to fall apart, rattling severely at 100kph (James had to take anti-nausea tablets for this..) we hitched to Francistown (Bots) where we lodged for the night. After a light jog and a coffee with Amarula, I felt strangely nauseus and next I knew it was my turn to be sick. Each time I went back to bed that night the nausea would build -- in the end I pushed my doona into the bathroom and between oh-so-elegant stomach-emptying episodes, flopped back on it. Eventually I fell asleep there.

With a family-safari deadline though, we had to keep travelling. For comfort, we hitched to Maun and from there we flew into the heart of the Okavango Delta area/Moremi Game reserve to Chiefs Camp; an exclusive luxury camp. Our visit was largely made possible by having a sister as a Safari consultant...

If I thought my birthday weekend was awesome, Chiefs camp was even better. I'll let some of the photos speak; there was awesome wildlife (ie following a leopard so close -- stalking the stalker!), luxurious rooms, a pool, open bar, DELICIOUS food and lots of it and of course the family reunited. Mother, step-father, sister, sisters bf and friend, brother, brothers gf, other brother, anddd me.

Hyenas frequently patrolled the camp and you could hear their 'whooping' noises at night -- one night they stole Jaardus' (Clare's bf) Crocs flip-flops and ate every piece of it (yes, pure rubber) bar a piece the size of 5cents. They have insanely powerful jaws and digestive systems..

Even after Safari we hadn't had enough of the African bush and spent the next few days chilling in Maun, travelling on the boat and swimming in the delta. Christmas in Maun didn't feel like Christmas at all -a hearty lunch at the sunny Back-to-The-Bridge Backpackers leading into a night of revellery and much, much dancing Batswana style. Incidentally also the first Christmas the family had actually all been together since... a long while.
 

Ah... I'll miss the dancing.

When the day came to leave Botswana at last, it was almost surreal. I had popped in and out of the country so often, it didn't really feel like I was leaving at all. But there it was, my time in Botswana at the end and yet more goodbyes to be shared -- the worst part about travelling.

Next stop: Cape Town.