Botswana to Port Elizabeth

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Near Grootfontein is were we met our first San Bushman in nothing but a leather G-string. We followed him into his village were we met the most extordinary group of semi naked people with their clicks for words. These people were traditionally nomads and travelled year round to where they could find food. They could find water in most unusual places and would have the upmost curtesy for their fellow bushmen by only drinking enough to survive and not enough to empty the scarce resources by quenching their thirst. They would also leave straws in the trees for the next bushman to drink. The bushmen would find the most amazing roots at the end of a potato looking plant to drink and wash themselves with it. They wouldn’t eat the whole root but replace it back in the ground for it grow back for the next traveler. We saw how they made fire, snared animals and hunted. They manufactured their own poisoned arrows that could kill any animal for food. Once again they wouldn't kill more than they needed and would share everything.
We got to have a go at archery (minus the poison arrows) and some of us even chose to smoke some rabbit poo, I've no idea why!? The best part was the singing and dancing at the end, where each singer would sing their own song but it would all blend into a beautiful harmony. There would be mouth clicking, clapping and bouncing. The elder who could communicate with the ancestors would look possessed and rub burning wood into the centre parting of his hair to ‘cool himself down’ as they were doing a dance usually would be done at night. Jodi and Lauren took part in one of the welcome dances with the ladies circling holding hands and dancing under each others arms each other until they had their arms wrapped round their own heads and through to the next person. There was quite a lot of bouncing which seems quite unfair for the topless Bushladies especially for the more voluptuous ones.

The next few days we stayed in the desert and went on a few game drives in our Multi Terrain vehicle. We didn't see much animals until the final drive where we found a male lion and followed him to see where he would take us. Jodi and I upgraded at one of the stops and were treated to a massive en suite roon with air-conditioning. This was well worth the extra money as we got out of the heat and could take a bath for the first time in a long long time. Jodi was thrilled.
At another stop there was a floodlit watering hole where we saw rhinos drinking after dusk. This was amazing as it was one of the few animals we didn't get to see so far. The state of the rhino population is so sad. Thousands get poached each year as the Chinese and Japanese eat the horns as they think it will make their tiny penises bigger, get a grip. The Africans now cut off the horns in some national parks but they are not allowed to sell them due to international laws. They want to sell the horns to lower the world prices and make the unlawful killing less appealing to poachers. Experts think rhinos only have about 10years left which is horrific. Let's try and make this ridiculous killing sound as ridiculous as it is! Get counselling to accept your tiny penises! Viagra should sort out your lack of skills too.

Spitzkoppe was in the middle of nowhere. It was a cross between a wild west movie set and the Australian outback. The orange and red rock formations, cliffs and hills were incredible. The bushmen used to travel round this spot and draw images of what they saw on the cliff faces. The elephants, rhinos and people where clearly visible even after thousands of years.
We climbed the hill behind the campsite for sunset and had a few ciders and banter with our traveling friends as the sun went down. That night we re-climbed part of the hill with our sleeping bags and mats to sleep under the plethora of bright stars. It was very hot and there were loads of noisy mossies. It was a hard choice to sweat inside my mosquito netted sleeping bag and not have buzzing in my ears or be cooler and not be able to sleep. After being bitten three times, once on the face, the choice became very easy.
The next morning we got up before sunrise, me with a massive mosquito bite on my face, and walked to the stone archway for more sunshine treat. This was the first sunrise I've seen in years. It was incredible. I also climbed up inside the stone archway for a great photo opportunity.

Cape Cross was were we met thousands of seals in the biggest seal colony in the world (or maybe just Namibia). They were so smelly it made up want to throw up the whole time I was there. The smell comes from the hundreds of dead seal pups that get crushed when their mothers rush to the water at the same time. Jodi nearly broke her neck when a sleeping pup she was standing beside suddenly woke up, yelled and chased her away. We found that clapping would scare most of the seals away. We walked on a raised enclosed walkway which gave us a great view within the colony. Somehow seals managed to get into the walkway and they were positioned between us and another group of tourist that entered the walkway from the other side. We attempted to heard the seals into an opening in the sailing but they kept charging us to try and get past which at times was scary. Sometimes clapping at them just wasn't enough and we would have to leg-it.

Swakopund is a very beautiful German influenced city on the Namibian coast. This is probably the first time we noticed that the white people outnumbered the black people and this didn’t feel like a good thing. I’ve never noticed when I visited Germany but in Africa all the Germans we came across were usually unhappy. Probably a bit of a generalization but it brought the feel of the place down quite a lot. We were so used to eastern Africans having very little but smiling ear to ear. We felt a bit out of place as we didn’t come to Africa to come across European towns. On arrival we signed up for sandboarding which is similar to snowboarding only hotter, sandier and involved sand dune walking. I also managed to buy some isopropyl (99%) alcohol to try to fix my water damaged phone which I stupidly took swimming with me the day we left Victoria falls. I figured putting my waterproof phone in a waterproof bag was adequate protection…
After soaking my phone in the alcohol I came home and the dish I had the alcohol in was empty. Assuming it had evaporated into outer space we fell asleep in the same room only to awake with killer head aches, vomiting and the squirts. This knocked us out for the whole day, meaning no sandboarding, no fun, no township tour and a day wasted. I still blame the Mexican pizza I had the night before, I think the meat was a bit iffy...but basically I alcohol poisoned us without even drinking a single drop. Our symptoms were identical to what we read online. The worst case could have been a coma, which would have halted our world trip for a bit. BTW I did get my phone working again…for an hour before it overheated and burnt out. I didn't even get the satisfaction of fixing my phone, maybe I should hand my degree back.

After this embarrassing ordeal and our recovery we headed to the Namib desert. We climbed one of the highest sand dunes in the world for sun rise. The colours were extordinary when the fresh sunlight hit the sand. This climb was hard work at 6am and still slightly out of sorts from the violations the alcohol had on us. I’m kinda glad we missed the sandboarding as the midday heat would have killed us. After breakfast at the dune we got 4x4s across the desert to a dried up marsh where dead acacia trees stood for hundreds of years being too dry to rot away, the place was very eerie. That's probably why some of Mad Max 4 was filmed there.

The next day we went to two different canyons the first was Sesriem canyon which was about 30m deep and we walked into it to see the dried up water bed. The cat fish bury themselves deep in the mud until the water levels rise again. The second canyon was Fish River Canyon which is the second biggest canyon in the world after the Grand Canyon. It is 500m deep in places and stretches for 160km. This one looked a lot wider than the Grand Canyon but the water level was so low there was no flowing water. You could see the many layers of different types of rock from the bottom to the top. The surface layer being as black as charcoal. We had wine, cheese and crackers at the lookout post just before it started to rain for the first time in two weeks. We were so grateful for the cold air After weeks of relentless heat. We stayed up that night watching the amazing lightening from our tent doorway.

We travelled onto Orange river which isn't actually orange. It was used to transport Diamonds during the time of the blood diamonds. It's now used to irrigate the many vineyards in the area. We hoped to canoe on the river but it was so low it would have been more of an orange river walk in places. We luckily found an air conditioned conference room to spend most of the day hiding from the unbearable heat. The pool would have been a good option but it had been emptied for cleaning. We had been warned about the dodgy boys behind the bar giving out free drinks to get lucky. I think this only spurred some of the girls on, including Jodi. Lol
On our final full day of the Nairobi to Cape Town trip we entered South Africa. We were welcomed by even more vineyards and rugged hills. We stayed at Highlanders farm which was amazing. We got an upgrade to avoid staying in a tent one more night and to be able to sort our many bags into two rucksacks. We stayed in en-suite cabins which were named after types of wine (unfortunately the name of ours escapes me, in sure it was nice). Unfortunately we didn't spend much time in it as we had to rush off to a wine tasting session which was great. The pinotage was our favorite. Then we had dinner and birthday cake, as it was Sarahs birthday, and when the music started we danced the whole night away until the bar closed. My moves were particularly good. Before bed some of the guys checked a board on the farm with various records set by the backpackers that stayed there. One was running around the pool naked, which stood at 51 laps. We ignored this one and went for the most naked people in the pool which was only 9 people. We had 13 people in the bar so thought it was an easy task to get at least 10. Jodi and I were numbers 3 and 5 respectively. At one point I was in a pool with 6 naked ladies which was terrible (I have to write that). With a lot of persuasion we managed to get 10 people. At which point the owner brought out shots for us all and made up do a silly impala dance with our fingers pointing from our heads for horns and getting us to jump up and down in the water. He was at the top of the pool and I’m sure he had quite a view of the ladies Lol I don't think he changes the record, he keeps it low enough that people have a chance of beating it and he gets a good eye full every night lol.
On arrival to Cape Town we got to our hostel, Once in Cape Town, and said our good byes to our tour leader, cook and driver who had done a great job of keeping us fed, entertained and safe all the way down over the 45 long days. I don't think we'll ever do a tour that long ever again!! It was amazing but the constant traveling and tent sleeping took some of the joy out of it. Unfortunately Africa is massive and long days of travelling are necessary.
A lot of guys from our trip stayed in our hostel or nearby. We met up with them quite a lot for drinks and food. We also took a cable car up to Table Mountain together where the views were incredible!! We did the Robben Island tour that afternoon where a lot of the political and anti apartheid protesters where held including Nelson Mandela. The man who took us on the tour of the cells was sentenced for 25 years for organizing protests against the South African government. It was eye opening to hear his story and to realise that the apartheid still isn't known by many other countries.
Cape Town is smaller than I was expecting. The enormous table mountain encroaches and overlooks the city from all angles. The waterfront is really nice and picturesque with lots of nice fish restaurants and shops.

We left Cape Town on Friday 22 January, getting a hop-on-hop-off coastal bus called the Bazbus. It picks us up from our hostel and drops us at the front door of the next hostel of our choosing. This happened to be Mile Crunchers hostel in Mossel bay which was so friendly. We had stopped here as we wanted to go shark diving and the shop was just below the hostel. We hadn't pre-booked it as we weren't sure the Bazbus would work as expected. We found out that a private group had booked for the next day but hadn't confirmed. So all our hopes rested with a cancellation. Just before bed we found out we had got our trip but there was a high chance we wouldn't see sharks as the last few trips had missed out. We took the risk and signed up with the cushion of getting a 30% refund if no sharks appeared.
The morning of the shark dive we had a massive breakfast at the shark shop and headed down to the harbour to get on our boat. This was apparently filled with expanding foam in case the shark attacks and sinks the boat. The safety briefing went on to say that if you don't see sharks before the boat sinks the orange life belt and whistle will definitely get their attention…
It took 30mins in the fog to get to our anchorage point near the reef. At which point the clouds lifted and the air warmed a little. The cage went in the water and the guys started throwing a mix of sardines and sea water into the ocean behind the boat. A massive tuna head was also thrown in as bate. After 30 mins we hadn't seen any sharks so Jodi and I decided to get in the cage anyway to see if we could attract some sharks with our heartbeats and tasty smells, Jodi hadn't washed for days in preparation. This didn't work for 1.5 hours until we got out of the water and started taking off our wet suits. We saw two shark fins chasing each other in the distance. We frantically reversed the wetsuit process and hobbled back into the cage. The first sighting was a ‘small’ 2.5meter shark chasing the tuna bate straight for the cage. The shark crashed straight into us and even had the point of its nose inside. If I hadn't been so shocked I might have chanced stroking it's matt grey skin. We saw two sharks repeatedly swim past the cage. It was amazing how big they were how easily they moved through the water. We got a bit scared when a shark slapped it tail off the side of the cage and the whole thing moved and shook. I'm sure it pushed the whole boat away from it by meters. The cage was only about 1 meter wide and 3 meters long. It had horizontal bars to put our hands and stop us holding onto the more dangerous outer bars. The vertical outer bars had about 15cm gap between them. This isn't much but there was a few times I was shocked to find my foot and half my lower let out of the cage without realising!! Eventually there was a bit of a lull and the water was quite cold so we decided to get back into the boat. I managed to scramble out, the weight of my slippery wetsuit making it quite difficult. Jodi managed to get her bum on the side of the boat before loosing her footing and falling all the way into the cage again. I thought she really hurt herself as her arm bounced off one of the cage bars really hard. She tried to get out again with our help this time and she appeared remarkably unscathed. Once we had changed into our clothes we returning the rear of the boat to find 5 sharks chasing each other. The crew kept throwing and retrieving the tuna head, and so many times a shark would chase it towards the boat, we would all jump back as it looked like it would jump on board. It was just as amazing to see the sharks above the water trying to get the tuna. One shark tried so hard it created a massive splash that soaked us all again. We were so blessed to see such an amazing animal. We could have watched them all day but I had to tell the skipper we needed to catch the bazbus at 13.45 so we packed up and left the sharks to it. Sharks are getting endangered due to the Asian market of shark fins. They make soup out of them but they are flavorless without any nutritional value and they add chicken stock and spices to make it edible. It's such a shame as sharks are so important for the marine ecosystem and are amazing creatures in their own right. We had some reservations about going as we thought giving sharks food would not only distance themselves from there natural feeding routine or that bringing them close to humans would make shark attacks more likely. We realised that the crew don't actually feed the sharks. The sardine mix is only for providing a smell in the water. It's far too watered down to eat. And the tuna head normally survives the ordeal even though the sharks manage to grab it a few times and take it underwater. As for bringing sharks in close contact with humans, sharks don't like to eat humans, they are very inquisitive and will be interested in our fast heartbeats. There has been very few shark attacks even with shark cage diving taking place.
Once we got off at the harbour we rushed up to get our bus. We also tried to buy the DVD of our trip which we nearly got but the DVD burner failed in the last minute of copying. Once we got on the bus Jodi told me that she had broken her toe from the fall!! I have no idea how she hid it so well. She never wants to make a fuss even when her toe is hanging off. Lol

Albergo backpacks, Plattenberg bay. We went for a stroll this morning along the beach but we're generally having a rest and catching up on our blog writing. Jodi nearly finished hers when the document she was using vanished. We would have posted hers by now otherwise. Now I have to keep writing until she rewrites hers again (sorry). The next day was cold damp and generally gloomy. We only left the hostel to buy some hake and chips for lunch and to get our next bus to Storms River.

Tsitsikamma backpackers, Storms River. We arrived at out hostel at 9pm. We had called to book one of the tents that they had pitched in the back of the hostel. We were looking forward to using our nice sleeping bags and our roll mats which been never used and are a bit of a dead weight. On arrival we were shown to a tent, similar to what we used in the overland trip from Nairobi, pitched on a nice raised square of decking. It contained to our amazement two single beds with duvets and pillows and a bedside table and lamp. This was luxury and we wished all tents could be like this. Our roll mats had remain unused.
The next morning we had a lovely breakfast and we started an off road Segway tour of the hills and forests surrounding Tsitsikamma. It's was really fun and even Jodi enjoyed it a lot more than she thought. We got to see a massive 1000 year old tree which was stunning. At the end we got to race round a football pitch which I thought I could easily win. It's not so easy doing 20km/h when leaning your body over the front of the Segway as it leans back especially when the football pitch hasn't been very well leveled. It was quite a scary experience. I even managed to spin myself off the thing as I done a reverse turn a lot faster than intended.

Our final night in Africa was in a garden shed, in Port Elizabeth, with a double bed in it. It was a nice garden shed though. We didn't see much of Port Elizabeth as our flight to Sri Lanka was at 14.30 the next day.
The first connection to Johannesburg was only two hours and was fine. We were sat beside a lady who was telling us the South African Airways was bankrupt and couldn't afford to pay it’s pilots. This gave us great confidence as we came into land. Our second flight to Abu Dhabi was with Etihad and took 8 hours. We were served drink constantly and took full advantage. We had planned to sleep on this flight but this never happened. We arrived in Abu Dhabi completely shattered. We tried to sleep on a sofa in the terminal but got chased away when the room was needed to be used as a boarding gate. We later returned when they had finished. Our final flight was only 4hours and wasn't so bad. We finally got to our hotel in Colombo after 35hours of traveling. I'm sure we have longer journeys to come.

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