Neatherlands and France (so far)

Well the trip is almost over but it feels like the best is yet to come.... i.e. mountain biking in Chamonix. But before I start fanatsising about the future I'll labourously run through stuff and things Dani has missed out on.

So, we left Germany for the Neatherlands some time ago. For once in my life time, some one has managed to keep me at a state of feeling full by feeding me constantly. I think I know how those ducks and geese feel that are force fed grain all day... but this was in a good way! No more breakfasts that'd last 1 hour followed by dinner for lunch including desert, afternoon coffee and cake and finally dinner for dinner including desert, and then maybe something to snack on just before bed. We headed for a small country town just across the boarder from Germany in the Neatherlands to catch up with some of Dani's Dutch relatives. Once again we were treated like royalty and spoilt rotten by being given the grand tour of the region. Only spending 2 nights in the Neatherlands was not nearly enough and we'll have to head back again some time soon.

On the way to Paris we had a 5 hour stop over in Amsterdam to check the city out. I will breifly mention at this point that I now understand why Amsterdam has legalised drugs... it does'nt have much else going for it. Anyway, we arrived in Paris and were greated by pretty much perfect sunny and hot (we're talking about 30 deg hot) for 2 weeks that we were there. We had been lucky enough to have free reign of Dani's mothers cousins apartment in Paris. It was like winning Lotto! and we made good use of it. I highly recommend a 4 day museum pass to anyone going to Paris. We ticked off all the big attractions and managed to skip most of the 1hr + cues with the pass. We spent quite a few nights drinking hobo beers on the lawn in front of the Eiffel Tower chasing off the scamming gypsy kids with friends from NZ. Hayden and Gill were lucky enough to take a break from the tennis to spend some quality time with us and so were Mihi and Oli (who we can't seem to get rid of).

Our time in Paris sadly came to an end. We are now in Provence however being force fed rosè and fine French cooking by the people who lent us their Paris apartment. Life is difficult! I think all the weight I lost after Germany will now be flooding back on. We are in a small village called Forcalquier that seems to be several hundred years old and falling down on itself in typical French mediterranean style. On the 15th we pick Oli up in our hired Fiat 500 (the go kart of joy as Oli calls it) and head to Chamonix for some mountain biking... can't wait!

Deutschland

So Karl really hasn't said anything about Germany. I'll try to fill you in a bit.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Berlin. Andy, Helen and Oli joined us as we cruised around Germany's fantaistic capital. We have since found out that all Germans still pay an extra tax to the old East Germany which many believe they don't really need anymore, and as a result the old eastern parts are now new and fantastic and constantly getting better and the rest of Germany pays for it. Ah politics.

The Romantic Road was our next destination. This follows a series of rather attractive old towns in Bavaria. We ate schnitzel, späzle, knödln and other such local specialities and tried a few beers. Helen and Andy were great company despite Helen dealing with the cold the entire length of the trip- even on her 30th birthday which we celebrated by visiting Schloß Neuschwanstein - the best known castle here in Germany- and having a traditional Bavarian meal in a cute wee restaurant.

Stuttgart, to visit my host sister Mirjam, and then Freiburg, to see Karl's university supervisor, followed. We had a lovely time with Mirjam and Karl had a productive time in Freiburg.

For the last two weeks we have been in Solingen with my host parents, host brother and other relatives who I last saw 11years ago when I was here on exchange. They're still as great as they were then! And have treated us extremely well while we've been here. Rita has spoilt us with delicious meals and fantastic kuchen (cakes), while Peter has shown us all around the region including casltes, museums, cute wee medieval towns, close by cities and Brussels (not quite so close!).

We also visited Emma who I worked with at Wadestown School and is now teaching in Düsseldorf. It was great to catch up with her and easy to forget that we were in Germany!

I've also enjoyed using my rusty German. Poor hairdresser in Berlin who had to try and communicate with me for a whole hour at the very beginning when I wasn't in the swing of it yet! she was very patient. Frustrating how much I have forgotten.

Today we head to the Netherlands. I feel sad leaving here. Hopefully we'll be back in the not too distant future. Bis dann.

Request

We are in Munich, Germany after a few fantastic weeks catching up with friends. I'll write more about it all later, but at the moment we are in need of suggestions on what to do in southern Germany! Ideally i'd like to get outdoors and do some biking and day walks in the mountains. I have to be in Freiberg from Monday 9th however.

If anyone feels like emailing or commenting any good ideas please feel free!

It's been a long time

So basically i've found that i'm too lazy to update this blog. We're in Berlin at the moment and we've caught up with a friend who came to NZ for a week or so, and after having a (large) beer on the lawn by the river by Berlin Cathedral... and then another beer now that we're back at his apartment whilst waiting for dinner, i've decided it's time to attempt to fill in some gaps.

Since we last left you readers we were somewhere in Africa. I'd repeated some stories about nothing much and that's essentially how the rest of Africa went for us. Although that sounds really depressing, it isn't really. We managed to leave Africa without contracting any diseases, parasites (as far as we know, although I was hoping for a worm in my chest), or being kidnapped (that did happen to two seperate groups we'd been travelling with). After Malawi we arrived in Tanzania and finally something other than deep fried chicken and chips, or meat and rice to eat. Fantastic country with a unique history for this part of Africa due to it's Muslim influence. Call to prayer was pretty cool (100000000 times a day), and in places I discovered my favourite prayer MC's. To top our trip off, we spent a week in Zanzibar and were chased off the island by Dani's drug addict friends.

Just to punish ourselves, we left the balmy 35 degree temps (and incredibly humid... like non-stop sweating humid) for the ever balmy London (all of 5 degrees when we arrived). Andy and Helen put us up for what turned into almost a week in their lovely flat in Fulham. We caught up with friends, visited the ever awesome Natural Histoy Museum and Kew Gardens and with Andy's guidence, undertook an adventure on Boris's Bikes (the mayors hire bike scheme).

Following London, it was time to touch base again with the family in Estonia. This was a bit daunting for me as I hadn't seen them in almost 10 years. London had been cold after Africa but had put on some amazing warm weather. However, after vowing never to return to Estonia in winter, as we approached the airport, Dani tapped me on the shoulder to point out the snow and ice that still lay on the ground. Even though it did warm up over the week we were there, the first day max temp was 4 degrees, and Dani was able to walk out onto the frozen Baltic Sea (never before has she been able to walk on water). It was great visiting places I hadn't seen in a long time, and my cousin Katre (not actually my direct cousin but will do for the sake of argument) spent a lot of time showing us around. Kristi my other cousin made it across from Sweden and on Sunday we had a big family reunion with about 20 people making it (all of who we didn't even know existed 15 years ago). A highlight of the afternoon was when my Nana's little sister remembered that our great great great great (or there abouts) grandmother was given to her husband for his dog in the 1600's by her father! Now this is something to brag about.

Anyway, we are now in Berlin and will be in Germany for a month. Andy and Helen from London are meeting us here in the weekend and we are off down the Romantic Highway together. Oli from NZ is meeting up with us this weekend as well so it'll be great to catch up with a bit of fresh NZ on the other side of the world.

Dinner is ready, but check out the photo's that DG has been putting up on Flicker. As i'm in Germany and using a crazy key board i'm going to smack in all the crazy keys these weirdos have ä ö ü € y § instead of z and a there's a bunch of other annoying misplaced keys!!

Catch up: No photos though

Catch up on South Africa:

This is going back a bit, but quickly in case any one is interested where we visited. After leaving Botswana we had a bit of time to waste in SA so decided to head over towards the Drankensburg Escarpments where the High Veld drops about 1000m to the Low Veld (after visiting Pilansberg National Park). We stayed in a place called Graskop (sp) near Pilgrims Rest. Pilgrims Rest is a sleepy tourist destination with old wooden buildings nestled into the side of steep hills... could be mistaken for many places in NZ except there was a double shooting which we witnessed the aftermath on our way to Graskop Graskop is famous for its pancakes and amazing dramatic scenery as you look down onto the Low Veld.

Next we visited Nelspriet where we met Happiness the unhappy receptionist, also a weird hippy English woman... another long story. Then down to the Cradle of Mankind an awesome museum and cave net work where they have discovered many early huminoid fossils.Finally we were down in Kestell near the actual Drankensburgs, an amazing mountain range where we did a walk up to about 3000m over some chain ladders, etc. Then we finished it off with a trip to a couple we met in Pilansburg NP in Delmas just outside of J'burg. They put us up for a night, fed us, washed us and even helped us clean out 12,000km's of dirt from the car. We had a brief visit to J'burg and visited the Apartheid Museum which was interesting but a bit in depth.

Finally we are up to the last post here in Malawi!

So after out 34 hour bus trip from J'burg to Blantyre we jumped on a bus to Monkey Bay which is the largest port on Lake Malawi. Not much of a town, no ATM to get money out, a couple of supermarkets (that stock tea, soap and rice) and a large market. The best bit though was this camp we came across called Mufasa. It had no power, but had the best location we've come across to date on the lake. It was nestled in to its own bay surrounded by hills, a little island you could swim out to and at night was surrounded by fireflies when they lit the lamps and candles. It was so good that after we went to the back packer mecca of Cape Maclear in the next bay, we decided to come back to Monkey Bay.

The lake is home to about 600 species of Chiclid fish and when you jump in you are surrounded by a multitude of different colours that makes you feel like you're snorkeling off a tropical island. There are so many that when you stand still they start nibbling at your skin! The water is also extremely clear and you can see for about 20m whilst you float around in 28 degree water. The other thing Lake Malawi is known for is the Ilalla Ferry that Dani and I spent 2 nights on whilst we chugged in 1st class to Nkahata Bay. 1st class consisted of a bar, access to the restaurant and an open deck that you can sleep on (and get covered in diesel soot). We stopped off at a few ports and took the life rafts to shore whilst they ferried people, chickens and corn, for a look around a few towns and islands. Otherwise the rest of the time we spent stuck in Nkahata Bay doing pretty much nothing. We had this amazing accommodation where our room and big deck over hung the lake. Great for sitting around and reading all day.

Finally we dragged ourselves away and are back on the lake at a place called Chitimba. We climbed up a 4WD road to Livingstonia yesterday and hitched a ride on the ambulance back down. Tomorrow we are off to Tanzania and then we take a train to Dar es Salaam.

Malawi... Quick update

We're still alive and loving Malawi. Internet is rubbish though so will update properly when we have more time and a better connection.

35 hours of hell... but at least we are in Malawi!

Well we are in Blantyre, Malawi after 35ish hours on the bus from J'Burg. It was an experience that we are pleased that we did but will probably never do again. Below is a bit of a rushed hash out of where we are at:

The bus itself was great, much nicer than the buses back in NZ but after several hours things got a bit pongie with B.O and the toilet smells. The best bit was that the onboard entertainment was basically B grade christian movies and worship music, followed by a contrasting adults only comedy with full on swearing. As we didn't know the system of bribing the guys at the check in counter to ensure we had seats together, I had to pay the guy I was sitting next to 100 rand to swap seats with Dani. This wasn't so bad as he was a student and his passport wasn't quite legal so he was having to fork out a heap of money to get across all the boarder posts. In fact half the bus didn't have quite the right documents to get through all the boarder crossings so it was interesting watching passports handed across with 50 Rand notes tucked in them and big smiles and hand shaking's going on. We crossed over the boarders to Zimbabwe and Mozambique before reaching Malawi.

Highlights of the trip have been the people on board the bus. It was nice to hang out with a bus load of Malawians, we ended up being accepted as the buses token whites and were helped out whenever anything started going wrong. Everyone wanted to make sure we were ok all the time. The boarder police in Malawi were also awesome. The rest of Africa's police forces should take note of how to gain respect! These guys are underpaid, overworked and don't carry guns.... BUT love talking to you. Whilst we waited for 4 hours for customs to check the bus over, Dani was suffering from the heat after 30 hours on the bus and so had a wee vomit in a drain at the boarder post between Malawi and Mozambique. Next minute this police officer was out and walking towards us. If this was any other country in Africa we should have either run for our lives or been prepared to bay a "fine" (donation for cleaning up the mess), but instead he was extremely concerned for Dani and wanted to make sure it wasn't something serious like malaria. He insisted we take a seat on the grassy bank on the official plastic police chairs overlooking the boarder post where we were joined by the whole boarder police force (3 guys and a women) for a chin wag until the bus left.

Lowlights were the Mozambique boarder posts. These guys are the laziest losers in the world!! We had to fill in these forms which were in Portuguese only so had to ask the boarder guard pretty much what everything was in which he'd reply in a mumble that we'd have to ask him to repeat several times before he'd raise his voice to a level that we could decipher his verbal mess he'd attempted to create. Then it took close on to 30 minutes for the guy to stick the visas into our passports. We were watching him through the window and between bouts of sleeping and standing up for a stretch the bus driver finally arrived and managed to get him to finish his job.... This would have been fine except he'd ripped us off by US$10, so we would have expected a faster service for our "tip".

Anyway, it's nice to be here in Blantyre and it's actually safe to walk around the city for a change. We caught our first real mini bus taxi today all by our selves into town with 15 of us packed in a 12 seater... not bad really! Tomorrow we catch the 7am bus to Monkey Bay (about 5-6 hours away) on Lake Malawi and then we catch a "boat" to Cape Maclear.

Happiness

Quick update.

We are back in South Africa for now. After the Okavango Delta we visited the Khama Rhino Sanctuary for a night where we saw quite a few white rhino up close and then moved on to the capital of Botswana which isn't anything special.

With quite a bit of time left on our car rental we are doing some sight seeing of South Africa knocking of the Pilansberg National Park (fantastic little park with all the big animals), Sun City (SA's bad attempt at Vegas), and the Drakensberg escarpment area (an amazing very green wet place between the highlands and the lowlands with huge waterfalls and amazing rock formations).

We are now heading towards the Drakensberg Mountains until we return the car in J'burg. Tonight we are staying in a lovely hostel with the most unhelpful, angry staff member who epitomises service in South Africa... called Happiness.

Photos

Link on the right hand side to the photos we have put up on flickr nicely organised into sets :) Enjoy.

Zambia and Botswana

After several days in Windhoek Namibia we headed north into Zambia via the Caprivi Strip which is this narrow bit of land hundreds of km's long boarded by Angola, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Open now without the need of an armed escort we drove through hundreds of villages strewn along the road. Signs everywhere warned of elephants and to drive carefully, so we kept our eyes peeled, when we weren't trying to keep the car on the road due to extremely localised torrential downpours. The only elephant we saw was when we came across a whole village out on the road yelling and screaming. We slowed down and some kids pointed out a movement in the bush. Next minute there was a trumpeting and a whole heap of crashing noises followed by a huge male elephant running out of the bush. All the kids turned and ran but as soon as the elephant stopped they were straight back into their yelling and screaming. We discovered this was the way villages stop elephants entering their village and knocking everything down... houses, crops etc. Eventually the elephant tired of the village protection squad and sauntered off back into the bush.

Anyway, orderly Namibia turned into disorderly Zambia with a drive across a bridge. After over an hour filling in forms and getting papers stamped in broken down caravans we were back on the road to Livingstone. Swerving to avoid people, cattle, goats and chameleons we arrived at Faulty Towers backpackers and signed up for a white water rafting trip down the Zambezi and a booze cruise for the following day. Joining us on the activities were our next door neighbours from Australia. As it's high water at the moment the rapids on the Zambezi are rather tame but still a lot of fun. Dani chose to go in the "easy" raft and I was forced to go in the "hard" raft which meant the guide tried to flip us as much as possible. Given the size of the rapids he only managed to flip us once much to his dismay. The booze cruise was more of a civilised affair compared to the last one I went on over here and we saw hippo and crocs as we drifted along as the sun set. The Aussies, Dan a South African we met on the rafting, another SA and a kiwi who flew oil prospecting planes were on our cruise. We were to run into Dan everywhere we went over the following days around Victoria Falls and ended up sitting out a massive rain storm in the Vic Falls bridge bungee cafe whilst having lunch.

Zambia is a massive country with not much between points of interest. Given it being the rainy season and advice from other travellers we turned around and headed to Botswana after 3 nights in Livingstone. Approaching the boarder we were confronted by a queue of trucks about 1 km long parked up on the side of the road waiting for the pontoon that takes vehicles across the river to Botswana. We pulled up at the boarder post and after fighting our way through the crowd of touts we then began the weird and wonderfully complicated process of Zambian boarder control. The touts followed us to the river edge we we waited for 2 hours for a place on the pontoon. The pontoon carried one truck and three cars at a time. Given the number of trucks, some of these guys must wait for several days as the pontoon takes just over 30 minutes to make a there and back trip across a 60 meter wide river. African efficiency!

Hitting up a small town called Kasane in Botswana where we spent two nights we did a game drive in Chobe NP followed by a sunset cruise. Elephants are everywhere here and so are hippos so we can safely say we've well and truly ticked those two off. Now we are in Maun where we undertook an overnight Makoro (dug out canoe) trip into the Okavango Delta. It was just Dani, myself and the guide/poler and we had to carry in everything we'd need ourselves. Our guide (Kaiser) was caught off guard by our last minute booking so ended up leaving all his food behind. He said he was happy not to eat for the 24 hour trip much to Dani's disgust, so Dani forced him to eat the muck we made for lunch, dinner and breakfast. I think he was pleased to see the end of us poor guy. The delta was quiet in terms of the big animals, not surprising given the time of year, but was full of birds and insects. We still heard hippo and saw zebra however.

So that brings you up to date. Tomorrow we head out towards a rhino sanctuary and then who knows where to from there. Hope everyone at home is well and we'll update again when we get a chance.

Issues

So since we have a day of nothing today we're going to update the blog with several entries. This one is about the stuff i'm getting frustrated about here in Africa:

1. Fuel: It's rubbish! Well at least the kerosene. You can't buy white spirits here but luckily my cooker runs on kerosene and unleaded fuel. Kerosene is sold everywhere and is used by everyone for cooking (when they're not braai'ing (BBQ'ing)). I don't know how the locals manage to cook with this rubbish though. What would take us 5 minutes for boiling water at home takes me 45 minutes after fighting with the cooker. A dutch couple are having more success with petrol so will give that a try next.
2. Mosquitoes: No matter how hard you try and keep them away they still get you. 
3. Roads: Actually they're very good but there is one in particular that was rubbish and as this is a complaining post I better pad this post out with complaints. The road running between Kasane and Nata in Botswana is the worst tarred road in the world. It would be better to rip it up and leave it untarred given that the road is one big pothole.

Well that's all. We're having an awesome time so next post will be an update.

School in Katutura, Windhoek

Through a connection with a family from Wadestown School (the Harris Family) who also live across the road from my father, we were able to go and help out at an afternoon school. Cathy, the Harris's aunt is the lovely kiwi woman in the photo. It was in a township area of Windhoek called Katutura. Apparently, Namibian public schools aren't great, especially in township areas. Teachers often don't have higher than year 10 qualifications themselves, classes can be 40 or more, there is a lot of rote learning and of course behaviour management is a whack. So this school is run by expats and relies on volunteers (not always teachers) to teach the children. They have seen improved results from the Namibian school for lots of the children who attend the afternoon school and therefore have a large waiting list for children to come to the school. We ended up staying for 3 days - not a significant time in terms of the children's learning, but as the woman (a Norwegian social worker) was sick, the year one class was without a teacher so I was able to help out none the less.

I perhaps should have been warned when Cathy said, "They were wild when I took them yesterday." Basically there were around 20 year 1 children who had had about 5 days of school so far and no preschool education and the room was about 3x3 metres. It was reminiscent of some of my decile 1 relieving days. You pull on all your resources to survive. Pretty much on day one, we turned up and were taken to the class and I was left to do my thing. I.e. fly by the seat of my pants. Karl stayed and they children enjoyed any opportunity they had to climb on him, and were fascinated by the hair on his legs, arms and especially fingers. They were absolutely gorgeous and a good number of them keen to learn and attentive. Of course there were the obligatory scally-wags. 3 of them who pulled a couple more along at times. In terms of education, most could not write their names (I discovered on the second day when I tried to learn them all), they could sing ABC and count to 10 and that's about it. Well, enough of them could to make it sound like they all were. With Julie Roberts numeracy advisor's voice in my head we spent lots of time counting backwards from 10 (backwards is as important as forwards and is needed for subtraction!). We also did lots of activities using the letter b. (Forgive me if that wasn't a good place to start junior teachers!) We also sang a lot.

By Day three we were functioning much better. Of

course that was until the grasshopper entered the classroom. Hysteria reigned and I had to stop

several children from whacking it with their shoes. They calmed down and we did some maths with the bottle tops. There was a bag of about 500. When the kids were packing up the bag was tipped all over the floor. Metal tops on a tiled floor caused enough noise, but this was added to as children started sliding around on them and the throwing them in the air. It was loud and took a while to sort out. Heads, shoulders, knees and toes helped to get their focus back! Spot scally-wag number one in front of me! Because we had been learning about the letter b, we ended our time with the kids by giving them balloons. So lovely to see their excitement.

You can't see, but as this photo was being taken, I had children's hands playing with my hair ! They loved touching it!

We were able to donate some money to the school raised by the year 7 and 8s from Wadestown School.

Mention should also be made of the fact that Karl was dragged into teaching too. On day 2, the year 7 class was without a teacher so he was asked to step in. The lesson that he was given was quite open and so he ended up discussing climate change with them and making outfits out of plastic bags. He was exhausted by the end of it and had developed his respect for teachers somewhat. he wasn't keen for a repeat performance!

So, if anyone is keen, especially teachers, we can hook you up with some delightful children in Windhoek!

Namibia... so far

We're now in Windhoek, Namibia and the rain has started to set in. It's been dry and hot up until about Sossusvlei when the dark clouds started rolling in and we had a bit of spitting rain. This has meant that areas of the desert that I remember being actual desert are now green and lush with growth. Even some of the famous sand dunes here are starting to sprout grasses. Great in some ways that here we are seeing something that not many other tourists get to see, but this also means it's harder to spot wildlife (the reason why tourists come to Namibia). Anyway, I'll give a bit of a run down on what we've seen and done so far.

We left Cape Town and drove to the Cederberg mountains some time over a week ago spotting meercats along the side of the road. Once we made it to the Orange River which defines the boarder between SA and Namibia my dreams of camping beside the river which is surrounded by a weird dry moon like landscape, were dashed when we discovered the river was in flood, basically swamping ALL the campgrounds. Left with nothing else to do we headed across the boarder to Namibia a day early and ended up in a flash as Cabana overlooking the swollen river drinking beers and watching all the rubbish from the eastern side of South Africa float past (where the rains were).

Since then we've been driving a lot of dirt roads which are slowly destroying our almost new beloved faux 4WD. Hot and dry landscapes with some life were replaced with deserts with almost no life. Fish River Canyon for my second time was a bit of a disappointment as it's hyped as one of Africa's greatest sights... it's not, the red dunes and pans around Sossusvlei are way more impressive. As Namibia was once under German control, a lot of the architecture is essentially German. German is still a popular language and we've spent time torturing ourselves with some of the worst music I've ever heard (all in German) due there being only one radio station we can pick up. We visited an old German diamond mining town that was abandoned in the desert called Kolmanskop just outside an old German town on the coast called Luderwitz. These houses are preserved in the dry desert air and make for an eire experience. Surrounded by German tourists we made our escape to campsite in the middle of no where by some old German castle just to meet some Swiss Germans (these guys were fantastic though and we ended up meeting up a few times).

 
 

After visiting the dunes and walking into some old dry pans we headed to Swakopmund to check out these crazy plants belonging to the genus Welwitschia. These plants live for thousands of years and are related to pine trees but only grow two leaves which get battered by the wind and shredded to make these long flax like leaves. Pretty exciting for me, I don't know how Dani truly felt.

Drivers in southern Africa are pretty shocking with in SA alone something like almost 2000 killed on the road over the holiday season. This is mainly due to, in my opinion, poor driver training. On the way to Swakopmund we came across a flash 4WD overturned on the side of the road with the whole front caved in. It had just happened and stuff was strewn all over the side of the road. Essentially this douch decided to hit all the puddles on the road as fast as he could only to loose control and flip across the road. Luckily neither he or his wife were hurt except for cuts and bruises. Some one else drove his wife to nearest town to get them towed. This sort of behaviour has so far been demonstrated in SA as well as Namibia with drivers never following the speed limits and passing on blind corners.... mostly flash fast cars.
  

Anyway, rant over. We hit Etosha NP a couple of days ago. Spotted a pride of about 6 lions with two males the first afternoon we were there. We had been warned that it would be hard to see animals due to the abundance of water. During the dry season the animals congregate around water holes making it predictable in where to find them. However, we saw plenty of animals with a close encounter with a big bull elephant, hundreds of zebra, wilderbeast, giraffe, jackal, mongoose, only one rhino but millions of springbok and other antelope species. The coolest were the ground squirrels that would hang around camp and you'd almost drive over. You just wanted to pick them up and take them home except for the rabies warning. Second night we had a badger come into camp scavenging from the bins. This was first time I feared for our lives... Badger from Wind in the Willows was never like this guy!

Anyway. That's all I can be bothered writing about. It'll take me an hour to get photo's on here now. We're spending a few days working in a school here in Windhoek so will post up about that later in the week. Dani's got a class of first graders who love my hairy legs.

PS. Sorry about the photos etc. This may be the last photo's we post due to the hours I\ve spent trying to make them work on blogspot.





It begins

Today we leave the comfort of clean sheets, swimming pool, free food and ironed underpants (care of Lydia, one of the house staff). To farewell us on our journey, Cape Town has started with a scorcher of a day and the neighbourhood water main has burst leaving Dani unshowered. Our plan after travelling Africa on scooters was shot down became buying a car in SA and selling in Kenya. This is rather tricky so we flagged that and lowered ourselves to buying a car, travelling as far as Malawi and selling it back in SA. After checking out some dodgy cars we flagged that idea and managed to get a great deal on hiring a car to drive around SA, Namibia, Botswana and Zambia before returning it to SA. Our "car" (Kia Soul) will cause great embarrassment in the camp grounds but at least we're covered if it breaks down in the middle of the desert.

So anyway, we're off to the Cederburg mountains which are about 300km's north for our first night and on Sunday will push on to the boarder between Namibia and South Africa in our faux SUV (photos to come). The Orange River is in flood so fingers crossed we make it across the boarder.

Cape Town has been great. Dad and Libby have been fantastic in showing us around, and trusting us in driving their cars. Too many highlights of this beautiful city (photos to come) but before I'm dragged away one little scare from the other night. Here's the back ground.... The house we are in is surrounded by an electric fence and sensors. The house it self has cages on the doors and windows that get locked at night. We are on a 2 acre block and there are few neighbours near by and there are armed security patrols. It's not actually that scary until you've just finished dinner, it's dark and the alarm suddenly goes off. Dani and I really didn't know what to do so I rushed around locking doors while Dad and Libby open them to wander outside and see what's happening. Long story short, I had a huge adrenaline rush from a gecko who had shorted the electric fence causing bolts of lightning to spark through it's crispy body. This is so far our experience of South Africa's obsession with security.

Cape Town

Cape Town has been an interesting experience thus far. Graeme (Karl's Dad) and Libby treat us very well and we are having a fabulous time with them. Sometimes when sitting eating breakfast on the stoop it makes me feel like I'm on some American tv programme about wealthy Californians (like Entourage except without the entourage!).
Cape Town is stunningly beautiful. Beautiful beaches, buildings, weather (although the 'Cape Doctor' wind has kept us cool some days). We've been for walks and climbed Lions Head which was a bit of a scramble at the end and required pauses on the way down to wait for the gusts to pass us by.

We visited a cheetah park where cheetahs are reared for breeding and education purposes. Wellington Zoo also help by sponsoring dogs which are trained there to protect sheep. Cheetahs annoy farmers by eating their sheep and so the farmers shoot the cheetahs. The dogs are trained to become part of the flock of sheep and scare away the cheetahs.

We spent the day today driving around the 'Winelands' visiting a number of 'wine farms'. These wine farms are huge and decadent affairs with a tremendous amount of money spent on the aesthetics of the restaurants and gardens etc let alone the vines themselves. There were spectacular views of the vineyards and mountains all along this area. We had a delicious meal at one of the vineyards. I had my first taste of African fare, springbok and a taste of Graeme's kudu.

All of this is in stark contrast to the lives of many around here. On our way to and from the Winelands we passed Khayelitsha. This is a massive township on the Cape Flats. Home to over 2 million people. The government has begun to build housing with water, electricity and sewage systems, however, there are still so many people living in shacks made of corrugated iron with roofs held down by tyres. Apparently, illegal immigration adds to the problem as people arrive faster than the government can even begin to build houses. In the 10 years that Graeme and Libby have been here, this township has increased in size tremendously.

Also difficult to come to terms with as we cruise the streets in Libby's beamer is the fact that any person walking along the street in the residential areas is black, every gardener, street seller, parking attendant is black. I can't help but wonder what their lives are actually like. And what will happen next in this country of extremes.