Cape Town, South Africa

Since I have been here, I have been to the V&A Waterfront wharf several times. (victoria and alfred waterfront)

Table Mountain is the backdrop of the town and you can take a cable car to the top, but it has mechanical problems so I couldn't.

Robben Island is where Nelson Mandela was held prisoner, the tours have to be booked in advance so I didn't have time.

I hired my nice cab driver that picked me up from the train station to take me around town. He is a retired Head Master of 27 years and has 3 daughters and a few grandkids here in Cape Town. He was very nice and informative. He took me through a "Township" which are the very poor neighborhoods that the blacks had to live in when Aparteid was being enforced. He said 5 yrs ago he would not have driven through these places but now they are ok. They look like the shantytowns I photographed from the train. I was not going to pull out my camera and take pics as he drove me through there w/ people leering from the street corners. They did have schools and stores and even a bank though.

I upgraded hotels so I could have a functional business center and a restaurant that served dinner. Since I wasn't going out at night, I wanted the ability to eat at the hotel. My new hotel ROCKS!! It is in Camps Bay on the back side of Table Mountain. The pictures with the beach and the rocks...The Hotel is called 12 Apostles....the photo of the white building w/ the pointed rocks in the back....those are called 12 Apostles, there are 12 points that stick out....very pretty on this side.

I also had to find the Brazilian Consulate to get my Visa to meet Ric in Rio, so that was a chore in itself. You have to show funds in your bank account, hotel info in Brazil, flight info, go pay at the Consulate's bank and return w/ a receipt, get passport photos etc. I got it all accomplished and have my Visa and am ready to go.

I also had to change my flights from returning to the states and schedule the flights to Brazil. The agent in the US was difficult to work with, I have 3 different airlines for these flights and had to contact each one to book my flights bc she only made the reservations. Then one airline doesn't have e-tickets, so she was gonna FedEx me the ticket, not enough time. FedEx to Ric in Canada, not sure he would get it either and if his plane were delayed to Brazil, i wouldn't have the ticket there. So she cancelled to ticket and I had to find a travel agent here, book the flight and have them deliver the paper ticket to my hotel.

Plus, I have to restructure the whole sale of my house bc lenders are falling off and the buyer is struggling to qualify. My other tenant didn't pay rent and I am trying to take care of all of this from here. It is hard enough to do it at home. The cost, time difference, I am just stressed and a bit panicky bc all of these loose ends need to be handled. I am grateful to the people at home who are helping me with these issues, Trish, my stepmom is handling my bills, Ron, my realtor is fixing the pool, extending the sales contract, calling my other tenant to get rent etc. Jen is pushing to get this loan done, Ric had to add money to my account. I feel like a train wreck at the moment and helpless.

I can't wait to leave and meet up with Ric in Brazil and be taken care of for awhile.
Plus it's cold and windy here.

Train ride, South Africa

I stayed in Johannesburg for four nights and didn't do anything....I slept and hung out in my room, watched TV, read, did laundry, caught up on all of my blogging. I didn't leave the premises. I was also a bit fearful here.

The ride to the train station was through the hood and I was scared! When we finally boarded the train, they were offering Champagne for the "launch." I drank that in about 2 minutes. Then tea and coffee was offered. I asked for a shot of Jack Daniels. Yes, I got some weird looks from staff and passengers, but I didn't care, I needed something to calm my nerves. Then went back to my compartment and took in the sights. This is an overnight train ride and I meet 3 ladies from the States, they invited me to dinner and we sorta hung out during our meals and down time. I love trains! It wasn't the Amtrak, smooth ride, this one was bumpy and rolly, stop and start. But it was fun.

Traveling in Africa alone is harder than any other country I have been to. It is my second to last leg and I am very tired, plus being solo here is just plain tough. When you travel alone, you have to be on guard anyway, but here, your guard is on "high alert" and that is exhausting. South Africa has a large gang problem from what the locals tell me. Don't go out at night by yourself, watch your wallet and camera, muggings are frequent etc. Plus, in the last 15 months, 108 police officers have been shot. The gangs will bribe an officer, the other gang will find out and take him out. The police officers also have a high suicide rate. Sad and dangerous.

Cape Town is very neat though, and I would come back here to explore, only if I wasn't traveling solo.

More info about Africa....

One thing I noticed is that the African men are very affectionate w/ each other, in a friendly loving manner. When they greet, they will shake hands and then sometimes walk and talk while still holding hands. Or they will shake hands and then lean in and touch shoulder to shoulder. It was very sweet and I liked it.

So, after our safari, we ended up at a nicer hotel and had one day to shop. Since Travis had been with the girls for two weeks straight, he opted to stay home and nap and drink beer. Missy, Shauna and I headed out.

We were warned ahead of time that the guys on the street will sometimes follow you into the curio shops and tell the clerk we are his "guest" without us knowing. This way he makes commission on what we purchase. We would walk into a store then walk out and be bombarded by guys trying to get us to come to their stores or they wanted to escort us to our next destination for a fee. They had business cards for which shop they were working. These people don't take NO for an answer, after the 5th time of saying NO politely, you have to be a bitch to get rid of them....it is really frustrating!! Shauna was very nice but firm and one guy asked me for his business card back bc he thought she wasn't a "nice lady." They just wouldn't leave us alone. We went to a local market and the vendors are very forceful and aggressive to sell. "since you are first customer, I give good price" I fell for that ONCE in Zanzibar and got ripped off. So bartering is the system.....

Since I really liked the Swahili food in Zanzibar, we tried a local restaurant and had a fabulous meal. Chicken, beef, spinach, beans, rice w/ some fabulous sauce, coke in a bottle, it was delectable.

At our hotel, this big funny bird was hanging around and chillin' with the guests.

My cousins and Missy had to load up and leave for home the night before I left for South Africa. I moped around the rest of the night and didn't want them to go. It was wonderful to have company and laugh and not be alone and explore w/ others and fit in w/ my own peoples. I was very sad to see them go.... :(

I opted to have my clothes sent to laundry since they didn't have a laundromat. Mistake. I looked out my window and my clothes were hanging on the clothes line, some were in the dirt, the worst part was they burn all sorts of stuff, leaves, branches, trash etc. So my clothes came back damp and stunk of bad campfire. So at my next hotel in Johannesburg, I had to have them rewashed, I couldn't take it. That was 35,000 shillings well spent. ($35 US)

Oh well, Hakuna Matata. All is good.

THERE'S A MONKEY IN MY ROOM!
During our safari, one of our lodges had a sliding glass door. Missy had already packed up and headed down to the jeep and I was just getting ready to do the same. Our room was on the 2nd floor and had a very small balcony. I headed to close the door and this Velvet Monkey (not the baboons, the white smaller ones) this Velvet Monkey was standing on the rail, hanging onto the roof w/ one hand, sorta stretched out and his red wiener was sticking straight out! He was looking right at me. I thought, "Oh no, this ain't gonna be good." He jumped down into the room and went over to the trash can, tossed it looking for good stuff. All I could say was No.No. No. No. I ducked into the bathroom, grabbed a towel and tried to scare him, like a matador would taunt a bull. And that didn't work out. He came towards me instead of running out the door. I ran out of the room, shut the door and was yelling "there's a monkey in my room! There's a monkey in my room!" I was scared to death. The maid and the maintenance guy came over and banged on the door and the wall and scared him off. I was shaking and really scared, I was surprised how afraid I was, my stomach dropped and I couldn't shake that feeling for awhile. Plus, my camera, phone, all of my stuff was laid out for him to grab. According to maintenance man, he got away w/ something, he thought looked like biscuits, but we didn't have biscuits in our room so I don't know what it was, guess I won't know until I need it.....Scary!!

One tidbit about the Hadzabe Tribe

I forgot to mention that when we visited the Hadzabe tribe (the bushmen), there was a woman who had scars on her cheeks. They were two parallel, inch long lines, looked the the equals sign (=), on each cheek. She was the only one who had this, so I asked about it. The guide told us she cried alot as a baby and in order to keep her from crying, they cut her cheeks like that. So when her tears ran down her face, the salt stung the wound......

sad.

Maasai Tribe, Tanzania

Our last tribe to visit was the Maasai tribe. These people can be recognized by the long, cape-like clothing and the large holes in their ears from the earrings. I think they are usually herders of goats and cattle as well. Similar to the other tribes, Shauna had inquired what gifts would be appropriate to this tribe. Sugar, maize, pens/pencils and learning books for the children to learn their letters. Travis, Shauna and Missy brought the learning materials from the States and we all pitched in for the sugar and maize. Joel is from a Maasai tribe, his family has since moved to town. One sibling is a doctor, his sister lives in Tennessee as a nutrisionist and Joel went to school for 3 years to be a tourguide....very different than this village we visitited. The sign upon arriving said www.maasaivillage.com if you are interested....hmmmmm.

This tribe is off of the beaten path and do not regularly receive gifts or tourist visitors. We were SWARMED!!

The women laid out their hand-made beaded jewlery and would latch a bracelet on our arm and try to make us buy it. Each of us girls had 2 or 3 bracelets on each wrist at one point and not wanting to buy any of them. One woman put a necklace over Missy's head and then plucked a dollar bil from her hand, "I guess I just bought this" Missy said. These women were extrememly aggressive, bickering if one told us 2 dollars while another one said 3 dollars. They were pushing amoungst themselves and than wanted to charge us a dollar to take their picture!! Joel and another tribal gentleman handed out the writing materials and candy to the children and forced them to line up. Pushing and shoving, the little ones didn't even stand a chance.

The man sitting by the hut w/ a stick in his hand was the chief of the tribe. According to Shauna, he was a very nice gentleman....

The housing was well built I thought with a doorway which you had to dogleg left, then right into the hut. This prevented the dirt and wind from coming in. The beds were off of the ground and they built primitive storage racks above them.

At one point, our cook, Abdula was yelling at us to get in the jeep, the crowd was overwhelming us. I don't know if these people are so poor that they just didn't know how to act w/ us or what the deal was. The gifts we brought bc we wanted to help and do something nice for them. I don't need a thousand "thank you's" but I don't want to be swarmed and then given a hard time for not paying a dollar for a picture.....Joel said that the Maasai tribes in town have more "tourist" ettiquet. They let the tourist have some space and browse if they want to shop......Only one woman seemed to be gracious, they younger one w/ the beautiful smile and child on here back. Unfortunatley, Missy and I both didn't enjoy this tribe very much.

Ngorongoro Crater

The Ngorongoro Crater is from a dormant volcano. This water here is a central source for all of these animals.

The lions were right on the road! A male and female sat right on the edge of the road and just took in the sights of all of us tourists. It was too close for comfort for me actually. Our guide, Joel had a habit of pulling right in front of the other jeeps so we had a front row view. All of us would turn around the tourists in the jeep behind us and apologize, shrug our shoulders like "sorry, it's not us." We wanted everyone to be able to see. Anyway, I didn't want to be that close to the lions and didn't stick my head out of the roof for a bit, if you have seen the movie, Safari, you would understand. Our jeep was boxed in and our roof was open, if they chose to make us their lunch, we wouldn't be much of a fight. I wanted to admire from afar. But it all worked out.

We also got to see a cheetah!! Shauna was super excited!! It was all alone, off in the distance laying in the dry grass. You could see it well w/ the binoculars. The cheetah wouldn't get up and run around and kill something, we wanted some action so we decided to talk back to it. Insult the cheetah, tell really bad momma cheetah jokes, try to get it into action. To no avail.....

One thing you don't want to see on the side of the road is a broken down jeep. We tourists aren't too crazy about the idea of being broken down in lion country. Also, if you have to go "pee-pee time" you don't stray from the jeep, you squat right behind the jeep and the boys keep watch. I wasn't super crazy about this idea and Missy and Shauna didn't blink an eye, butt oh well, don't show the lions your tushy and be ready to run w/ your pants around your ankles...

The jeep repair only took a few minutes thankfully.

At one point, we witnessed a zebra fight. These two male zebras, would basically wrestle with their necks and kick up a good dust storm. At the same time, there was a small herd of zebra that were chasing an impala. But is was a game. The impala would run around and through the herd of zebra and then stop. The zebra would speed up and slow down and pick up the chase once again. It was amazing to watch and so funny...then in the rear of the herd, the two males would stop and fight, then join the chase. The zebra don't neigh like horse, nor do they ee-aw like a donkey. They have a high-pitched sound that was very distinct as well as different than any other animal I have heard.

The hippo pool STUNK!! Oh my gosh, our eyes were watering. We also picked up some flies from in the jeep from the pool, they probably wanted to leave the stench as well. The hippos yawn and swim and poop and crawl around on each other in this water. It was neat to see the babies though....I like the pink bellies.