The Windy City

After our adventures fighting off the greatest predators of the animal kingdom (and for some the greatest predators are the insects), we moved on to our the destination: Cape Town. The 2.5 hour flight from Maputo went smoothly and we arrived safely in the second city of RSA. The city where the legend of the Flying Dutchman was born!

According to folklore, the Flying Dutchman is a ghost ship that can never go home, and is doomed to sail the oceans - mainly around Cape Hope - forever. Most of you will now know it from the Pirates of the Caribbean flicks, in which the ship is portrayed as having a crew of doomed humans slowly being transformed into sea life. Much like regular life, where most of us slowly transform into vegetable life as we get older... (read the following in a loud hollow voice) We are all doomed!

Actually, earlier this year I saw an investigative documentary on the legend of the Flying Dutchman which concluded that the original very first version of the legend was based on a vessel nicknamed the Flying Vlemish, but that since the Dutch ruled the sea in those times, the story to Dutchman to beef up the story. Wouldn't that be a disappointment for KLM who carries the FD as a badge... (which I never understood, as it refers to a doomed ship)

First impressions of Cape Town were a bit surreal. After spending months in sub-sahara Africa where people live along the dirt roads in 'houses' made of roof plates, you all of a sudden enter a town which basically looks like a cross between Miami Beach and Sydney. Nice streets, houses, hotels, malls, sea-side restaurants, luxury boats, a waterfront boardwalk and cable-carts.

Anybody that just visited Cape Town should never ever claim to have seen Africa. It's like going to Disney World and telling everybody that you've seen the United States... (even though
George W does look a bit like Goofy).

There are many things you can do in Cape Town. Partying is one of the 'activities'. The main party street is Long Street. for those of you who have been to Sydney, just think of Oxford Street and you'll get the picture. A long street (very original name!) with restaurants, bars, mini-clubs, surf-shops, bijoux stores, etc. This is where it all happens. Locals, backpackers and tourists fill the street starting at 20:00 hrs for food, drinks, music and uncontrolled movements locally referred to as dancing.

Over the course of the 4 nights we spent there we've seen the inside of every bar and club, ranging from teenie Breezer bars to the local intellectual bohemian loft, from hardcore rap hole to the more-or-less trendy deephouse basement and from the traditional beer smelling Irish bar (where one guy plays the entire discography of U2 by himself) to the exotic lounge café. Is Cape Town therefore a great party place? Hmm, honestly not in my opinion. If you're a student backpaper you'll have tons of fun, but for others it's a bit undefined.

Of course there were also day activities. Most of these required us to wake up early. Yep, visit Paradise and get going! The area around Cape Town is known for its vineyards and there are many wine tasting tours available. Since we do enjoy our occasional drop of alcohol - but only a little bit of course - we signed up for one. The entire afternoon was spent driving around the country side and stopping at very nice vineyards for some SSSS. That is Swirl, Sniff, Sip and Swallow... Or was it Spit? Ehh... Nah! It must be swallow! Why waste a perfectly good glass of wine?

The nicest trip was the tour to Cape Point. The whole ride to it was cool, passing by beautiful areas with beaches, hills and of course nice houses, including those from Madonna and Oprah. Girl power! We also took the option of doing a boat trip to a rock outside the bay where the seals relax and sunbathe. Literally hundreds of seals.

We also saw...yes! yes! yes!.. a mother whale with her young one. They were drifting along the coast line just some 50 meters out. Amazingly closeby! Whale season was actually over, but we were told that mothers hang around until their kid is strong enough to swim out with her.

Before reaching the point we made a quick stop at an ostrich farm. It was run by a family. A very strange family. A very very very strange family. Some serious inbreeding was going on there and we're not referring to the animals... On that farm the ostrich were obviously the intelligent species.

The cape itself was pretty. A nice rock sticking out the ocean. We took the mandatory 'lookie me at southern most point' pictures and headed back to the city. On the way back there was a quick tour of the botanical gardens before we were dropped off at the Waterfront. There we enjoyed a a few cold ones while the Bokke were taking Wales apart on the telly.

Regretfully, many of the things we wanted to do, we couldn't because of the weather. The temperatures were great, the sun was shining, but there was a lot of wind too. That means no cable cart to table mountain, no ferry to Robben island (former 'home' of Nelson Mandela) and no boats leaving from Gansbaai to go cage diving with Jaws, a.k.a. the great white shark.

I guess I'll just have to go back and the first week of February seems like the best opportunity. Finish off my assignment with some shark nose tapping! Establish dominance!

The trip was concluded with two days of Johannesburg. In short: don't go there! It's number 2 murder capital of the world (ahead of Bagdad!), number 1 in assaults, number 3 in car jackings and number 2 in kidnappings. Only Colombia has them beat on the last category.

Everything there happens inside. People go to malls or stay home. Home is where the heart is... and the alarm, the sensors, the guards, the dogs and the electrical fence! But apparently, even the mall is not safe! Some store attendant there hit the floor a millisecond after a few meters away some kid's balloon popped. We were still registering the sound and this guy was already drafting his testament from underneath the counter!

The only reason to visit Joburg would be the Apartheid museum. Tough luck! It wasn't open during my stay, but James and Sharif got to go as their flights were later that day. They confirmed that it does make a lasting impression on you. So, I guess I'll have to add Joburg to my February itinerary as well.

It's now 5 days to my departure back to Froglandia, followed by two weeks of blue Curaçao: the island, not the drink! I guess I can sneak in one more blog entry before the end of year, but in case I don't: Happy Days and a Great 2008!

Freddy Kruger Park

It has been a while and for good reason since I just spent 2 weeks on holidays. It all started on 14 Nov when James arrived here at Maputo. Obviously that was a big moment for him as it was his first trip to da mothalan. It goes without saying that this historic fact was celebrated with alcoholic drinks for the entire two weeks.

The next day his buddy Sharif arrived from New York. Did I mention that he was from New York? How do I describe this guy? Hmmm, imagine taking a big pot and put in there a table spoon of Eddie Murphy, a bucket of Flavor Flav, some Schwarzenegger (just a little bit though. Don't want to inflate the ego), a little diddy or puff of Sean John, a Joey "How you doin'?" Tribbiani pack, a pinch of Dennis Rodman and a good handful of Ali G. Turn on the heat and mix it all up with some of your favourite dance moves from Justin Timberlake and MC Hammer and you have.... Sharif! And, what you didn't know... he's from New York!

The first days were spent in Maputo. Some sightseeing, swimming, shrimp eating, partying and yes, drinking. The highlight of those days? Some dude trying to pick a fight with Sharif over something. We actually still do not know what. Maybe he didn't even know! He might have actually be mentally challenged as his way of 'announcing' the fight was to smash his own glass against his forehead! Yes, you read this correctly. He smashed his own drink against his own head! Never mind the risks of seriously injuring oneself, but just consider the waste of perfectly good alcohol!!!

Next stop? Kruger Park! A park more than half the size of Holland and about 45 times larger than Curaçao. We entered through one of the South gates and immediately saw a whole bunch of crocodiles. They didn't look that menacing though, especially not later that night on my plate. Tastes like chicken, of course!

Half a mile further down the road we saw impala's! Wow! We were extremely impressed with our luck! We just arrived and already saw deer! The three of us had never seen an impala before so we were manoeuvring carefully to take the best shot. Little did we know that these animals are only outnumbered by mosquitoes in the park. Two hours later we were like: Hey ! Impala! Yeah, whatever... (By the way, they don't taste like chicken.)

Over the next 2.5 days we drove and drove and drove around the park. Well... ehhh... technically, I drove and James and Sharif slept but only half of the drive. Safari is quite fun. You drive around slowly and in the meanwhile you stare and stare. You look left, right, up and down in search of a moving object or a silhouette that looks like an animal. Half of the time it's a tree trunk.

Sometimes you drive a full hour without seeing anything (apart from these d*mned impala's) and then all of a sudden I hit the brakes, the boyzzz jolt out of their nap, and we all stare and stare at something in the distance. The reward is great when you spot an animal you haven't seen before in its natural habitat.

And we saw many! We saw Giraffe, Kudu, Warthog, Buffalo, Steenbok, Hippo, Baboon, Waterbuck, Elephant (+babies), Hyena, Springbok (the national symbol of South Africa), an Eagle (!), Bats, Nyala, Rhino, Wildebeest, Zebra, Bushbuck, Grey Duiker, Eland, Ostrich, Vervet Monkey and of course... the King of the Jungle... (no, not Sharif).... the Lion! Now also know by us as 'ohhhhhhh Leoooooooooooooooone'.

The two scariest encounters were with the Lion and with a specific male Elephant who looked seriously pissed off, as if someone took away his TV remote in the middle of a Baywatch reunion special.

The lion encounter was not necessarily scary, but quite tense. We signed up for a night drive and as we were driving along in pitch dark, we came up to a lion who had just eaten and was sleeping on the road. We carefully drove up to him and everyone was taking pictures. Obviously this woke him up. First a big yawn to make sure we were all aware of the fact that our entire head would easily fit in between his yaws. Then he got up and slowly paced along side the vehicle, as if he was sizing it up. In the meanwhile he kept giving us the evil eye! He looked mean and threatening. I swear, if he had a glass of gin-tonic, he would smash it against his forehead!

When a adult male lion looks at you like that from up close, it's scary. You get visions of ending up like Siegfried and Roy! And that was already bad, even before their incident.

The elephant was really scary. It started quite peacefully. I was driving along, the guys were taking their nap and all of a sudden I saw a herd of elephants drinking and bathing in the little river. We stopped and so did a few others behind us. It was a nice sight. All of a sudden a noise! One large male elephant started trumpeting loudly, shaking his head and flapping his ears. Obviously he was pissed off. He started 'jogging' in our direction, increasing his speed as he came closer. He ran up the hill, stopped some 100 meters away from us and checked out the vehicles. There were 2 large safari trucks, one big ass 4x4 and there we were.. 3 tasty, juicy, healthy, fresh, vitamin rich, clean scrubbed boys crammed in a vehicle, affectionately known in Banco Terra as a 'baby Tata'...

Our little Nightmare on Elm Street was about to start! This big fella' quickly came to the conclusion that the small package was definitely the one he could handle and ran straight at us. Obviously the first instinct is to run and run fast. This was also the advise screamed out loud by one of my passengers. The other one shouted in panic "Establish Dominance!". However, we also didn't want to miss the spectacle as we were all holding our camera's to try and get the best action shot.

Problem with Dumbo was that he didn't run in a straight line. The trees might have had something to do with that. So I'm with my left foot pushing down the clutch, the right foot on the verge to putting the pedal to the metal and my left hand (yes, left hand) holding the stick wondering whether I should put it in first gear or in reverse. All depending on the route taken by our 'friend'.

Finally when he was close enough I decided to go forward, but just some 20 meters, since we didn't want to run from the action. Our Bergkamp-like quick change of direction was too much for Mr. Grey as he skidded past us like an Argentinian defender and ended up on the other side of the road. That was a close call! Our hearts were beating, the adrenaline was pumping and I think my guests have only been more scared when seeing mosquitos... Yep, they were roughing it!

PS: Kudu, Ostrich and Springbok also do not taste like chicken.

Next post: Cape Town, which in our books took over the title of the Windy City.