I'm Back! Kruger commentary

Hi Readers!

I hope everyone had a fantastic Annual Zombie Day!  ;)

I'm back.   The hubs got frustrated with not being able to keep up with the blog so I will be finishing up on our amazing holiday in South Africa. 

We know we are adorable.

Before getting into our trip along the garden route, just a quick summary of our Kruger safari trip...

Scary road with trucks barreling at us

First of all, mad props to hubby for taking on ALL of the driving on our two road trips after being in the country and driving on the wrong side of the road for all of like 4 days.    I intended to drive, but soon after we left Joburg on our way to Kruger, I flat out refused. I saw what I'd have to deal with and it was "nope, nope, nope and nope."  If I was the sole driver, I'm not sure I would have forged on.   The road went from a normal-for-Africa highway into a 2 lane undivided 120km/hr road through the mountains.   To make it worse, we took my car, which has absolutely no acceleration and barely makes it up little hills.   This made passing all of the mining and logging trucks absolutely terrifying since you had to pass in opposing traffic on a highway with cars speeding at you.  In retrospect, we should have rented a SUV for the trip and we should have then flown directly from Kruger to the Cape, instead of coming back to Joburg first.  

Little Phil doing an amazing job at driving!

This trip was our first experience with B&B's.   I resisted a little because I'm a Marriott Loyalist and I love my points, but I'm infinitely grateful we decided to do the B&B thang.   It made our trip so much more intimate and meaningful.  Each home on our journey added a special touch and special memories.  It was much more than just being a number and worrying about whether or not I received all my "benefits".

Our first B&B, was Blue Jay Lodge in Hazyview.   We were running way behind due to road construction and getting caught behind a never ending stream of logging trucks.   The owners Phil and Marjorie with beyond accommodating.  Phil met us at the car and personally showed us to our room with a smile.  He then showed us our amenities and explained everything we needed to know about the property and the surrounding area.   He handed us a paper with their favorite restaurants in the area and directions.   The room itself was spacious and included touches like a fully stocked bar and  candles (and matches) by the over-sized tub.  Obviously, my heart was won right there.  Our room also had a porch over looking the garden and pool.  Each room is named after a bird in the area and information on the room's namesake is included in each room.  Very cute!

We missed breakfast our first  morning due to an early safari.   Phil and Marjorie would have sent us with a box breakfast if we had let them know in advance.   The next day they opened the continental breakfast a half our early so we could eat before our tour.   The last morning we actually made it to breakfast during normal hours (even though we were late due to Phil misplacing the keys and locking us IN our room for 45 minutes).   Breakfast also include eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms and bacon in addition to cereal, cold meats and cheeses and fruit and yogurt.

Each evening the couple also hosts a happy hour on their porch where they share stories of the area and their experiences with guests.   We found this a very nice touch and a great way to meet other travelers.

We highly recommended staying with Phil and Marjorie at Blue Jay Lodge.

Some Kruger highlights:

Creepy selfie with an elephant who came by to check us out

tiny baby elephant! So special!

Potholes!

God's Window

  

Hippo Yawn!

Phil is now on his way to Abu Duabi to finish up his trip and I've just spent the last few hours cleaning and catching up on 2 weeks of work.   Time for sleep in my very lonely bed. :(
Stay tuned for reviews on the rest of our trip this week!

Guest Blog #2

Monday, March 13th

Today was the first day that I drove Penny (A VW Polo) for an extended amount of time. Driving from the Hotel Nicol to the EastGate Mall is a straight shot which sounds easy right? Try driving there on the left side of the road! Also, half of the stop lights do not work on the way to the mall and stop signs are not exactly followed. Drivers sometimes stop, sometimes drivers yield though stop signs or sometimes drivers disregard them all together. The key is to drive defensively and hug the right side of your lane. If you are American, you will want to hug the left side of the lane, don’t do that or you will be eating curb.

I spent about 2.5 hours walking around the mall. I was searching for some binoculars for our Safari trips. I found some Brunnels which are pretty good. I purchased the Brunnels at Cape Union Mart which is like a South Africa REI. I purchased a set that was10X42 setting meaning 10 times closer and 42 for the size of the lens.

After coming home from the mall, I took a short nap. After about an hour, Melissa came home and we decided to go out to Melivlle and eat at Six Bar.  Melivlle, is like WickerPark of the 90’s which was kinda comforting and nostalgic. The food was decent, it was typical bar food with a South African twist. The drinks were pretty cheap and were two drinks for the price of one. The one thing I like about US bars is that no one smokes inside the bar. After sitting at the bar eating our diner for an hour, we smelled like an ashtray =(

Tuesday, March 14th

I woke up today and went back to the EastGate Mall. I went back because when I opened up the box, the wrong binoculars were in there! Cape Union Mart was very accommodating of exchanging the wrong binoculars with the right one. After returning from the store, I met with Father Vincent Mkhabela. He was nice to drive all the way to BedfordView to pick me up to at the Nicol. Father Vincent took me to a Catholic Store to replenish supplies for his church and introduced me to several Filipino nuns. To my surprise, his command of the Filipino Language is very superb. This man really understood Filipino culture and spoke with the nuns in Tagalog!  Father Vincent then took me through a driving tour of Johannesburg. He took me to Little Italy, Asia town and ChinaTown. We had great chat at lunch and I am happy that this man is part of the Catholic Church that I grew up to believe in. This man has done so much for people in general and is a really good soul. After lunch Melissa and I went and had a fancy ten course dinner at Cube. WOW!  I’m not really into fancy dinners but I was highly impressed!

 

Wednesday, March 15th

Melissa and I went to work later today at Simba. Her co-workers had a braai. A braai is a South Afrian bbq. They cooked all sorts of meat and I got to meet Melissa's co-workers who were all very nice. After work, we headed toward Kruegar. It took us about five hours to get to Kruegar. The highway was pretty good till we left the Johannesburg area. After the Johannesburg area, driving gets really weird. Here are some things that annoying things about driving outside of the Johannesburg area:

People run across the highway and tons of hitchhikers.
Baboons and Vervet monkey also run across the highway.
No one follows the speed limit.
In some areas there are no highway dividers so you have to pass people by going into oncoming traffic at 140km.
There is very little warning for any change in the road (exits, merging, speed modification)
There doesn't seem to be a minimum speed limit

We got to HazyView Holiday Town around 7:45pm. We phoned ahead to let our B&B folks, Blue Jay Lodge, know that we were going to be late. They happily accommodated us. Once we got our keys we went to a local chain called Spur. The weird thing about Spur is that they use a Native American Sioux chief as their logo and then each restaurant uses an ‘Americana’ word as part of their local title like ‘Alaska’ or ‘Kansas,’ you’ll get the idea.

Wood trucks slow everything down

Not a double rainbow

Thursday, March 16th

We got up at the crack of dawn for our 10hr safari! We had to get up at 4:30am but let me say. Safari’s are fucking awesome. If you ever get a chance to go on a safari, take the opportunity. I highly recommend it. It is so neat to to see animals in their natural environment interacting with each other, hunting each other and just seeing them the way they were meant to be.

Tasty

Where is santa?

 

Friday, March 17th

Today we did the Panorama route. We contracted with Viator.com, which hooked us up with a Mbombela Experience Tours and Transfers and we got hooked up with a guy by the name of Netto. Netto was the first Black South African I was able to actually talk to besides Melissa's Co-Workers. He was around our age and I felt a sense of honesty from him. The whole way though the Panorama route, we talked about politics, race relations, Mandela, apartheid and a host of things. The Panorama route is a site seeing tour of some of the cool locations around Kruegar. After the Panorama route we wanted to do another safari but were told that the gate to the park was in a dangerous area and that a TownShip is really close and they thought that leaving the park at 8pm would not be safe. If you are wondering what a TownShip is, please see the following movies:

District9
Chappie

Because we couldn't go to Kreuegar again, we instead went to the HazyView Lodge and watched Hippopotamus in the river. After that, we went to the local bar and watched men rugby.

 

 

Saturday, March18th

Today we left Hazyview =( I want to come back. One the way back we stooped at the Sudwala Caves. We did a lot of hiking at the cave. After Sudwala Cave we came back home to Hotel Nicol to prepare for the Garden Route....

 

Next Week..... The Garden Route!!!

Guest Blog 1 of 3 - Im in Jozi "now now" or "just now"

Hi,

It's the 90's again and I'm going to be blogging about all the crazy things I did this past weekend and talking shit, NOT!

In actuality, I'm writing this post as a guest blog for Melissa. Yup, it's me, Mariano Phillip Penaflorida Yogore IV or you can refer to me as Little Phil for those that know.

After a 23hr layover in Abu Dhabi I arrived in Jo-Berg on Saturday. My immediate first impression going through the jet bridge and feeling the outside air, was that it's not scalding hot. So right away, I need to say this. If you grew up in the United States like I did, throw many of the assumptions you have away because a lot of what we see and hear about Africa in general is not true, especially in South Africa. In South Africa, Simba from the Lion King is not waiting outside of the airport to eat you, Shaka Zula and his warriors will not attempt to throw spears at you and there aren't kids dying right in front of you of malnutrition that you can save for 50 cents a day.

So anyways, as I walked through the terminal, I got stopped a total of three times on the way to the arrival area. The first time I got stopped was for passport control. Very typical interaction here. They asked me how long I was staying and stamped my passport.  After this stop, I walked about 100 meters and made eye contact with three officers that were standing near an "agricultural check" sign.  He signaled me to come over and I did. He asked me, if I had anything to declare and if I have any beef jerky on me. Weird Right! Then after 10 meters I got stopped again by another set of three officers standing near a "customs check" sign. Alarm bells went off in my head and said "Here comes the American shake down,"These guys are going to ask me for money so I can get into the country." I've seen and have had family deal with the similar issue going to the Philippines. Instead, they asked me some really bizarre questions like "Where does your wife work? How long have you been married? When did you get married? and so on and so on." Out of all the people that walked by, I did not see anyone else get stopped., maybe I look shady. After going through these three checks and trying to navigate the crappy internet of the airport, I was saw to this sign!

I feel loved!

After we got home and unpacked we went out to dinner right away  at The Baron. The closest thing I can think of that is like the baron in the US is a nicer Ponderosa. This is where I first saw how strong the US Dollar was. I didn't want to get anything super fancy so I ordered a burger which was around 88 rand. That sounds like a lot right? Turns out that 88 rand is about $5.80. I decided to live it up a little and order a steak for $150 rand which is a little under $10.

THANKS OBAMA!

After dinner, we had a couple of drinks at the The Hotel Nicol, Melissa's place of residency since late October. We drank our South African 5hr energies and Uber'd off to Taboo Night Club for Black Coffee's Birthday party. All I have to say is WOW! Great party! Lots of people there, tons of diversity from different Europeans to Afrikaans to Coloreds to Americans and everything between. Great vibe, lots of dancing and we talked to a lot of locals who were happy to talk about the local music scene. I have to say, not a lot of attitude there at all. We stayed out till about 4:30am. It was well worth staying up for. If anyone with a Chicago-centrific view on house music believes it's not progressing anywhere, please see Johannesburg. It's enjoyable to hear house music on multiple radio stations, several stores in the mall and on TV. You will find the scene well, alive and burning! 

The next day we went to Groenkloof Nature Reserve and walked 10K. 10K on flat Chicago streets is a breeze. Walking 10K on a rugged mountain up and down took us 4hr and our muscles were screaming in pain. Shouts out to my co-workers, BM and CG for suggesting hiking gear, what a blessing! Along our hike we saw Zebra, Ostrich, Blue Wildebeest, Cranes and Red Hartebeest. Here are two animals we saw:

Striped horse

Red Hartebeest

After that, we had dinner at Ocean Basket. I give it 3 out of 4 mehs. After spending our nicely valued American earned coin, we had drinks and went to bed....

I need to go to bed. I'll try to update next Sunday.

plur

Runnin' around Joburg.

Another busy week in Jozi :)

Here's the highlight reel:

I found the most magical sports massage therapist ever.  Big shout out to Tammy from Bodyologie in Bedfordview. Not only is she an amazing person, she's a miracle worker.  When I hopped off the table it was the first time in over two years my calves felt normal and that miracle was in addition to fixing the actual reason I was there... my shoulders been messed up for weeks. I blamed it on my non magical pillow but I think it's just my old lady shoulder. She also gave me a foot reading.   My right big toe says I need to cry more.  Probably true.   It's been a long time since I had a good cry.

But seriously if you are one of my SA readers... Tammy at Bodyologie.

The thing I am going to miss most when I leave is the people. I was actually a bit teary eyed driving to work on Friday thinking about it.  I'm just starting to form real relationships and friendships.  I have a little party crew I now go out with about once a week. This week they took me to Katzys, a loungey place with live bands in Rosebank to see Dr. Victor and the Rasta Rebels a famous Joburg cover band. While reminiscent of a wedding band, they were very good.  The DJ that played between sets was also good and genuinely a good person with an amazing back story. Turns out he's the DJ our company uses at events.  Although at one point he gave me a shout out and a bunch of dudes ran up to pet me and take my picture.  It freaked out my friends who haven't witnessed that phenomenon yet,  but while I still don't fully get it, it's not as shocking as it initially was and I don't think I was being kidnapped this time. There was one guy there from Evanston, Il randomly. For the record, he didn't try to pet me.

There are outdoor markets w/ crafts and booze and food and music almost everyday of the week.  I'm trying to make it to as many as I can as it gives me the opportunity to check out different parts of the city. I made it out to Linden Saturday for a pop up market, that was super cute and fun. The town it self was cute and a little quirky with a lot of sidewalk cafes and small art galleries. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday morning.

Gelato at the Market

The highlight of the weekend was the HyundaiRock the Run 10k in Sandton. It was pretty awesome but it kicked my ass with all its hills and heat and altitude which I should be used to but I'm not. It's a perfect justification for  having a super lazy afternoon, writing by the pool, with a water bottle full of Moscow Mules. Yum. 

I told them to smile.

The race was two 5k loops around the city center, which, although it is the new Central Business District , it's tiny tiny. I think Madison, WI is bigger or at least more of a pain in the ass to drive in.  I'm not exactly sure how this works, but I feel like 90% of the course was at a 90% incline. Seriously.  Which means most people walked and created a lot of weaving for the runners.
This being my first international race a few interesting comparisons:

The streets weren't 100% closed, which meant occasionally cars pushed there way through intersections or out of hotel garages.  Water was dispensed in little condom like balloons and instead of sports drink there was Coke.  I normally don't take gels for anything less than 10 miles but I'm glad I did, because there was no post race snacks just more Coke.  Also other than the bands on the course there was Zero crowd support. Literally zero. Not even a few family members sprinkled around.

I'm not whining...  I had a great time.  As my friends keep telling me:  "TIA, Melissa, TIA."   (This is Africa).

F-ing Hills

This is what I think of you hill.

After I finished, I almost had a Madison Mini 2013(?) repeat where I vomited on Main Street and then passed out.  Thus I had my first visit to the Med tent ever. No vomiting or passing out, but I was doing the beginning of the heat/dehydration dance as I stumbled in.   Quick glucose and blood pressure tests and a few minutes in the shade I was fine and able to meet my friends for smoothies. I ended up staying to eat from the food truck caravan (yay post-race pizza) and give myself some time to stabilize.  I'm glad I did.  The featured band, Mi Casa, may be one of my new favs. A Chicago House flavor mixed with a African vibe.  As they say in Afrikaans they are Leker!  And they have horns. I'm a sucker for a horn section.

Yay!  We survived!!

Mi Casa is up there somewhere

6 sleeps until the hubby arrives! He's getting his safari clothes sorted (no, really he is).  Look forward to some guest posts from the notorious Little Phil. :). I can not wait to have him experience thecountry that I am falling in love with more and more each day and see it through his eyes.