Back to civilization

Tsitsikamma National Park, South Africa (22 February 2008).

We’ve gone so far, just to make it home. The Garden Route here in South Africa looks so much like the California coast. Not identical; it is quite a bit hotter (near 30C today) and more humid, they drive on the left, and people speak with a “funny” accent. But the geography looks so similar sometimes that it almost feels like home. Plus is a highly visited route, and so “feels” like highway 1 sometimes. Like California, it is very beautiful.

It seems so long ago that we were roughing it the Serengeti; though it was just a few days ago. The 19th we drove back to Arusha—or Moshi, really, to be precise. We spent the night there, and the following day, bright and early, we flew to Dar Es Salaam. We got a great view of Mt. Kilimanjaro as we were leaving Moshi. Dar is not an attractive city, but we spent a good 24 hours there, taking care of stuff we had been unable to while traveling. Plus we did a bit of surfing to get caught up with what’s going on in the world (it seems so strange not to be following tech blogs every day!) We actually stayed in our suite most of the time. It was the first time we had air conditioning for a while. We did walk to the National Museum, which is a very low key affair. Though they have an interest display of early hominids that have been found in Tanzania.

From Dar we flew to Johannesburg (or Jo’burg as they say here) and from there to Port Elizabeth. The first flight was pretty uneventful, but our second flight was late, so we didn’t get in until close to 10:00pm. We picked up a rental car at the airport and drove to our hotel; we had made a reservation back in Kampala. When we got there we found out they didn’t have a room for us! There was some confusion between Gonzalez and Gomeai (or something like that) and because we got in late we ended up without a room. But the owner was very nice and helped us find a room in a different hotel and negotiated the same rate as what we had reserved! And the second hotel was only a short 2 minute drive away. By 11:30pm we were in bed and ready to sleep.

We were a bit concerned about getting lost on our way to the hotel. But the gals at Avis were really helpful. They even gave us a nicer car than what we had reserved; we have a Mercedes A170. It’s a really nice car and we’ve enjoyed driving it so far.

Anyway, back to the story. We woke up early (SA is one hour behind East Africa), did our laundry, and had breakfast. By 10:00am we were ready to hit the road (we only had the room for one night). We decided to head West, toward Tsitsikamma National Park. Debby wanted to stop here for a night and spend some time exploring the park.

We found a really nice B&B that is close to the water, has really nice cottages and an excellent cook (we didn’t know that for sure when we took the room). The one drawback is the hotel is at the end of a long gravel road and our car is pretty low. So we have to drive really slowly. Our little A170 is certainly no match for a Land Cruiser! Our “chalet” (we are no longer in the bush so it’s not a bungalow but a chalet) faces the ocean, though we are quite a way away from the water—we can only see the ocean out in the distance. The B&B is surrounded by dairy and maize farms, so Debby feels right at home.

The B&B has lots ducks, geese, and peacocks. They used to have swans as well, but about 6 months ago an otter came up from the ocean and killed all the fowl. They ordered more, which haven’t arrived, and also put an electric fence around the pond. They don’t want any more otters ruining their investment!

After checking in at the B&B we drove over to the park to have lunch and for a bit of hiking. Lunch was really good. There is a restaurant at the park, and it is located right by the water. It has a beautiful view. And the food was good. We’ll call lunch a success. The hiking was not so successful. The trail we wanted to do was closed due to fire. And some of the trails close at 16:00. We eventually picked a trail that was open and seemed interesting. But it took us about 15 minutes to do one tenth of the loop. And since it was getting late we decided to abort the mission and come back to the B&B for dinner. Little did we know it was a good thing we save our energy for the after-dinner excitement.

After dinner we walked back to our cottage. Debby looking at the stars and I looking at the BlackBerry (which finally works here!) When we got to the cottage we discovered a big spider on the window sill. It wasn’t really that big, but it had big, think, hairy legs. It must have been 2.5 inches (including the legs). No doubt this is a common thing here “in the colonies”. I was just going to smack it with my shoe, but Debby had visions of it jumping on my and biting me (no doubt it’s a poisonous spider!) She wanted to get the B&B staff, but I refused to go get them. So off she trooped back to reception. Back she came with two ladies who work here; one armed with Raid, the other armed with a broom—the spider had run up onto the ceiling. At the count of three one lady sprays it with Raid, then the other one whacks it with the broom. Then all three (Debby and the two helpers) scream really loud and then start giggling uncontrollably. End of spider story.

South Africa is a different world compared to Tanzania and Uganda. Though we had so much fun the past 5 weeks, it is nice to be in a place that has sealed roads, lots of infrastructure, and is, basically, a first world country. Though there is a huge disparity of income. Everyone who works in the service industry is black, and all the tourists are white.

Food seems to be cheaper here than in East Africa—we paid about $10.00 US for lunch today. But that’s hardly surprising, given how “inefficient” the Ugandan and Tanzanian economies are. There dairy farms have to “ride” (yeah, on a bicycle) milk over to the nearest collection facility, from where a medium-sized truck picks it up and takes it to town. Each farmer carries 2 or 3 steel (aluminum?) containers with a couple of gallons of milk. Here Parmalat tanker trucks pick up the milk at the farm.

Tomorrow we are heading further West. This is a great place, but we’ve had our fill of gravel roads for a while.

R