GR day 3

Got up and saw a full tire instead of a flat one. That was a relief. We went to see the penguins:

There were also rock hyraxes:

This site was also used by early Khoisan people as a snacking point, piling up abalone shells:

Then we drove to the Stellenbosch winery region, sampling wines in two places and having lunch at the second. 

There was a trash fire or something nearby:

And we were still beset on all sides by gorgeous scenery:

We made a big push to get to the Cape of Good Hope before it got too late. There was a ton of traffic, but we arrived to a foggy west coast. 

There were a couple seals down there. 

The clouds opened up a little bit, so we got a slightly better view:

The Cape of Good Hope isn't the southerly-most point in Africa, but it is an important navigational landmark. 

We then drove into Cape Town for the first time. Our hotel is super posh and in a posh area. 

Our French bistro restaurant's menus snootily reminded us not to bother dining celebs. 

Jack's in Betty's Bay

I promised more pictures of Jack's. This is the view out the front of our room:

And this is the view out the back:

Pretty snugly situated on the coast, hunh?

We aren't staying long enough to take advantage of the huge balcony:

Picture the surf roaring in the muted distance. 

The proprietors are artists, and stock the halls with some cool art. This is my favorite by far:

The whole building has poured concrete floors and high ceilings:

Matt remarked it's the best place he's stayed at all trip, and I agree on the visual aspects alone. 

Some history:

Even though we have to keep traveling, the scenery and setup here at Jack's makes we want to slow down and take it all in. It's hard for me to say that this is the place to come to get away from it all, because it does have good wifi and let's you fiddle on your phone any time, like I'm doing now. Well, except for the power-down load shedding times, like what started just before I was about to upload this! It was supposed to be at 8:30 but happened early, catching Gabe mid-shower.

Breakfast:

GR day 2

Woke up to missing the bag with all my biltong bought at Kruger. While I was able to sample every kind, I'm still devastated at having misplaced it. For the record, impala was my favorite. So while it is a nuisance for spotting more exotic animals, impala is quite delicious as a cured meat.

This is how our Nissan rental (the one we picked up at Port Elizabeth airport) was secured overnight at Knysna Inn:

A powered gate in the back. 

 

We went down to the waterfront area of Knysa to get breakfast. 

At Cafe Throbb,

I had a nice smoothie:

And a chicken liver dish called bunny chow. On the whole, it was a delicious meal and reminded me of the places nearing SF on the bike tour. 

We drove through a few more scenes on the Garden Route before realizing in Mossel Bay that Gabe had left his day pack at the cafe. He and I drove back to pick it up while Matt checked out Mossel Bay more. I snapped a couple random pics on the way:

We got lunch at a place connected to the local branch of the posh Protea Hotel, with this legend of the old Post Office Tree:

My traditional fish and chips were disappointing. 

We headed back down the Garden Route. 

A gas station attendant noticed our left rear tire was deflating. He put in some air, but I verified it was dropping several psi at the next stop an hour later. Our spare is all good, but it's an annoyance. 

We arrived late to Jack's, a very out of the way but beautiful place on an essentially lost coast area. The pictures will be better when I take them in the morning. Betty's Bay is a quiet town on the Atlantic side. A cool survey/planning map of the area hangs at Jack's:

My dinner was a Xhosan dish: mqsho, where q is a click sound. 

It was good. But the highlight were the mini samosa appetizers, where the chef'd swapped egg roll skins in for better frying. Inspired. 

Tomorrow, we take on looking for penguins and poking around Betty's Bay before heading up to Stellenbosch for winery stuff. 

NBA on SA TV

Watching some TV at the hotel. 

Whatever programming deal is going on here, NBA games don't have any ads. During media timeouts, the NBA has folded in various random archive footage, like MJ returning and wearing #45.

They are not showing any March Madness, though. 

GR day 1

Got up and hit the road (N2 to be specific) along the Garden Route. First stop was Tsitsikamma National Park, which has a Great Tree, an Oudeniqua Yellowood, as well as a trail along the coastline. The 3km hike ended in an nice waterfall. The coast here was very rugged, but the hike was still easier by far than DK. 

Great Tree, or Groot Boom in Afrikaans:

The hike was extremely beautiful, showing off yet another face to SA:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c8ECLILmyd8

I have no pics of the waterfall itself, strangely. On the way back, I got lost going up a sidetrail. I gave up on that after I saw some baboons, finally conceding I was heading up-mountain. On the way back out of the trail, I saw a small grey mongoose, which I think is what we saw in Kruger. 

Then we made a quick stop at Bloukrans Bridge, home of the world's tallest bungee jump. Matt went off of it; Gabe and I abstained. I from terror at the idea. 

Then we headed through Plettenberg Bay, first stopping at a high point to look over the city. A somewhat Monaco feel. Then we walked on the beach for a bit.

After that, we drove into the town with our hotel -- Knysna. It's Sunday night, and everything is closed, including the restaurant we wanted to go to. 

Note -- along the N2, there were many examples of extreme poverty abutting wealth. Shantytowns across the street from seaside villas, that sort of thing. My saw rich white old guys riding their mountain bikes down the road one way, and some poor black guy riding his beater bike up the road the next minute. I really wonder how much these sides of South Africa try to understand each other, and how much they just let each other be. 

KR vids

Some animal videos:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=srRBmiat1p8

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YKddNNDfl0s

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wamuSQQ5eTs

https://vine.co/v/OLBvOhuilz5

From the drive down to DK:

https://vine.co/v/OLznVJEVvOZ

KR day 4

Leaving Kruger today. We'll drive the car back to JB and fly to PE. We'll pick up another rental, starting the Garden Route leg of the trip. But tonight, we stay in PE, getting Internet and maybe some real laundry done. 

Kruger has been a fascinating experience. When zoo guides in the US tell you that some of the animals on display are wild, that simultaneously undersells and oversells the term. Animals aren't mindless savages -- they have compex habits and participate in a working ecosystem. It's a privilege to be able to step more into their world to understand them better. 

KR night 3

Last night in KR. Today's drive back to Skukuza, the camp with attached airport, was rather uneventful. We spotted a jackal and ostriches, the only new animals of the day.

There's a family of warthogs just rooting around on Skukuza's campgrounds:

Note how they genuflect to get at low lying food. 

I realized I hadn't really explained what the living quarters in a camp bungalow look like. This is the hut:

Our Honda Ballade, slightly smaller than a Civic:

The outdoor kitchenette:

It's strange that they leave all the cookware outside where baboons might grab them to lick off residue, but it seems to work. We're going to cook on the hot plate tonight, as the Cattle Baron Grill and Bistro really let Gabe and me down for lunch. And I mean really down. 

The inside of the bungalow:

Everything is kept very clean; you're not going to find much to object to with the accommodations at Kruger. Any of the public bathrooms are going to be spotless. 

Later: 

We went on our game walk and saw... just impala. The walk was still plenty educational, though. We learned about elephant dung and how it looks from elephants' mixed-feeding habits. They eat bark/leaves as well as grass, so their dung has a reddish tinge. Whereas white rhinos eat only grass, which is obvious in its dung. Black rhino eat twigs on top of grass, but chop the twigs up straight unlike the elephant's diagonals. Just walking about showed us so much about tracking and understanding animal behaviors. The silver lining to the uneventful walk was spitting a leopard on the way back!

It was padding along in silence. When it crossed the road behind us, we turned to watch it and snap pics. Some impala across the road started barking and tensing up, spilling onto the road to get out of the leopard's way.

We also saw a hyena just chilling on the roadside:

We made good on our promise to cook ourselves dinner. The fruit of an hour's labor:

Note the South African National Parks logo on the plate. Not pictured is the banana pudding we made with our snack bananas and wheat bread, plus a can of desert cream from the shop. 

KR day 3

Today we drive back to Skukuza. We have already reserved the afternoon walk, so we have to make it back to camp by 3p, which shouldn't be a problem. 

KR night 2

We made our slow drive up to the Satara camp in the middle stretch of Kruger starting around 9:30. The only new mammal we saw today was Burchell's zebra. Though we did get to see a few herds of them grazing in the slightly more open and arrid parts leading up to Satara. We did enjoy repeat encounters with elephants, giraffes, hippos, crocs, and especially water buffalo, a train of which held us up at a crossing for maybe several minutes. We got a little fatigued keeping our eyes peeled for a leopard napping in the trees. 

I don't have many pics because I was doing the driving. I made all the usual mistakes with switching to RHD -- looking for the shifter on the right, not using the rearview mirror, wandering too close to the left side of the road. It's not that hard to drive inside Kruger, though, with its max limit of 50kph and few cars on the roads. 

A large spider tending its meters-wide web:

Unusual vegetation:

The last is a huge baobab we took a minor detour to visit. 

All-American Breakfast at the ubiquitous Mugg & Bean:

Pretty close to a full English breakfast. 

"Russian & Chips" from an in-part rest area:

I had to know what the dish was, though I t didn't end up being that entertaining. A small group of vervet monkeys kept messing with diners, jumping on a couple people to steal their foodstuff. We saw a couple folks feeding them to take pictures. A shame. 

A cheetah statue at Satara:

There's only 120 in Kruger, so I have dim hopes of seeing one, but it would be my top choice.

Later: 

We went on an evening game drive after the morning game walk was sold out. Mostly a bust, but we did see a genet and civet, both nocturnal creatures.