Let’s begin with last night, however, or rather, early this morning. You see, we were awakened at roughly 1am by the guttural growls of a territorial monkey who must’ve been perched on our roof or somewhere very close by. Being completely confused, I thought that perhaps it was the wakeup call, until I checked my camera (doubling as my watch) to see that it was clearly not the case. It stopped after 5 or 6 calls, so I went back to sleep. A short while later, around 1:45am, Mr. Monkey decided he needed to howl some more, although he was farther away this time. Between the head cold and the howling, this was once again a poor night of sleep.

Wakeup came at 6am, upon which I threw on some clothes and made my way to the lodge for an apple and some morning tea to get things started. About 6:45, we climbed into the open-air Land Rover featuring a seat out in front of the vehicle for the Tracker, 10 seats for guests tiered in rows of 3, plus a seat for the Ranger and a place on the dashboard for his .375 bolt-action rifle. Considering that it was in the 40s when we started, we were given a heavy blanket and a bladder full of hot water to keep ourselves warm. Let me preface this by saying that words cannot do this full justice and pictures will eventually make its way up here when I can get enough internet access to post them.

Throughout the next 3 hours, we traversed roads, dirt paths, brush, bushes, trees, and pretty much anything that got in our way. Our first animal sighting was a lone young elephant that was feeding itself on the side of the road. Following that, we came across a few Impalas, which, in fact, are not crappy American cars stranded in the wilderness, but are related to the antelope and look somewhat like deer. These were everywhere throughout the course of the day and are generally food for some other predator. Then we decided to up the ante a bit as we went off-road for the first time. The next animals we went to see were lions. First we passed by a lioness who was sunning herself and sleepy, so we then found her male counterpart in the brush, eating grass. It will be tough to imagine this, even with the pictures, but our Land Rover was “parked” in a ditch at a strange angle, leaving us (by design) roughly 5-10 feet from the lion. Of course, I was on the side of the vehicle closest to said lion, so in the event he should decide grass wasn’t so tasty and human would be much better, I’d have been first on the menu. Eventually he decided he’d had enough grass, so we followed him back to the lioness where he proceeded to lay down in the sun and stare at us for a while, before turning on his side to catch some rays. We came upon a watering hole next that featured a crocodile sunning itself and a belligerent hippo making his presence known to all. Apparently hippos are actually timid creatures when confronted by other animals, except for when humans surprise them. Guns don’t kill people, hippos do.

Moving along, we soon came across a pair of buffalo. Buffalo have some quite large horns on them; however, they too are herbivores and were eating grass as we followed them around. I should mention that in our particular game reserve, which is a private part of the Kruger National Park, there are 7 lodges that share information amongst each other when they go out on drives. While it seems like cheating, it’s a great way to ensure that the guests see what they want to see while out on the drives. I bring this up now because this is how we found our next animal, a female leopard. We followed her for a long time, hoping that she would bring us to her cubs. Instead, she brought us through ever-increasing brush, getting us stuck numerous times on rocks and branches before we got as far as we could go without encroaching on someone else’s property. I should also mention that the Tracker, who is responsible for pointing out any animals in the distance along with the direction the Land Rover should go while off-road, is getting hit in the face by a variety of tree branches, many with extremely long and sharp thorns. He is a brave man.

At this point, it was time to stop for a bit of tea and stretch our legs before heading back to the lodge. On our way back, we happened upon a giraffe. Giraffes, for being as tall as they are, blend in exceedingly well if you are not looking for them. Apparently giraffes have no social structure and just sort of roam as they please. They are able to use their long, sticky tongue and flexible lips to eat the leaves from the thorniest trees. These trees have these thorns because their leaves are the tastiest. Giraffes laugh at their efforts…or something. Unfortunately, though giraffes can run quite fast due to having 6-foot-long legs, they are food for lions, which are rather smart when it comes to hunting and usually find a way to make the giraffe fall down before going to town on it.

So all of that happened in 3 hours. Crazy, right? This was just the beginning. Breakfast was a delicious spread of eggs, beans, sausage, bacon, sautéed onions, mushrooms and tomatoes, yogurt, and fruit. Once that was finished, it was time to get ready for the bush walk. As I came out of our cabin, I noticed a rather large antelope-like animal standing 10 feet from the porch. Not knowing exactly what it would do, I hung out on the porch for a bit and took pictures of it and some birds until it sat down and looked docile. I then swung out the other side of the porch and took the long way around to the lodge to go on the walk.

There were two rules for the bush walk – always stay behind the rifle, and listen to any instructions the ranger gives. Seemed easy enough. We got to observe rule #2 pretty quickly, as we were walking out the front entrance of the camp only to find a pack of elephants feeding about 25 feet away, including one pissed-off mama elephant. The mama took 3 charging steps in our direction as we stood still and silent, before it returned to eating grass with the others. We took a bit of a detour to get in better position to view them while also waiting for them to move along. Eventually they left, and we went to take the long route around the camp to get to the watering hole that those elephants would most likely be heading towards.

Once we arrived there, we noticed a hippo in the water, giraffes in the distance, and a large male elephant making his way down to the water as well. On the other side of the bank, there were a few Waterbuck (another antelope-like animal), along with some Egyptian Geese (neither geese nor in Egypt) and a Water Monitor Lizard, which is not small and is related to the Komodo Dragon. Eventually, the pack of elephants from before made their way down to the water, where they eagerly paraded through it for a few minutes to cool themselves down. One female elephant decided to stay behind while the pack left, and we were waiting for the hippo to try and assert itself, but it never did. Outside of the few times when hippos bellow and make angry sounds, they’re pretty lame animals; all they do is sit underwater with their eyes and snout sticking out. Once the elephants left, we did the same and returned to the lodge for some rest and a football match to watch.

written by  nucappy on June 15, 2010 from Justicia, South Africa
from the travel blog: London and South Africa - World Cup 2010!
tagged Safari, SouthAfrica and WorldCup
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Having seen so many animals in the morning, there were only a few that we had missed, so we set off in search of some rhinos. We didn’t find them at their usual spot, so our ranger assumed they’d be at the watering hole since it was such a hot day. Sure enough, when we drove down there, we found 4 white rhinos hanging out by the far side of the pool. White rhinos are apparently quite docile unless you surprise them, whereas black rhinos are far more aggressive. So of course, we decided to drive through the brush and get around the other side of the rhinos. Naturally, this surprised them as we came crashing through the brush in the Land Rover, and they got a bit jumpy. We had blocked their path out, or at least the one they assumed they were planning to take, so they started making some grunting noises and moved to within 10 feet of the vehicle. One of these beasts had a horn that was roughly 3 feet long and very pointy – a horn that on a previous drive found its way into the front grille when our ranger accidentally surprised it while it was sleeping. Needless to say, it was a bit anxious as we waited for them to settle down and move along, especially since the vehicle was turned off at the time.

Once the rhinos moved on, we continued our drive past some elephants eating by the side of the road, including one who was on a small hill and looked like it could have easily jumped on the hood of the car as we sat there taking pictures of it. Our ranger got a call on his radio that there was a massive herd of buffalo not too far away, so off we went to go find them.

The guy wasn’t kidding – there were a few hundred buffalo roaming across the landscape eating grass along the way. Naturally, we drove right into the middle of the herd so we could get some good photos as they milled on by. They seem to be very similar to cows, in that they have multiple stomachs, eat grass, and make a sound very similar to mooing. There’s also a good chance that any 11 of them could beat the Buffalo Bills on any given day. As we moved on from the herd, we came across a few stragglers who were wandering around with birds on their backs. Buffalo have a cooperative relationship with these birds, which pick things off their backs that shouldn’t be there. We also learned that many buffalo have had unfortunate encounters with a creature called a Honey Badger, which has a nasty habit of biting the buffalo in its testicles if it happens to walk over its nest. We saw a number of these with scars from such an occurrence.

We took a break for a drink as the sun set, before beginning the most exciting part of the night. Someone had found 3 lions who were on the hunt for some food – most likely the scent of the hundreds of buffalo who had previously roamed by. Using only a spotlight, we moved along with these lions through the darkness and the brush hoping to have them take us to a spot where they would get a kill. There were 1 or 2 other vehicles that were along with us using spotlights as well to keep light on the lions as they walked on. Even after a full day, I still can’t get over how remarkable it is that the presence of these noisy, smelly automobiles along with spotlights doesn’t disrupt or anger the lions in the slightest. The whole time we followed them, they never once stopped or gave the slightest hint that they knew we were there. Unfortunately, it was time for us to head back before the lions reached their objective, so we returned without seeing any action. As a consolation, we passed an owl sitting in the road on the way back. Surprisingly, it didn’t have quite the same impact that 3 lions killing a buffalo would’ve had.

Dinner was another 3-course masterpiece, with a trout appetizer in a creamy dill sauce, followed by a main course of oxtail along with honey mustard chicken, ground maize (looked like rice), savory butternut squash, carrots, beets and green beans, and a dessert of fruit in a sort of custard. I’m pretty sure we’re going to have to go to a diet of bread and water the rest of the trip to make up for how well we’ve eaten here. Following dinner, everyone watched the Brazil-North Korea match expecting Brazil to roll over them. This clearly did not happen, and the game was so dull for a while that the most exciting thing that happened during it was a bat that somehow made its way into the room and flew around in circles for a minute before someone opened the door and it flew out. North Korea made it interesting at the end, but it was not enough to win. I can only imagine that Kim Jong-Il himself will take credit for the most glorious goal and will have the rest of the team summarily executed. Poor guys.

Tomorrow is our last full day here on safari, and I expect it should be another great one.

written by  nucappy on June 15, 2010 from Justicia, South Africa
from the travel blog: London and South Africa - World Cup 2010!
tagged Safari, SouthAfrica and WorldCup
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Our arrival at the airport was our first real taste of the World Cup. Everything at the airport was decked out in World Cup paraphernalia – columns, walls, people. World Cup sponsors were handing out free Coke, free chocolate, free visitor packets with ponchos. There were fans of various countries – Ivory Coast, Ghana, Mexico, USA, Netherlands – but none were as rowdy as the Chileans, who were already dressed in their jerseys, flags & hats, blowing their horns. Mind you, this was at 9am. There were a few scattered Vuvuzuelas being blown around the main atrium as we waited to pick up our tickets. Got our phone card during the wait too. After roughly 2 hours, we had our tickets, our luggage and our rental car, so it was time to head to Kruger Park and the Sabi Sand Game Reserve.

So. The rental car. First off, it’s manual transmission, which eliminates me from driving it. Second, they drive on the left side of the road in South Africa. Third, we’re in the Southern Hemisphere, and so as we were driving during the middle of the day, I suddenly realized that the sun moves from east to west across the northern part of the sky instead of the southern. That threw me for a loop. We started off the trip right by missing the exit onto the first highway, so we had to circle through the airport before getting back to it. The highways are as nice as any American highway around Jo’burg, so it was quite easy travel for the first couple hours. We grabbed lunch at a Wimpy Burger, which appears to be a chain across South Africa. Eventually we made it to Nelspruit, which is a World Cup city. Due to a wrong turn, we were able to pass by the stadium, which looked quite nice, as did the rest of the city.

As we continued onward towards the park, it began to get much more local. The roads became one lane, and we started to see the locals out and about. There were signs all over the place for “High Accident Zones”, which weren’t necessarily for car-to-car interactions. People hang out on the side of the road, they walk on the side of the road, they cross the streets at any given moment. The women walk around balancing anything and everything on their heads – it is really remarkable. One woman was carrying a pizza box on her head! Many people waved as we went by. Eventually we made it out towards the park area as darkness was quickly approaching.

Things got a bit trickier once we turned off the paved roads. Each time we thought we were at our destination, we had more kilometers to go. We managed not to get lost up until the very end, when we were supposed to “follow the arrows” to the lodge. We did ok at first, until we saw a jackrabbit in the road right in front of us that started bouncing away. Eventually, it turned to the right, just beneath a sign that said “Deliveries ->”. Seeing no other signs, we went that way…and wound up at a fence. Fortunately, a staff member heard us making crazy car noises and opened up the fence so we could finally enter the lodge.

We arrived in time for dinner, which was absolutely fantastic. A full 3-course meal, with all of the lodge guests, in the round, with a fire in the middle. 5 people were from Argentina, 3 others from the US, and 2 Australians. Dinner was served earlier in the night than usual to accommodate the football match between Italy and Paraguay that was starting at 8:30. Everyone was very friendly and it was fun to be watching the match all together. Unfortunately, jet-lag caught up with us and we left at halftime.

Tomorrow, the real safari fun begins!

written by  nucappy on June 14, 2010 from Johannesburg, South Africa
from the travel blog: London and South Africa - World Cup 2010!
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We met up with a college friend of the girls who walked through the park with us, and took us to a place to grab some lunch. As it turned out, it was Guy Ritchie’s pub, called The Punch Bowl, and was quite nice inside. Then we saw the menu. Apparently, Sunday is “Roast Day” in London, and so the usual pub food was pushed aside in favor of rather exquisite-looking dishes with prices to match. Not wanting to just walk in and walk out again, we had a drink before heading out in search of a place with cheaper food and TVs to watch the football. We found one right near Piccadilly Circus, which is the closest thing to Times Square that London has to offer. If there is one word that describes London right now, it would be “construction”. I have to imagine it is all in preparation for the 2012 Olympics that will be held there in 2 years. It’s a bit unfortunate, as a good chunk of Piccadilly was covered in scaffolding being used for renovations along with many, many other areas around the city. I suppose perhaps this is the upside to Chicago not getting the 2016 games, although the city sure could’ve used the extra money to renovate certain things.

Following the meal, it was time to head back to the hotel to collect our things and head off to the airport, where I am currently watching Germany run circles around Australia as we await our 11-hour flight to Jo’burg.

I have to be able to get some sleep on this flight, right?

written by  nucappy on June 13, 2010 from London, United Kingdom
from the travel blog: London and South Africa - World Cup 2010!
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Following the game, it was time to finish up all last-minute packing, dishes and laundry before heading out at 3 to go to the airport. Naturally, it would’ve been too easy to have everything go smoothly, and so we ran into the first problem of the trip before we even left. Our plan was to go to Chelsea’s stadium, Stamford Bridge, to watch the US-England match Saturday night. Well, as it turned out, the tickets, instead of being held at the stadium, were sent to Chicago. Only problem is that the post office declined to deliver them to Ryan. So Friday afternoon, as we were ready to leave, I had to try and pick them up from the post office since Ryan was leaving from work. After a 20-minute song and dance with the guy at the post office who told me he could lose his job if he gave me the tickets but that he wouldn’t necessarily not give them to me, I was able to get them and finally head off to the airport.

Between the hassle of the L, the shuttle at the airport, the process of checking bags and getting tickets, and then the security lines, we got to the gate with about 30 minutes before they closed the gate. Not too long after settling our bags down, I see a woman with 3 roller bags struggling to move them all over to a chair, followed by her yelling at…somebody. Turns out it was her husband and son, and it was merely a preview of what was to follow for the next 8 hours. These people were acting like they were at home – they didn’t quite understand how to act in public. Once we got on the plane, it was merely a matter of moments before the same commotion came into our area, and sure enough, the crazy family was sitting directly behind us. Fantastic. Carrying over from the gate area, they were unable to follow any directions from the flight attendants, dumped all of their trash under our seats, yelled at each other during the flight, kicked our seats continuously, couldn’t figure out the video system at their seats, the mother cried because her son was elbowing her yelling “This has GOT to stop!”, and so on. For 8 hours. Needless to say, I couldn’t be happier to get off the plane.

London, here we are.

written by  nucappy on June 12, 2010 from Heathrow, United Kingdom
from the travel blog: London and South Africa - World Cup 2010!
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Our hotel was up in the Regent Park neighborhood northwest of the downtown area. It’s a very residential area that is peaceful to walk through as it wound its way up towards the hotel. Being the one who planned out our time in London, I was eager to get going into the city to get a guided tour of St. Paul’s Cathedral, recommended to me as the best place to see all of London from above. Of course, when it comes to trips, it’s impossible to always plan everything perfectly, and people wanted to do silly things like “take a shower” or “eat food” first. And so, our first meal in the marvelous cosmopolitan international city of London was….McDonalds.

We did make it down to St. Paul’s eventually, although too late to get the guided tour. It is an absolutely beautiful place, with a towering dome covered in vast murals and the typical gold-painted, well, everything, often found in Catholic churches. Words can’t quite do it justice, however photography was not allowed, so words will have to suffice. Our main goal there was to get to the top, however, and so it was time for a bit of stair-climbing. 528 stairs to be exact, I believe. It started off easily enough, with the first 267 or so being wide, shallow stairs in a circle. That led to the whispering gallery, which is a balcony around the inside of the dome, and at which point I was yelled at for wearing my hat indoors (sorry God). The next set of stairs was considerably more narrow and more steep. This led to an outdoor area where we were able to see some of the cityscape, but with some obstructions in the way. Finally, we headed up the claustrophobic part of the stairs, where even I with my considerably, er…average, stature, had to duck to avoid smashing my head into the ceiling. At last, at the top, we had a full view of the city, albeit one in which the width of the balcony was roughly 1 person wide. It led to lots of shuffling around as we squeezed past one another in order to get our photographs before descending all the way down to the bottom. My calves think otherwise, but it was certainly worth it.

Next on the agenda was a walking tour of the city provided by London Walks, a company that will take you all over the city of London discussing a variety of specific things, such as the Beatles, Jack the Ripper, or Harry Potter. I decided we should take the highlights tour of the city, having only a day and a half to see it all. From the cathedral, it should’ve been an easy Tube ride to get to the meeting point, however, as I had mentioned above, iron gates were the theme of the day. Transfering between lines in the tube is not quite like Chicago, where you stay on the same track or maybe go upstairs to switch lines. In London, you walk. A lot. Also you go up and down stairs. In our case, we walked from one station, through a second unrelated station, and as we were headed towards our actual destination, found yet another iron gate blocking us, at which point we needed to walk the entire way back to get out of the underground. We were in a bit of a time crunch, so we grabbed the nearest cab. Our cabbie, smoking a Sherlock Holmes pipe and having teeth numbering in the single digits, got us to where we needed to be in time.

Our tour guide was a boisterous woman named Judy with the requisite dry British sense of humor. We began at the Tower of London, where we boarded a boat to take us down the Thames river towards Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. The boat was a bit late picking us up, because, as our luck would have it, today was the Queen’s birthday, and a 42-gun salute was being performed on the river, delaying all traffic. Our guide on the boat was an extremely sarcastic guy who was quick with the jokes while giving us some mostly correct facts about various buildings we passed along the way. I say mostly correct, because, as he told us, “I’m not part of a professional tour company, I’m crew on this boat, so don’t correct me on my facts because, well, I don’t care.” After disembarking, we began our walk around the Houses of Parliament and swung past Westminster Abbey, where all things royal (weddings funerals, etc) take place. We made our way around to St. James’ Park, which has a view of Buckingham Palace, then winding around to a large square where the Royal Horse Guard was being changed. Earlier in the day it had been the site of the processional surrounding the Queen’s birthday events. At last we walked up to Trafalgar Square, commemorating the battle of the same name and Admiral Nelson, who led the British troops. By this point, our legs were feeling pretty tired, and it was time to find some dinner before heading off for the US match.

We happened upon a small place that was showing the football match and had fish and chips. These were our 2 qualifications. As luck would have it, they also served Amstel Beer. Mind you, this is not Amstel Light, but regular Amstel. 4 years ago in Amsterdam on a 90+ degree day, Ryan and I had some Amstel in a bar and declared it the greatest beer ever. While the fact that it was so hot that even Budweiser would’ve tasted good probably swayed our opinion, the point is that it had been 4 years since we last had it and we were eager to try it again. The verdict: still decent beer, however, not the greatest in the world. With the required fish-n-chips meal devoured, it was gametime.

Following even more Tube difficulties, we made it to Stamford Bridge, home of the Premier League-winning Chelsea. While we had thought the stadium was going to be open with a big screen to watch the match, instead it was being shown in a suite. There were probably a few hundred people there to watch, and there may have been 3 other Americans aside from the 4 of us. Did I wear my US jersey? Yes. Did I stand up during the national anthem and turn around while holding up the crest on the jersey? Yes. Did I get roundly booed by everybody? Absolutely. As anyone who watched the match knows, the US got off to a horrible start in the 4th minute, and I feared we would be crushed. The team stiffened up and played much better after that though, and redemption came in the 40th minute at the hands of Robert Green. Lucky goal? Sure, but I’ll take it. Ending in a draw was most likely the best possible outcome of the night, as it kept the English fans from ragging on us while simultaneously preventing them from wanting to kill us had we won. Out on the streets, we were congratulated on the US’s performance and told to be safe on the streets by a guy who, in a random group of 15 people, would be selected as the man most likely to stick a knife in our side in anger. He had scraggly hair, tattoos all up and down his arms, and may have been missing a few teeth, but he was representative of the people we would see throughout the night.

Ryan and I decided to check out the bar scene following the match, expecting to see tons of people out and about, commiserating or celebrating the result. Maybe we went to the wrong part of the city, but it was decidedly quiet. We settled on a pub, had a drink, talked to a very drunk kid who spent the whole time telling us how he was going to root for the US and that England “was shit”. He repeated this many times. At that point, I was completely drained and it was time to head home.

I have to say though, that London went completely against all expectations I had in terms of soccer. I was expecting England jerseys everywhere throughout the day, people ragging on us for wearing US gear, and loads of people out drinking after the match was over. It was not to be. The most we ended up seeing were lots of car flags and one or two drunk people giving us a hard time, but mostly in jest.

More London tomorrow.

written by  nucappy on June 12, 2010 from London, United Kingdom
from the travel blog: London and South Africa - World Cup 2010!
tagged London and WorldCup
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