The one with the stupid Dutch boy

It is March 29, and I'm still in Johannesburg. For those of you more or less aware of where I should be at what point, this will undoubtedly be a surprise, as I was supposed to be in Tanzania, near Kilimanjaro, at this point. But, here's the thing. I may look smart (well, sort of), sound smart (ehm... sometimes), and act smart (OK, rarely), I'm really not that bright... Throughout my trip, there have been two things I've guarded with my life: my iPod (mostly just because it holds all my pictures), and my passport. Yet unfortunately, I made the mistake of placing one of my wallets, the one holding my passport, in a vault at one of the backpacker hostels that I stayed at, and yes, I forgot to bring it with me as I left. They sent it up here to Johannesburg, but South African mail, though reliable, is slow. Without a passport, no flight to Tanzania, so there you have it. Just today (Thursday), I did receive the package, so I'm about to start working on getting a flight up to Tanzania. Sadly, it means that I won't get to go to the Kilimanjaro area, but only to Zanzibar. OK, well, it's not the end of the world. No worries. I'll just sit in my beautiful garden in Johannesburg a little bit longer...

It's been so long since my last post, I mean, the last "real" post, that I can't even remember where I left off, and I'll certainly be at risk of leaving out a lot here, but I'll do my best to cover everything I wanted to say. (Picture top right: me with some of my favorite staff at my Mauritius hotel/bar, Alan and Sweety. Picture left: rainbow near Simonstown, on the Cape Peninsula. Picture below to the right: seal rock, near Simonstown).

One day before leaving Mauritius, I decided to book an additional one-way trip from Johannesburg to Cape Town on the day I was supposed to land in South Africa. I'd heard stories of how awesome Kaapstad is, and only then truly realized how big this country is. So, I spent a few days down there.

Cape Town was truly fantastic, and I'm so glad I went there! On my first night in town, I went on a pub-crawl, and met an amazing group of Americans whom I hung out with pretty much all night. The street I stayed on was the busiest, liveliest one in town (Long Street), with lots of pubs, clubs, and hostels, and so that was a great night. Sadly, we didn't really get all that much sleep, but hey, I'm on holiday, right?!?

My second day, I spent a large chunk of my time planning my trip. South Africa is a quite easy country to get around in, but I figured, I have so little time, I better plan ahead. I really wanted to see Cape Town, see the coast (Garden Route and Wild Coast), and see Kruger National Park. So, the wonderful girl at the reception at the Inn Long Street (Nikki), where I was staying, helped me out a ton, and booked most trips and tickets for me, which was, of course, great!

There are basically, as I see it, four main attractions in and around Cape Town: Table Mountain, Robben Island, the Waterfront, and Cape of Good Hope. I'm happy to report I saw all of them. Table mountain (picture left) is phenomenal to look at from afar (in fact, I got quite a nice view of it from my hostel balcony!), but the views from the top are truly remarkable. It's an oddly shaped city, Kaapstad, which you don't truly realize until your so high up and get a good view of the whole thing.

The waterfront is sort of a nice, pretty, harbor-like area. I didn't think it was that different from, say, the Baltimore waterfront (or the Scheveningen boulevard, really), but the weather was nice, and a great little dixieland-band was playing in the shade of a tree, and they were wonderful. Also, I was fortunate enough to be there during a national holiday (I think it was Human Rights Day), so a large children's choir was singing some great tunes (and some of their soloists were amazing!). It made me miss Benri, and basically all of my other singing friends from the States...

From the waterfront, you can take the ferry to Robben-island, which, as I hope you all know, was where Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (and with him of course many other ANC members) were held captive for many years (18 years in the case of Mandel). The tour we got there, though short, was an incredible experience, especially since I'm a tremendous admirer of President Mandela and have read his autobiography ("Long Walk to Freedom") several times (I recommend reading this to everyone!). Standing at his cell, in the prison court yard, and in the mine where he was put to work was a very intimidating, unsettling, but powerful and almost magical experience.

I also took a day trip down to the Cape peninsula ('schiereiland' in het nederlands). We had a fantastic guide, and we made a side trip to the real 'robbeneiland' (it isn't called that, but there were a lot of 'robben', or seals in English, just lying around in the sun there), as well as another penguin beach (these were much bigger than the ones at Philip Island near Melbourne). But the highlight for me was biking around on the peninsula on mountain bikes, and going up the Cape Point as well as the Cape of Good Hope. Quite neat to think about how hundreds of years ago the Dutch VOC was already sailing around it to get to Asia, for trade etc.
At my hostel in Cape town, there were a few wonderful people staying there, so we just sat out on our balcony and hung out a lot with the four of us (Vicky from England, Cameron from the US, me, and Jenny from Germany [picture right]... that's the backpacker world for you right there!). It turns out that South Africa has many great, great tourists from all over the world, and that certainly helps make the travels much more fun!

The next day and a half, I spent traveling up the coast. Due to my limited amount of time, I sadly didn't get to spend any time at any of the "Garden Route" beaches, but I still got to see some great sights along the way. My first real stop was in Cintsa, or Chintsa (depends how well you can pronounce Xhosa!), on the wild coast. Within 5 minutes of arriving there, I found a great new friend in a girl called Arabella, a vet ('dierenarts') from Sussex, England. I only spent 2 nights there, but had a great time at the gorgeous beach and pool areas, and in the fun bar or on our little balcony (with a great view; see picture left of Arabella and me; that was actually taken at our little dorm/cottage!).

After leaving my passport in their vault, I made my way up through Durban to Johannesburg, where I only spent one (very short) night, before heading up to Kruger National Park, for a 3-day safari there. To my surprise, I met two beautiful girls from Luton (England) there, Jo and Claire, who were also on my Robben Island tour down in Cape Town, and they turned out to be great company! In fact, most of the group, including a wonderful Australian couple (Vic and Michael), was great (all of them are behind that ridiculously red/pale guy in the center of the picture on the right).

At Kruger Park, we got tremendously lucky. Sure, we had to get up in the dark at 5am every morning, but the morning drives and walks through the park were TOTALLY worth it! I was fortunate enough to see all of the "Big 5" in a single day (lions, leopards, elephants, rhinos, and buffalo), which is something few people can say, and of course saw lots of others as well, including some beautiful zebras and wildebeests (picture below) and giraffes quite closeby.

But overall, it was great! We stayed at a small little private tent-camp, but, with a pool(!) and hot showers, so it was a perfect mix of back-to-nature and comfort. Three days (two nights) is almost too short, I would have loved to stay there longer and spend more time there, and see more gorgeous sunrises (yes, got some pictures and videos of those too!) and sunsets, and animals, but time was running out. But, as soon as I'll get to reasonably fast Internet again I'll post plenty of pictures for you guys to see some of the amazing sights and animals and solar phenomenae. For now, I'll leave just this picture of an elephant having a spot of lunch right next to our car, really close by!

Upon returning to Johannesburg, I found out I didn't have my passport yet, so I decided to stick around for a couple more days. This worked out great, as I met a great Dutch girl (Annemiek), whom I've been hanging out with a LOT for the past couple of days. Yesterday, we joined another Dutch couple (on their way to emigrate to Australia) and went to the Apartheid museum (in the picture right, that's Annemiek sticking her head out of one of the tanks used during the 1976 Soweto uprising), and a tour of Soweto (including a walking tour through the poor, illegal settlements, at sunset). It was very fascinating and impressive.

As far as safety is concerned, yes, you have to be careful, and yes, it's a dangerous country (and especially the city of Jo'burg). But, I basically don't leave anywhere at night, the hostel drives us everywhere (including the mall), and common sense gets you a long way. I did have a small incident in Cape Town, which I didn't report earlier so as not to worry any of you, but really, nothing bad happened to me or my possessions in the end, so again, don't worry! I do hope, though, that I can get a flight out to Zanzibar as soon as possible, because I'm not sure how to entertain myself here for many more days. I have a hotel room booked there starting April 1, but hopefully I can make it out tomorrow or on the 31st. I think perhaps I'll take a diving course in Zanzibar, I'll have enough time there now, haha.

I'm sorry I haven't been posting on the blog, uploading many pictures, and responding to e-mails. Please keep sending me messages though, either through this blog (by clicking "comments" below) or by e-mail, I do read everything! It's just that, Internet is scarce, and extremely slow here, but I'm doing the best I can. I did manage to upload a little video of Cape Point, as well as a few others, and have finally finished uploading all my Mauritius pictures (and some Cape Town pictures as well), and am doing my best to get up to date. Hopefully I'll get some time (and better connections) in Zanzibar to keep you posted better.

I love South Africa, absolutely LOVE everything about it (except, of course, the crime). Cape Town is an amazing and entertaining city, the coast is beautiful, nature remarkable, and the people, and perhaps especially my fellow tourists, wonderful. I will come back here. Soon.
p.s. In the great tradition of the infamous Roel-Sunset-Pictures, I'll leave you with an image of the sun setting in one of the Shantytowns of Soweto. Enjoy!