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Published: July 12th 2007
Well, we were in South Africa up until last night. I worked on the pictures on our way to the Johannesburg airport and had to leave the details until our arrival in Egypt. We are now in Luxor after a very long and exhausting journey. 4 hours of car to Joburg followed by waiting at the airport and a 7 hour night flight to Cairo!! Just shows you how huge Africa is! Once in Cairo we found out that our flight to leave in one hour (8am) was changed to 9pm!! Not good news for weary travellers! Anyway, we talked our way onto a noon flight and found a spot to squat until boarding. We are now in Luxor and have one night in a hotel before we get on our cruise down the Nile. We picked the Shady Hotel which is full of adolescents from France!! At least 100 of them and no peace in sight for the rest of the evening! I have left Emmanuel by the pool with the kids to deal with teenagers chasing each other around the pool. Somehow Yohan has worked his way into the group of boys and was even seen helping to
dunk some poor helpless girls! You can only imagine!
Enough of that though, I'm here to tell you a bit about our stay in South Africa which we are very happy about! Our first week was spent in Cape Town or more exactly in Hout Bay where Christine Dunkley, (some of you may remember her from Broadview coop in Seattle) put us in contact with a friend who rents out two homes on her property. They were amazing and we had such a wonderful stay! So good to see Christine and her family, Shawn and Kyle have grown so much. Yohan and Tatiana were happy to see some English speaking kids!
Cape Town is full of so many stunning landscapes and from Table Mountain, we admired all that the surrounding area has to offer. From the Mountain you can see all the way to Cape Point which was another day trip for us. Of course we made our way to the Cape of Good Hope, the southwestern most point of Africa and on our way to Cape point we passed cape zebras, baboons and austriches. Looking out at the point we watched as whales spouted off from time to time.
Often in the Cape area I felt like we were either on the French Riviera or the Northern California shoreline. The city of Cape Town itself feels a lot like an American city. The first time we've really felt like we were back home since we've left. We found the people all so friendly and helpful and it is interesting to see the mix of different people either of Dutch or English origin and of course all of the native Africans from the area as well as from other countries in Africa like Congo and Senegal. From what we gathered, the later come here to do much of the work that the South Africans do not want to do.
I must admit that we were very surprised by the chasm between the rich and poor. We could easily go from a beautifully manicured neighborhood to the slums, houses built of whatever the people could find. A reminder that the apartheid was in the not so distant past. From various conversations we were somewhat reassured to find that the government is making an effort to provide better housing for these people. Our last two nights in South Africa we were able
to speak with a black landowner near Kruger. He is considered to be the chief of over 10,000 people and owns the land that his family has had for generations. For several decades he did not have the right to claim this land, now it is his. We talked about the very high crime rate and unemployment rate (40%!!!). He said that a minority are trying to get ahead the easy and fast way and that means stealing and violence. Others are slowly working their way up. The Chief seemed positive about the future. This was one voice but it was important to hear.
In Cape Town we celebrated both Vanille and Yohan's birthdays. Vanille is now 8 and Yohan a big 10!! Yohan was happy to beat his soccer juggling record which is now over 200!!! He even met Oliver from Durban South Africa who also shares a love of soccer!
From Cape Town we flew to Johannesburg. After renting twin VW Golfs which they claimed were new, (1980 models!) we stuffed ourselves into the cars with tears in our eyes and drove to Hazyview just outside the Kruger National Park. (The tears were from laughing so hard!) Kruger
Park is about the size of Massachussets, 22,000 square kilometers. It is home of the Big Five which include the Lion, buffalo, leopard, elephant and rhinocerous. What an adventure we had! I have to say that there is nothing like being out in an open 4X4 in search of wild animals! We did several drives while there and were fascinated by all that we saw. Having 4 kids with us made this even more fantastic. Imagine the first time you come across rhinos or giraffes just meters away. The kids were over the moon and so were their parents!
In one week we saw, giraffes, zebras, hippos, rhinos, buffalo, impala, kudu, water buck, nyala, crocodiles, elephants and even two leopards eating an impala in a tree but we never came across a lion!! Our big disappointment I must say. We saw so many beautiful birds and on our last morning Bob, at the game lodge we were staying took us for a bush walk where he showed us all of the tracks of impala, giraffe etc. So interesting to learn how to track the animals and actually get an idea of what they were doing as they walked around. We
didn't see any big game on this walk but were amazed to watch hundreds of birds come to drink. I think Emmanuel and I might take up bird watching someday, I never thought I would say that!
Here are some interesting animal facts that we learned:
1. A giraffe only sleeps 20 minutes a day and yes, they do lay down!
2. Lions tend to sleep 20 hours a day thus the reason we didn't see any!
3. A mother zebra takes her baby away from the herd for 2 days so that the baby can memorize its mothers stripes in order to identify her from the others.
4. A hippo can run up to 40km an hour, imagine that!
5. A buck impala has up to 30 females all to himself during mating season! All those bucks who weren't so lucky form a bachelor group.
6. A full grown white rhino can weigh up to 2,600 kilos!
7. The black Mamba is the deadliest snake in Africa and will kill you in 11 min. once bitten.
8. Gestation period for an elephant is 22 months.
9. A rhino is completely blind.
10. A cheetah can run 120 km
an hour, the fastest animal in the world.
11. Elephants are very family oriented and can mourn a lost family member for years, returning regularly to the spot where they died!
This trip was such an important one for our family since we were spending time with Renaud, Barbara and the kids. Everything went so well and I am sure that there will be more trips like this with them in the future!
We only have 5 weeks left and we will be back in Seattle, so hard to believe. We will let you know how this Egyptian adventure goes in a few days. Thinking of you!
FROM TATIANA:
Dear Friends and Family,
I went in South Africa. I saw penguins on the beach. I went to a park called Kruger National Park and in the park there were a lot of animals. We saw a leopard in a tree and the leopard was eating a Impala! In South Africa I was with my counsins Vanille and Kenzo.
We had fun with Vanille and Kenzo. AT Kruger Park we saw 19 different animals but we did not see the lion. It was very cold in
South Africa because it was winter! I went to a circus that was with kids that were interested in the circus. It was good and it was it for Vanille's birthday and Vanille was very happy! We also went on a cable car up the mountain with Shawn and Kyle and I had a very beautiful view on the top. I had fun jumping on the rocks. We saw friends from Seattle that now live in Cape Town next to the water. Their girl is called Shawn and their boy is called Kyle. I had a lot of fun with Shawn. For Yohan's birthday we went to seal island that only has seals on it. The seals did not smell good! I had a lot of fun in South Africa!
Love,
Tatiana
FROM YOHAN:
Dear All,
I am in Egypt but three days ago I was in South Africa. The first week I was there I was in Cape Town in a beautiful area called Hout Bay. In Cape Town there are lots of beaches, mountains and even penguins! I never thought that I would see penguins in my life but I did!
The penguins on
Cape Town's beach just showed up 10 years ago. The penguins are really funny because they walk with a waddle.
When I was in Cape Town I also went up to the top of a mountain and from the mountain I could see down to the city. It was beautiful! I also went to the Cape of Good HOpe where lots of famous explorers passed. After my stay in Cape Town I took a plane to Joburg north of Cape Town. Then from Joburg I drove 4 hours and I got to a town called Hazyview next to the Kruger Park.
The day after I got to Hazyview I went into the park and I saw lots of animals. I saw leopards eating an impala in a tree, elephants in a herd and that was amazing. I also saw gigantic white rhinos, I saw green monkies, in Afrikan humor they are blue monkies because they have blue testicules! I saw millions of impalas in herds and I saw many different amazing animals.
For my birthday I celebrated it in Cape Town with my cousins. I had a lot of fun dancing, opening up my presents and being 10! For my
birthday I got one painting with soccer players and another painting with dancing people with animals, I got a cap that says 2010 soccer because the next World cup is in South Africa. I got a South African Jersey. I am having a great trip but I am going to be happy when I come back home! Have a great summer and goodbye!
Yohan
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Paolo
non-member comment
Beautiful pictures
Ciao guys, well done with your trip. Very nice pictures and engaging diary. Keep it up. ciao!