Thursday, May 24, 2012
Post #9 - South Africa Part I
Hello Bloggers,
We were planning on writing just one more blog, but the past nine days have been so jam-packed with awesomeness that we are forced to write two.
We had a very long day leaving Zambia (sixteen hours). We caught our 1:30pm flight to Johannesburg and then got onto a ten hour bus ride which brought us to Graaff-Reinet (G-R). In a perfect world we would have spent a week or more around Jo'burg, but we simply didn't have enough time. We sacrificed Jo'burg for Cape Town, and we think it was worth it. G-R, often referred to as the "Jewel of the Karoo", did not disappoint. The Karoo is a vast, semi-arid plateau that seems to go on forever in the middle of the country. It reminded us of western Texas and New Mexico. It's gorgeous, if barren and remote. G-R is situated roughly in between Jo'burg and Cape Town, and is South Africa's fourth oldest European settlement. Because of this there is much Cape Dutch architecture that is beautiful to look at, and we toured one of the grandest homes that is now a museum. The town is quaint and has that perfect bakery here, coffee and book shop there. We wanted to get a taste for the interior as well as the coast, and G-R was perfect. It's also the home of Camdeboo National Park, a kind of showpiece for the Karoo. Thanks to the help of the lovely owners of our hostel, Nita and Terrance, we were able to rent a car in town so we could see the area properly. We've got it for the rest of our trip, and it has already paid for itself many times over. We drove out to a great hiking trail and did five miles or so before making our way to New Bethesda, about thirty miles outside of G-R. Here is where the eccentric Helen Martins lived and worked in her "Owl House". We heard about it from Nita and Terrance, and the place (all of New Bethesda, really) was a trip. You'll have to see the pictures, but "Miss Helen" had no formal training and is therefore an "Outside Artist". It was a great, if corky side trip, and the drive was scenic. Making our way back into town, we drove through Camdeboo's star attraction, the Valley of Desolation. A steep drive up a mountain got us amazing views across the Karoo, and you understand why it's called the Valley of Desolation. There is nothing out there besides South Africa's national animal, Springbok.
We really enjoyed our two days in G-R before moving on through the Karoo and the gorgeous Prince Albert Pass to reach the coast at Plettenberg Bay. This particular drive took us five hours and brought us to one of South Africa's premier beach town destinations. We've been told it is completely overrun in the summer, but since we were there in the winter the pace was pleasant. The temperature still reached about seventy each day, although it plummeted as soon as the sun went down. We stayed at a great hostel run by a Belgian named Jan, and he always had a blazing fire going on in the bar. Each night we would eat our own cooked dinner, sit by the fire and talk to Jan and the amazing staff while playing pool. Pat was able to watch his first Rangers post-season game on the Internet since it was an early start in New York. It was a three to nothing game for New York, although they are now down three games to two in the series. Hopefully they can win two in a row so Pat can go to the finals in a week and a half!! Let's Go Rangers! Anyway, "Plett" was a great stop. We walked along the picturesque beaches, toured the ridiculously beautiful mansions all along the waterfront, and ate some of the best calamari we've ever had. We also took an amazing (and challenging) five mile hike around Robberg Peninsula. We'll let the pictures do the talking.
We should mention the shanty towns. After being in G-R and Plett for six days, we almost forgot we were in Africa. We visited two beautiful towns created by white people, and for the most part it seemed like America. There are quaint shopping streets as we mentioned, huge grocery stores selling anything you could possibly want, and internet that actually works! While all this has made our traveling easier, you only have to look across the highway to remind yourself what continent you're in. In Plett, for example, there is a complete shanty town literally on one side of the arterial while on the other are gorgeous second homes of the wealthy. This has been the case in every other settlement we've seen, and it's sad. Ninety percent of South Africa's population is non-white, but it seems like the whites still have all the money. While the situation is similar in America, in South Africa it's much more in your face because of those percentages we just mentioned. We could go on and on about the history of this country and the effects now, but we'll save that for our next blog after we've seen Cape Town and the apartheid museum.
From Plett we took another spectacular drive along the coast, referred to as the Garden Route, through Kynsna and Wilderness before driving through vineyards and farmland (all the while mountains are everywhere) and finally reaching Gansbaai. The trip took almost seven hours, and we realized just how beautiful South Africa is. In Gansbaai we had one of the best experiences of our lives! It is here where the highest concentration of Great White Sharks in the world reside, and it is here where we jumped into the ocean amongst them. Gansbaai has become famous for its cage shark diving, and it lived up to everything we could have expected. We took a boat out about twenty minutes to Dyer Island, getting soaked by the cold Atlantic water the whole way. The water temperature was fifty-seven degrees. From just off the island the crew threw the cage and chum into the water. Chum is basically just sea water that has been mixed up with fish guts - the perfect stuff to make the sharks swoon. From here things just got crazy. No more than ten minutes passed before two monstrous Great White's, then seven, started circling our boat. The biggest had to be fifteen feet long. They were all deadly and completely amazing. As soon as they approached we got into our wetsuits and goggles and simply jumped into the cage. The crew then put two fish heads on a line with a small buoy at the end and threw it next to the cage. The sharks would go in for the heads before a crewman would pull it away at the last second, only to do it again and again. The effect was that the shark would pass by the cage only inches from our bodies, sometimes looking directly into our eyes as it tried to eat the fish. We would take a deep breath and hold onto the bars as they passed each time. They were everywhere. Half of the group on were either too scared to get in or too cold from the water, so we both went in twice for about twenty minutes each. We were like little kids on Christmas morning. It was breathtaking - both literally and figuratively. We are still having trouble comprehending what we saw. Hopefully the group we were with will send us their pictures from their underwater camera - it really was a special experience. We saw firsthand what you would see on Shark Week - UNREAL.
From Gansbaai we took yet another gorgeous drive along the coast to Cape Town. We drove through the pretty tourist towns of Hermanus and Kleinmond, then around False Bay before arriving in South Africa's Mother City. The drive reminded us a lot of the 1 in California, but it might be even more beautiful. One crazy thing happened. We stopped along the way and this motorcyclist took a great pic of us. Five minutes later we left and he sped around us. Five minutes after that we see this ball of fire and it was his bike engulfed in flames. Somehow he was physically unharmed, and we made sure the police and paramedics were called immediately. Motorcycles are dangerous.
We now officially have only one week left before we fly home, but it should be a great one. We're staying at a nice hotel both in Cape Town and the winelands to the north. A little luxury for a final sendoff back to America.
Until then,
S&P
We were planning on writing just one more blog, but the past nine days have been so jam-packed with awesomeness that we are forced to write two.
We had a very long day leaving Zambia (sixteen hours). We caught our 1:30pm flight to Johannesburg and then got onto a ten hour bus ride which brought us to Graaff-Reinet (G-R). In a perfect world we would have spent a week or more around Jo'burg, but we simply didn't have enough time. We sacrificed Jo'burg for Cape Town, and we think it was worth it. G-R, often referred to as the "Jewel of the Karoo", did not disappoint. The Karoo is a vast, semi-arid plateau that seems to go on forever in the middle of the country. It reminded us of western Texas and New Mexico. It's gorgeous, if barren and remote. G-R is situated roughly in between Jo'burg and Cape Town, and is South Africa's fourth oldest European settlement. Because of this there is much Cape Dutch architecture that is beautiful to look at, and we toured one of the grandest homes that is now a museum. The town is quaint and has that perfect bakery here, coffee and book shop there. We wanted to get a taste for the interior as well as the coast, and G-R was perfect. It's also the home of Camdeboo National Park, a kind of showpiece for the Karoo. Thanks to the help of the lovely owners of our hostel, Nita and Terrance, we were able to rent a car in town so we could see the area properly. We've got it for the rest of our trip, and it has already paid for itself many times over. We drove out to a great hiking trail and did five miles or so before making our way to New Bethesda, about thirty miles outside of G-R. Here is where the eccentric Helen Martins lived and worked in her "Owl House". We heard about it from Nita and Terrance, and the place (all of New Bethesda, really) was a trip. You'll have to see the pictures, but "Miss Helen" had no formal training and is therefore an "Outside Artist". It was a great, if corky side trip, and the drive was scenic. Making our way back into town, we drove through Camdeboo's star attraction, the Valley of Desolation. A steep drive up a mountain got us amazing views across the Karoo, and you understand why it's called the Valley of Desolation. There is nothing out there besides South Africa's national animal, Springbok.
We really enjoyed our two days in G-R before moving on through the Karoo and the gorgeous Prince Albert Pass to reach the coast at Plettenberg Bay. This particular drive took us five hours and brought us to one of South Africa's premier beach town destinations. We've been told it is completely overrun in the summer, but since we were there in the winter the pace was pleasant. The temperature still reached about seventy each day, although it plummeted as soon as the sun went down. We stayed at a great hostel run by a Belgian named Jan, and he always had a blazing fire going on in the bar. Each night we would eat our own cooked dinner, sit by the fire and talk to Jan and the amazing staff while playing pool. Pat was able to watch his first Rangers post-season game on the Internet since it was an early start in New York. It was a three to nothing game for New York, although they are now down three games to two in the series. Hopefully they can win two in a row so Pat can go to the finals in a week and a half!! Let's Go Rangers! Anyway, "Plett" was a great stop. We walked along the picturesque beaches, toured the ridiculously beautiful mansions all along the waterfront, and ate some of the best calamari we've ever had. We also took an amazing (and challenging) five mile hike around Robberg Peninsula. We'll let the pictures do the talking.
We should mention the shanty towns. After being in G-R and Plett for six days, we almost forgot we were in Africa. We visited two beautiful towns created by white people, and for the most part it seemed like America. There are quaint shopping streets as we mentioned, huge grocery stores selling anything you could possibly want, and internet that actually works! While all this has made our traveling easier, you only have to look across the highway to remind yourself what continent you're in. In Plett, for example, there is a complete shanty town literally on one side of the arterial while on the other are gorgeous second homes of the wealthy. This has been the case in every other settlement we've seen, and it's sad. Ninety percent of South Africa's population is non-white, but it seems like the whites still have all the money. While the situation is similar in America, in South Africa it's much more in your face because of those percentages we just mentioned. We could go on and on about the history of this country and the effects now, but we'll save that for our next blog after we've seen Cape Town and the apartheid museum.
From Plett we took another spectacular drive along the coast, referred to as the Garden Route, through Kynsna and Wilderness before driving through vineyards and farmland (all the while mountains are everywhere) and finally reaching Gansbaai. The trip took almost seven hours, and we realized just how beautiful South Africa is. In Gansbaai we had one of the best experiences of our lives! It is here where the highest concentration of Great White Sharks in the world reside, and it is here where we jumped into the ocean amongst them. Gansbaai has become famous for its cage shark diving, and it lived up to everything we could have expected. We took a boat out about twenty minutes to Dyer Island, getting soaked by the cold Atlantic water the whole way. The water temperature was fifty-seven degrees. From just off the island the crew threw the cage and chum into the water. Chum is basically just sea water that has been mixed up with fish guts - the perfect stuff to make the sharks swoon. From here things just got crazy. No more than ten minutes passed before two monstrous Great White's, then seven, started circling our boat. The biggest had to be fifteen feet long. They were all deadly and completely amazing. As soon as they approached we got into our wetsuits and goggles and simply jumped into the cage. The crew then put two fish heads on a line with a small buoy at the end and threw it next to the cage. The sharks would go in for the heads before a crewman would pull it away at the last second, only to do it again and again. The effect was that the shark would pass by the cage only inches from our bodies, sometimes looking directly into our eyes as it tried to eat the fish. We would take a deep breath and hold onto the bars as they passed each time. They were everywhere. Half of the group on were either too scared to get in or too cold from the water, so we both went in twice for about twenty minutes each. We were like little kids on Christmas morning. It was breathtaking - both literally and figuratively. We are still having trouble comprehending what we saw. Hopefully the group we were with will send us their pictures from their underwater camera - it really was a special experience. We saw firsthand what you would see on Shark Week - UNREAL.
From Gansbaai we took yet another gorgeous drive along the coast to Cape Town. We drove through the pretty tourist towns of Hermanus and Kleinmond, then around False Bay before arriving in South Africa's Mother City. The drive reminded us a lot of the 1 in California, but it might be even more beautiful. One crazy thing happened. We stopped along the way and this motorcyclist took a great pic of us. Five minutes later we left and he sped around us. Five minutes after that we see this ball of fire and it was his bike engulfed in flames. Somehow he was physically unharmed, and we made sure the police and paramedics were called immediately. Motorcycles are dangerous.
We now officially have only one week left before we fly home, but it should be a great one. We're staying at a nice hotel both in Cape Town and the winelands to the north. A little luxury for a final sendoff back to America.
Until then,
S&P
Monday, May 21, 2012
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