We're on our way to wine country which is just north of Cape Town. It took about 45 minutes to drive out of the city and into farms and vineyards which bank against the Dragonstein Mountains. On the way we stopped into the oldest Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa. The KWV winery was in the town of Paarl. This was a huge complex. They showed us their underground concrete tanks, which were used before the stainless steel vats. We tasted about 7 different wines incluing a Pinotge, a bright purple wine with a unique flavor. Then we spent a little time in Franschhock, the french corner, a delightful town with more dutch architecture. On our way to Steelenbosch we stopped into a small winery which primarily made wine blends. There rose' was judged best in South Africa this year and tasted so. In Stellenbosch we had a nice lunch in the 1802 restaurant and then explored the town and did a little shopping.
KWV Wine Gallery
On our way back, we passed a lot of townships. Here you find a lot of 2 bedroom homes which were built for the blacks, and lots of shanties primarily made of bricks and tin. A mix of dirt poor and those doing better.
We had a home dinner with Edgar and Mollie, a colored family (mix of Indian and white) with 3 grown kids. Edgar is a school and tour bus driver, Mollie a cook for the nursery school. Edgar explained that there life hasn't changed much - whites used to control things, now blacks do. And their form of affirmative action favors the blacks getting job over coloreds. They are fearful of the new ANC leader who may become president next year - a common thug (which we've heard from others). Yet they were also hopeful of the mayor of Cape Town, a white woman who is color blind and gets things done.
We started our day by visiting the Kirstenbosch Gardens. The southern tip of Africa is a unique plant zone in the world, called the Cape Floristic Region. Since it's winter, there were only a few flowers in bloom, but we saw a large variety of protea and aloe and a Cycad, a prehistoric plant that predates most plant species.
African Penguins
We then visited an African Penguin rookery. As usual, he penguins were fun to watch and so was their video "City Slickers" which won an academy award. It traced the life of 2 penguins an their baby from this colony. An oil slick threatened a third of the entire African penguin population, but thanks to heroic efforts only 5% were lost.
We had a superb lunch nearby fish wrapped in bacon, then on to the Cape of Good Hope, the most southwesterly point of Africa. The wind was wild there and the surf was high. We also went to the top of Cape Point nearby where you can view the Cape of Good Hope. On top was a lighthouse to warn ships of Bellow Rock below, a rock that just under sea level. But they had to build a 2nd lighthouse lower down because the top lighthouse was often obscured by clouds. The cape is all park land and looks a lot like tundra with the plants being unique, of course. On the way out we saw some bontebok, a South African antelope.
Cape of Good Hope
We had dinner at La Palma, a nearby Italian restaurant - a superb meal and it only cost about $25 for the two of us.
We started the day by taking the cable car up to the top of Table Mountain which dominates the city. From there we could look down 2000 feet to Cape Town or across to Lions Head, a rocky formation. The wind was blowing and after about 10 minutes the clouds blew in, destroying the view. Table Mountain consists of granite on the bottom, then shale, and finally sandstone at the top. We also did a tour of downtown, a mixture of historic buildings and new. The old fortress, Castle of Good Hope, is now inland due to the filling in of Table Bay to expand the downtown. We passed a number of museums and the Parliament building. In the afternoon we toured Robben Island, where the political prisoners were kept during the apartheid years. This tour was one of the most gripping, we've ever taken. It started with a 35 minutes bus tour around the island to see the historic buildings. Our guide was very articulate, funny and praise worthy of the countries who had helped South Africa. The island was a leper colony from 1845 to 1931, when Irish priests and nuns settled in Irish Town to care for the lepers. From 1931 to 1939 the island was deserted. From 1939 to 1959 it was a military base for the British. We saw a number of battery formations, guns, and cannon. From 1960 to 1991 it was a prison island with 4 different prisons: the old prison, the medium security prison (which is now a school), the maximum security prison, and the Sobukwe house, where Robert Subukwe was imprisoned for 6 years, never allowed to speak or be spoken to. One of the last stops was the lime quarry where the prisoners worked 8 hours a day. We could see a cave, which served as their latrine, lunch place, and the 'university', where the educated prisoners (30% were literate) taught the others, and also discussed politics. Next to it was a pile of rocks, laid their in 1995 when former political prisoners reunited on the island.
Our last stop was the maximum security block, home to Nelson Mandela for 18 of his 27 years of imprisonment. We met Modisac, who was sentenced here for 5 years, arrested as a student activist at age 16. This was at a time, in 1961, when you could undergo unlimited time in detention, followed by a prison term for even mentioning "ANC" or "Mandela". Modisac told us of some of the torture he endured, having his tongue stretched with a pair of pliers, pins put under his fingernails, and having a stick put up his penis. He contemplated suicide 3 times, but thoughts of his family and especially his mother kept him going. The prisoners could write one 500 word letter every 4 months and have a 30 minute visit every 6 months. Modisac said that at the end of 5 years, he was filled with hate and wanted revenge against his captors. This is where I began to understand what a powerful leader Nelson Mandela was. He preached that the prison wardens are not your enemy - they had been conscripted and taught how to torture, that what South Africa needed was freedom for all South Africans. We could not afford a violent struggle, we must negotiate for our rights, we must forgive, otherwise violence would beget violence and destroy the country. The cells were designed to hold 20 people, and would have 40-50 prisoners with concrete floors and 2 buckets. The prisoners only wore shorts and a shirt, winter or summer. In 1974, they were given mats to sleep on, then in 1978 they got bunk beds. It was a powerful story and had most of us in tears - we couldn't help but see the parallels between South Africa then, and Zimbabwe now. Yet South Africa, ended up with a powerful new leader in Nelson Mandela, who performed miracles with his truth and reconciliation boards - where the truth came out, but people were forgiven, and South Africa has thrived since then.
Our travels started by crossing the river into Zimbabwe. We spent 1 1/2 hours touring the falls from this side. You can see about 2/3rds of the falls from here, even though only 1/3 of the falls is officially in Zimbabwe. We had a lot of mist obscuring the falls in the sun, but we didn't get as soaked as the Zambian side.
On the way to the airport, we stopped where we had left our bags 15 days earlier. It was also a chance for Chamu to stash his cash some of the food staples. he had bought in Zambia. It was a 'mock' election day in Zimbabwe. Because of extreme violence, the opposition candidate against Mugabe had withdrawn from the race. There have been a lot of killings and violence from the police.
Now that we've left the country, I feel I can write some of the stories we've heard. Our trip leader is from Zimbabwe, he completed college and became a game warden here. A lot of his job involved tracking poachers which is very dangerous since the wardens are unarmed. He became a game guide before becoming a tour leader, which is an upper middle class job here. But there are few food staples in the stores and meat is scare. That's why Chamu tired to buy food in Zambia and Botswana. Inflation is ridiculous here - the Zimbabwe dollar went from 3.5 billion to $1 US to 10.5 billion to $1 US in the 15 days we've been traveling. Our guide is fearful for his children, they probably won't get the education he has and their future is very uncertain. His wife and brother were threatened with arrest several months back. They had saved $2000 US for an electric generator. His wife called his brother to exchange US$ to Zimbabwe$ to buy the generator. The conversation was overheard and the police grabbed both of them, but for $2000 US the problem disappeared.
We flew from Victoria Falls to Johannesburg and then on to Cape Town arriving at our hotel at about 9 PM. A long day- we're ready for bed.
We had our first helicopter ride this morning over Victoria Falls. The wives did a 15 minute trip in a figure 8 around the falls and up the river to view the wildlife in the park. They actually let me volunteer to wait for the next helicopter for a 30 minute ride - I also got to go down through the Zambezi river canyon only 50 meters over the water with the canyon walls around me. All of us were awed by the falls, never seen anything like this drop into a canyon.
Victoria Falls from the helicopter
In the afternoon, we did a sunset cruise on the Zambezi. Highlights were a set of 4 water monitors and then seeing a crocodile with a water monitor in its mouth.
We went out for a short game drive in the morning. It started with a puff adder on the road just outside camp, apparently they don't have a good antidote to the venom. Our guide told us about a child in his village who got bit on the ankle, she lived, but can only walk on one side of her foot. We primarily spotted birds, the prettiest being the scarlet chested sunbird. We apparently just missed seeing an elephant (there are only 5000 in this 26000 square kilometer park, so they are hard to find). We ended at the hippo pond where hippos were resting their heads against the bodies of other hippos to sleep.
About 1:30 PM we flew to Livingstone. The pilot got permission to fly over Victoria Falls- what a unique falls. It crashes into a canyon, which causes the spray to fly straight up on the air currents. The natives called this Mosi-o-Tunya, the smoke that thunders. The falls drops 98-108 meters and is 1.7 kilometers or 1 mile wide. Upon landing, we did a walking tour of the Zambian side of the falls. We would see about 1/3 of the falls from this side, though during the dry season, this side dries up. We wore our ponchos to walk through the spray on the jutting peninsula opposite the falls. It was quite impressive.
Victoria Falls from the air
Everyone was nervous about where we would stay, but what a surprise. Toka Leye Lodge is a new (opened in May) wilderness camp in the Mosi-o-Tunya National Park outside Livingstone. Beautiful tens with glass windows and best of all: air conditioning and HEAT! We even had blankets for our legs while eating dinner in the outdoor pavilion.
Zambia is a country of 11.5 million people whose primary industries are copper mining, agriculture (we saw large irrigated fields of wheat, corn and bananas). They can grow 2-3 crop per year. The country has people who speak 73 different languages. But like all the countries around here, most people live in small villages and the unemployment rate is about 75%.
This morning's game drive was rather quiet - we only saw things we had seen before: our pride of lions, kudu, puku, impala, and lots of birds. We did add a new beautiful bird the woodland kingfisher. About 10:30 we dashed back to camp as the tsetse flies came out.
In the afternoon, Chamu gave us a quiz. Some of the more interesting questions were social in nature. "Why its difficult to move people to create a national park?" They have to leave their buried ancestors. "What do you say to encourage these young democracies, how do you stop the poaching of elephants and rhinos?"
After our quiz, we took a cruise and had a unique sighting (none of the guides had ever seen), a kudu swimming across the river. Probably chased by a predator, it was at great risk of being found by the crocodiles. For the rest of the cruise we saw birds - white-fronted bee-eater, senegal coucal, giant kingfisher, and green backed heron (which attracts fish by dropping fish into the water).
We then drove back finding 3 cheetahs on our way. We stopped for sunset and had a campfire waiting for us with a portable bar and hor-d'oeurves. After dark, we spotted white tailed mongoose, jennets (another mongoose that looks like a cat) and some bush rabbits, all nocturnal animals.
The 3 wives (Ruth, Cindy, Mary) and John at sunset
Early on we saw defassa waterbuck, puku (like an impala without the white streaking and M on its butt) and oribi, only 2 feet tall at the shoulder and about 30 lbs. But as we were jeeping I saw the silhouette of a cat in the bushes next to us. We had come upon 6 cheetahs walking through the brush. Neither our tour leader nor any of the guides had ever seen more than 4 at a time, so this was a rare sighting.
Four of our six cheetahs
We saw a variety of birds and trees and then on the way back found a pride of 4 lions, a young male and 3 females. This pride had been commonly found about 1/2 mile from our camp.
On the evening drive, we revisited our lion pride and then were discovered by tsetse flies. They became a constant nuisance, everyone slapping them away with an occasional bite until the sun finally set. We returned in the dark, searching for leopards. Just before reaching camp there was a leopard in the road. We called the other vehicle and together followed it through the brush, getting several sightings of the leopard. Six cheetah, 4 lions, and a leopard all in one day (not to count the hundreds of tsetse flies).
Today will be an adventure since even Chamu, our tour leader, doesn't know exactly how we're getting to our alternative camp in Zambia. We started with a chilly drive to the airstrip, then a flight to Kasane, we were bussed to the Chobe river, where we took a small boat across to Zambia, then bussed to Livingstone where we boarded 3 planes to the Lufapa river camp outside Kafue National Park. Having left at 7 AM, we reach our camp about 3 in the afternoon.
While we were travelling we saw a lot of bush fires from the air. When they created the park, they gave fishing rights to the native people. When the river floods the fish go downstream to spawn. The natives set poles in the river to wedge the fish and spear them. As they are walking the land they set fires ahead of them to drive the animals away and see better. The fires primarily burn the grass, sparing the trees.
In the evening we took a cruise up on the tributaries of the Kafue river. Lots of birds, a water monitor, crocodile and a pod of hippos. We startled a hippo near the boat as he came up for air, in turn we were startled as he quickly submerged.
Hippos in the river
A little about our camp, Lufapa. The camp was scheduled to open on July 1st. OAT called and made arrangements for it to open 2 weeks early. Wilderness, the vendor, grabbed employees from other camps in Zambia, and sent them here 4 days ago, since the eventual employees and managers are on holiday (after building this camp over the last 5 months). Some of the toilets were just installed, the food arrived hours before we did, and a lot of little things are missing like waste baskets and tissues. They seem to have done an amazing job in just 4 days of pulling this together.
We started the day with a gentle ride down the river in a Mokoro poled by our guide, K.K. At first, I felt we would tip over, but it just took some getting use to the shift of the weight as he poled. K.K. has 2 daughters, age 4 and 10, but is not formally married. A marriage is too expensive, paying for gifts of cattle to the bride's parents as well as paying for the wedding feast itself. All of the guides and camp workers work for 3 months at a time and then have a month off. K.K. spends 2 weeks of his month fishing in a Mokoro with his family if school is out. We had a dramatic showing of day lilies, all closed up as we started, but on the return, they were all open. The water in the delta used to flow to the Indian ocean, but a fault now blocks its flow. 96% of the water is lost to evaporation, 2% gets used, and 2% leaves as a river which dries up a few hundred kilometers away. The water is trapped in the delta by an impermeable layer of rock below. An interesting fact is how islands get formed in the delta. Round islands get formed by termite mounds, they start them in the dry season between the flooding, and they gradually form over the decades. Longitudinal islands form in the water channels by vegetation building up and capturing soil, if the channels aren't cleared by the hippos. We stopped for a break near a pod of 19-20 hippos. As we watched, there were times when they were all underwater and other times when we could count 19 of them including at least 2 babies. An interesting note, the mother often leaves the pod with a male baby because the bull could kill the baby to protect his dominance of the pod. We waited patiently for a hippo yawn (smile) but it never came. In the afternoon, we took a short drive along the river and saw a variety of shore birds: yellow-billed stork, African spoonbill, Marabou storks (which poops on its legs to control their temperature) and the beautiful Saddle-billed stork. We discovered a pod of hippos spread out in the river and here we finally got that smile both from the adults and the babies.
In the evening, the staff sang welcoming songs and we had a traditional dinner with beef, bread, spinach, butternut squash, pallenta, and corn on the cob. The women had to serve their husbands and we ate with our fingers again. Another wonderful day!
Our morning game drive was rather quiet - largely because we now consider impala, giraffes, and even zebra normal sights. Our first sighting was the Steenbok antelope, the smallest of the antelope, even the grass is usually taller. Our rare find was the Kori Bustard, an endangered species. This bird is 3 or 4 feet high and the largest bird capable of flight. We passed a lot of white-browed sparrow weavers. They build their hanging nests on the west side of the trees to avoid the easterly winds and warm the nest before sundown. Cheetah
We saved the excitement of the day for the evening drive. We had seen little when the other land rover radioed that they had 3 Cheetahs in sight, another endangered species, and one the guides hadn't seen for a month. We rushed over toward them , but on the way, our guide sighted a leopard in the bush. A leopard is a rare find (the 4th of the big 5). Richard and Katherine had been on 50 days of Safari and had never seen one. They are most often seen in the bushes or trees. It is one of the few cats that can climb trees to get it prey. After it slunk off, we just had to go to the other side of the bushes to find the cheetahs. They often sit on termite mounds to spot their prey and sure enough that was where we found a female an her 2 cubs. We followed these 3 as they hunted for about 45 minutes, often getting within a hundred feet of them - they largely ignored us. Because they are competitors it is rare to find cheetahs and leopards so close to each other. The cheetah is much lighter with longer legs which give it a speed advantage over its prey for short distances. It needs to take down its prey by the neck because of its small size. And they hope to take the animal down quietly so that leopards or lions won't steal their meal. What a day this was! We had a lot of luck.
Leopard in the grass
After dinner, Chamu informed us that OAT had determined that it was too dangerous for us to go to Zimbabwe. The election is next week and there has been a lot of violence in the countryside. They're making arrangements for us to go to Zambia instead.
We traveled back to Botswana today, but now further south to the Okavango delta. On the trip from the airstrip to our camp we came upon a herd of zebra, giraffe, and Tsessebe antelope, the fastest of the antelope.
In the evening we went for a game drive and saw briefly 2 serval cats roaming the grass, a rare sight we've heard. We saw a bunch of birds all making a racket and came upon a puff adder snake. For sunset, the palins were filled with zebra and wildebeest in the distance. After dark, we used a searchlight to look for nocturnal animals, but succeeded only in scaring some hippos.
Wildebeest and zebra
And right after sunset, the temperatures drop from the 70's to what will be the high 40's in the morning. We learned to layer our clothes.
We visited a local school to start our day, a combined school of primary grades 1-7 and junior high 8-10, with about 250 students. Education is complusory from age 6 to 16 with major promotional exams after 7th, 10th, and 12th grades. Only about half the 10th graders to on to high school (in another town). If you do well after 12th grade you can quality for an international university. This schools recently was furnished with solar panels. Interestingly grades 1-3 are taught in the local language, while they study English as a 2nd language, but all the higher grades are taught in English. We visited the 10th grade, which had a lesson in molecular biology on a flip chart and their books were open to a lesson in banking (how to write checks, establish saving accounts, etc.). The first to third grade were taking their porridge break - porridge is provided by the school. We then visited a traditional village, where they show cased how life was lived 40-60 years ago. This included a demonstration of catching fish, making cornmeal, their chicken coop and a mouse trap. They also shared the coming of age ceremony for a girl. She is sung into the village after her first cycle and closed up in a hut for a month as the older women teach her the ways of a woman. Interestingly, back then women would marry at about 16, men at 25, always to a woman at least 5 years younger. Today men are getting married younger and women, older. They ended their demonstration with typical dancing.
The highlight of the day came early. We found a parade of elephants that were browsing the bushes and they started bugling each other to stay off the bush they were eating, one episode lasted over a minute.
Elephants bugling
Then we came upon Burchell's zebras, the stripes cover the entire body versus mountain zebras which have a white underside. They control their body temperature by opening their views on either the white (to cool) or black stripes (to warm). The range of these zebras has been dramatically reduced in recent years.
Zebra and giraffe
The guides asked us, "what came first the termite mound or the tree?" since we saw many termite mounds built around trees. The answer - it depends. For fruit trees, the fungus terminte mound is first, the fruit tree seed gets carried by baboons who use the hill for a lookout. For dry wood termites, the tree came first, and the termites build the hill up the tree, eating the outer bark. Finally, there are no trees around, harvest termite mounds, they are low mounds near grass connected by tunnels. We tried out the branches of the Magicquarry or toothbrush tree, which leave a fresh taste in your mouth. We didn't try the weeping walto or bushman's toilet paper. We're in the Caprivi strip of Namibia, which lies between the Angola and Kwando rivers. This is the rainiest portion of Namibia and has always been a haven for animals during the dry season. The strip was worked out by the Germans to provide acess through the river system to the Indian Ocean, but there was one problem - Victoria Falls. This region has housed revolutionaries from the surrounding countries into the 1990's, because it was largely ignored by the government until recently. When they created the park - they had to move two villages. They used the villagers as park rangers as well as setting the new homesteads up as examples for the tourists of typical village life in the past and present. Schools were setup and solar panels provided for electricity at the school. As their families expand, the chief can give out new land which they rent for about $1/year.
This morning we traveled by bus to the airport, then a small plane to a landing strip, walked to the river, where we caught a boat to go up the Kwando river to Lianshule lodge in Mudumo National Park, Namibia.
Namibia is about the size of Texas and Louisiana combined, it has 2.2 million people with an average annual income of $2.3K/person. Major industries are mining, fishing, cattle, agriculture, and tourism.
The river has lots of channels filled with papyrus and common reed. We stopped several imes to observe hippos, most of them eating along the side of the river. Then as we watched they would amble into the river. In the evening, we cruised along the river and saw day lilies (white or purple) and night lilies (yellow) which during respectively during the day or night. When couples get married the tradition is for the man to make a necklace from the little stem for the bride and a hat for himself from the lilly pad.
Chamu, our guide, gave us a lecture on the animals we probably wouldn't see on this trip. The Roan antelope, he saw 1 last year. Cheetahs, there are only 11,000 left in Africa, they need large open areas. The wild dog, only 3000left - only the alpha male and female mate and many are lost to disease or are shot. Rhino which have gone from 65000 in 1970 to 3000 today in all of Africa. They are poached for their horns which are rumored to be an aphrodisiac. Chamu's last tour were tracking one when they heard shots - the poachers were caught later - a game warden and a policeman. Last year, 3 were short in their pens for a local breeding program.
First Sunset on Kwando River, Namibia
The sunsets here are very unique. Every night we watch the sun set as a fireball with a few clouds around, the skies grow grey, and then about 20 to 30 minutes later, the skies turn red for a second time.
Second Sunset from the lodge's porch 30 minutes later
That night we heard hippos from the river and a lion roar. At dawn the sound of birds were everywhere.
We traveled quickly through the parts of the road we'd traveled before as we headed to the east end of the park. We came upon a large herd of impalas with a few water bucks and lots of baboons, all facing one direction. We suspect they were aware of a predator on the ridge, though we never saw it. Most of our trip was along the shore of the river and we saw many birds. The bird that quickly became our favorite is the lilac-breasted roller, the national bird of Botswana. This has to be one of the most colorful birds we've ever seen.
Lilac-Breasted Rollers
The big surprise was coming upon a herd of about 30 sable antelope wandering through the bushes. We also saw kudu with their long twisted horns. They have a large hump of muscle at their back allowing them to jump 3 meters from a standstill.
Sable Antelope
In the afternoon, we did a river cruise. Here we found several crocodiles and a large water monitor. Then we came up close to a memorial (herd) of elephants drinking from the water and throwing dust on the backs to keep off the bugs. By the way, a moving herd of elephants is called a parade of elephants.
In the evening the staff entertained us with local songs and dancing. Then we had a traditional meal with beef, impala sausage, and polenta, a cornmeal, all eaten with our fingers. During the night, we heard many sounds: the snorting of warthogs, screeching of baboons, bellowing of cape buffalo, and what sounded like a fog horn, apparently made by the dominant male baboon. All of these animals plus impala were visible at the watering hole below us the next morning.
Our first game drive started with an immediate siting of Cape Buffalo (first of the big 5). When we reached the river we could see a black back jackal in the distance followed quickly by wart hogs next to our vehicle (within days we would be calling these baby rhinos). The most common mammal is the impala, called the McDonald's of the bush with an M on their rear and "they're everywhere". They are often seen with waterbuck, who rely on the impala for their better eyesight to spot predators. We then came upon a colony of baboons from 3 week old babies to dominant males, all grooming each other or having playful sex. The females may copulate 100 times, but when it counts, they yield to the dominant male. Then in the space of 30 minutes - we saw 2 lions (our second of the big 5) stalking unsuccessfully some warthogs and a herd of cape buffalo, followed by a memorial (group) of elephants drinking at a waterhole (our third of the big 5, only leopard and rhino to go).
In the afternoon, we take the same road, but the animals changed significantly as different species head to the river. We first saw the southern ground hornbill, a big bird that primarily eats snakes - the white tips of the wings attract the snakes and they waste their venom on the cartilage at the tips. These birds live to be 65 years old. Then we saw a solitary giraffe bending down to a salt lick. Then up the hill, we saw a tower (stationary group) of giraffes feeding on wooly caper bush. What a sight, over a dozen animals.
Giraffe at the salt lick
The day finished with sunset on the river with many birds, a herd of elephants and our lions. We headed back to the lodge encountering 3 kudo on the way. What a day! Some of our group who had visited East Africa marvelled at the size of the herds, but lions were a hit for me!
We flew from Johannesberg to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe and then drove 2 hours to our lodge which is just outside Chobe National Park in Botswana. We traversed a portion of the park to get to our lodge and saw a herd of elephants, cape buffalo and a pair of giraffes on our way. Out camp overlooks the Cube river into Namibia. We were greeted by the staff with singing and dancing. It was amazing how quickly we were in the wilds of Africa.
Sunset on the Chobe River, Botswana
Botswana is about the size of Texas and has about 1.7 Million people. Only 2% of the country is arable, about 50% is used from grazing of cattle. The major industries are mining (52%), tourism (44%) and beef (4%). Hoof and mouth disease has dramatically affected the cattle industry, they can no longer ship to the European Union.
Tomorrow will start what will be our usual plan for the day. Wake up at about 5:45 or 6:00, with a quick breakfast (hot oatmeal is especially appreciated since it is usually in the mid-40s since its winter). Off on our game drive by 7:00 AM, we'll stop somewhere for tea and coffee, returning about 11:00 AM. The afternoon is free until tea time at 3:00. Then we're off to the afternoon driver or perhaps a river cruise. We'll always stop for refreshments about sunset (5:45 PM) and then either quickly return or have a night time game drive to see the nocturnal animals. Dinner about 7:00 or 8:00 followed by bedtime.
It took 2 overnight flights to get here, but we made it with all of our luggage (all 26 lbs/person). We reached the hotel about 11 - time for a short nap and lunch before our tour of Soweto. This township created outside Johannesberg and the blacks were forced to move here during the apartheid years (1948-1993). A key landmark is the water cooling tower for the former coal powered electric plant. At the time, Soweto itself had no electricity, they just got the pollution. Cooling Towers in the Center of Soweto
The world became aware of Soweto upon publication of a picture of a child killed during the protests of June 16, 1976. 566 people were killed that day because protesting the use of Afrikaner in the schools, rather than English. 1976 Photo
We also visited the Regina Mundi Catholic Church which served as a gathering place for the blakcs. Here you can see the altar which was broken by soldiers, but who accused the blacks have breaking it to provide an excuse for killing blacks, the bullet holes remain in the ceiling.
Today, Soweto is a relatively quiet place, even with the disparity of economic conditions - millionaires living across the street from hostels holding 20 single men, next to elephant houses (the roof of which looks like the back of an elephant) where 3 families live in what we would call small single family homes. There is a lot of pollution, since many people use coal for heating and cooking.
Everyone was friendly - a kindergartener, who was all smiles, hanging on to our legs, or a high school girl our guide just stopped on the street, who told us how she was doing in school. We stopped and I tasted some cow's head, a local dish. Most of the school children know at least 3 languages (local African dialect, English, and Afrikaner) and our guide actually speaks all 11 official languages.
KWV Wine Gallery 
Giant Kingfisher, Woodland Kingfisher, Green-backed Heron, Senegal Coucal
Cheetah
First Sunset on Kwando River, Namibia
Sable Antelope
Cooling Towers in the Center of Soweto
1976 Photo