South Africa Is Our Space Mountain

Our first two weeks in South Africa can be easiestly compared to the biggest, baddest roller coaster at an amusement park. This roller coaster provides moments of anxiety, smiles, hilarity and short moments of shear terror while getting a beautiful view of all the scenery at the top.

Upon arriving in Cape Town after our 23 hour marathon journey from Hong Kong tired, hungry and "movied" out we were quickly warned by our taxi driver and accomodations that Cape Town and South Africa as a whole are not safe to walk around in after dark. Being that it is winter here and dark by 5:30pm, this was really going to change the way we have been visiting our stops. Rather than getting up late morning and going to bed late, we now had to get up before 8am!! These words of advice also went against our conscious effort to keep an open mind and be tolerant to our new surroundings.

So with an early start we were out to see the sights of Cape Town for a few days such as V & A Waterfront, District 6 Museum, Table Mountain and Robben Island. The city is stunning with a beautiful harbour and waterfront with the majestic backdrop of Table Mountain, which was named one of the new 7 Nature Wonders Of The World. This touristy area however came as a result of the Apartheid era where colored of all races were moved out of their locales into remote areas throughout the country to make room for white European development. Another remnant of the Apartheid era was Robben Island which we visited (www.robben-island.org.za). Robben Island is SA's version of Alcatraz but older and is now a World Heritage Site. It has been used as a prison, army base, leper colony and a black political prison during Apartheid. It's most famous tenant was Nelson Mandela for 18 of his 27 years of incarceration. From the little we have learned so far of this era it is hard to believe that it ended in only 1995. Although the Apartheid government is over and physical segregation has ended, mistrust, hostility and class/social segregation remains evident. Most businesses have a sign over the entrances still stating "we reserve the right to refuse entry" and you need to be buzzed into many restaurants, stores and services for safety purposes.

To make the most of our time and distance to cover we rented a car and headed east along the rugged coast. SA has a remarkable coastline and we made pitstops in the coastal towns of Hermanus and Mossel Bay where we were lucky enough to see Southern Right Whales in the bay and seals playing in the surf.

Traveling out of the city it became evident accommodations were going to be an issue. Due to the class separation there is a very small percentage of the population that could ever afford to stay in a hotel, so hotels are pretty much non existent outside of the major centers. Therefore, B&B's are the majority of accommodations but make it very difficult for a family of four like ours to find a room since not many families travel within this country. Judging from the guest books in the B&Bs not many foreigners visit outside of the major centers.

From the beautiful coastline it was inland towards Graaf Reinet. Graaf Reinet is a small historic town with oodles of heritage homes and buildings which are now Guest Houses, Museums, Restaurants... We had an amazing cozy 100 year old home complete with security gates, alarm system and electric fence which I am assuming are not original! I guess it doesn't matter if you are in the city or middle of nowhere, this country has the same issues throughout. Within five minutes of arriving at our rental house while unloading our bags into the house we came out to find a gentleman going through our car which made for an uncomfortable few minutes but all ended well. Once we settled down we ended up having a great couple days making our way to the local National Park for a view of the Valley Of Desolation (sounds fun, eh?), since it is winter here we were welcomed with snow flurries, wore ponchos for an extra layer and socks on our hands. After that with the car heat on full blast we took our Volkswagen Polo hatchback on a wildlife game drive, as long as we encountered no predatory animals we figured we would be fine. With the frigid temps we were the only vehicle on the game drive route so we followed our own path and saw tonnes of wildlife and were lucky enough to see Kudu, Wildebeest, Springboks, Red Hartebeest, Blesbok, monkeys, Meerkats and a Jackal.

From there we started making our way towards Durban and things started to get a little sketchy. Due to the Relocation Act during the Apartheid era many blacks were moved to a stretch of land called Transki (sp?) on the south coast and there is apparently some hostility lingering. We were warned upon making our way through this stretch not to stop and pay attention when making our way through the towns on the route. I would have rather been dumb to this prior because this made for some very anxious moments in traffic on this route but all for not and we reached Durban safely with full bladders.

Upon reaching Durban we were welcomed with beach, sun and surf. It is apparently summer year round here and it was nice to throw the shorts and flip flops on again. We toured the area visiting the aquarium, walking the Esplanade and visiting the mall. Visiting the mall had a purpose though as the kids visited the Wave House, as Durban is a surfing mecca it also has a mechanical indoor style wave machine for surfing and boogie boarding. The kids loved surfing one more time but paid the price with blue lips, chattering teeth and extremely sore backs the next day.

With limited time before our safari we are hurrying up to Johannesburg for a few days. We will touch base again after if we make it out of here alive...lol!

Bye for now?