B & A's Travelling Road Show

More photos...

you can see our photos (check down in lower right hand of the page) from Ireland and Scotland.  More stories coming soon about our Ireland and Scotland adventures...

check out new photos...

we added several more photos to the south africa section of the albums and also posted some for england.  check on the right hand side below.... :)

we've entered the old country...

ah, yes, we now made it to england.  the old country as they say.  we arrived into london at 6 am after an overnight flight.  we took the glorious tube to our hotel.  Brad has not been to london for 10+ years and amanda was there in the 80's.  needless to say things have changed a bit since we were here last time.  though most of the things have not changed actually.  parliment building and big ben look the same.  it was raining when we arrived...ah we have arrived into the real london :)

we went to the churchill museum and cabinet war rooms when we were there.  it was fantastic.  the cabinet warrooms were used during WWII by churchhill and his staff.  it was a huge underground complex that had 6 feet of thick steel above it.  to think of what london went thru with a year of bombings and all of the things that happened there during the many years of the war is really amazing.  we learned that churchill had quite a few set backs before he became prime minister during WWII.  for 10 years before he had made some mistakes before that and was basically in excile from gov't life.  just goes to show you to hang in there and who knows what will come...

london and england is expensive.  no surprise.  in england they are still using the british pound.  most of the rest of europe including ieland has switched over to the euro.  we also spent time the first night with our fun friends we met in mongloia on our travels there.  linda and allison.  they are both australian and live in london.  they are great fun and we had a night out at a cool pub there was built in  the 1700's. 

after london we took the train to cambridge to see our great friends ed and ericka.  we had a fabulous time there.  cambridge is such an cutural city full of intellectual giants from the past and  of course lots of students. ericka works on the campus in plant sciences.  we actually went thru her building and passed by the lab and library called the herbiology lab or some such thing and in there they have samples they are still studying from charles darwins specimens he collected in the 1800's.  ericka has also encountered stephen hawking as well, or at least his van/motorcade in town.    we hit some excellent weather and it was sunny and pretty warm the entire 3 days we were there.  the first day we went to the town nearby called lavenham.  it is a town built 100's of years ago with buildings over 800 years old made of wood pillars and mortar.  it is the town oif crooked buildings.  "there was a crooked house, it had a crooked man...."    the next day we actually punted on the river cam.  punting is poling down the river on a long wooden boat.  we did this thru the campus buildings and it was beautiful. 

Out of Africa ... our time seemed way too short!

Amanda here...It's difficult to grasp that we've been in Africa over a month now, and are on our way to the UK tomorrow.  South Africa has been very different from the time in the rest of southern Africa.  Capetown is wired and full of people looking for a good time, as far as the backpacker tourists go.  The rest of the folks go on with their lives as in any modern western city, but with things at the edges that remind you of where you are. 

Our last two days gave a sense of closure, until we can get back again someday.  Sunday was spent catching up with the last few folks from the tour, and getting organized for the UK part of our trip.  Saturday we rented a car and drove out to Cape Point, the southernmost part of the cape, as far as we could tell.  Spectacular views and good weather, plus some cool little towns on the way.  We stopped at a penguin colony and I got bitten by one of the ones hanging out close to the fence.  (Yes, my brain had gone off to la la land for a minute and I tried to touch it...) Then a crow snatched part of my sandwich at the Cape.  We got to feed some ostriches at a farm later which made up for the earlier bird mishaps.

Capetown: Leaving Pumba ... but not our tour buddies

We did a short drive from Stellenbosch to Capetown, driving past the townships at the outer edges like some shanty-town version of suburbs.  The idea of visiting the townships feels daunting because it's so disheartening to see signs of that much poverty.  We passed them quickly and rolled into the mountainside landscape of Capetown, which practically spills into the sea north of the Cape of Good Hope.  The Dutch-German influence is apparent as the town is like a blend of San Francisco and various places in Europe, that I'm too architecturally challenged to identify.  The day was gorgeous, which means tomorrow will likely be foggy and wet, if the local lore is accurate. 

We upgraded to a double ensuite room here, which is just plain luxurious.  And is triple locked with deadbolts on both inner and outer doors, plus two iron gates between us and the street.  We were advised to not walk after dark alone, except in large groups.  Crime in South Africa is a thing to be planned for, like having breakfast (as Costa the Zambian river guide we met earlier in our trip might say).  The first couple days here didn't bring anything more alarming than locals asking for handouts of money, which is very common here.  We've been told not to give money -- that it encourages locals to see white tourists as targets.  Getting money out in public is potentially risky too, if you're not subtle about it. 

All that said, Capetown is comfortable for tourists, with many fascinating things to do.  We heard a former political prisoner at Robben Island prison talk about his time there (jailed because he ran for public office during Apartheid), and share stories of Nelson Mandela's time there.  We did that trip after visiting the townships.  An innocuous word for the thousands of shanty style shacks crammed into small spaces to house tens of thousands of black Africans, come to the city to find work and live with their prosperous relatives. 

We took a tour led by a wonderful Khosa woman who has lived in the Langa township for sixteen years.  Walking the lanes, some of which are paved and drivable, you see people dressed in business clothes going off to their Capetown jobs, as well as the occasional African garb, or raggedy clothes -- a bit of everything, in other words.  There are shops, beauty parlors, traditional medical practitioners and restaurants, many being run out of old ship containers that the entrepeneurs buy for about 8000 Rand (about 100$).  Some of the older houses are three room concrete single floor structures where the residents own the building and the land.  Some of these have a shacks set on the spare plots at the sides, rentals to friends or relatives who set up housekeeping and share electricity.  Our guide said that lots of folks just tap into city lines without paying, which discourages the city from making promised improvements.  The tour was an alien experience for us with our middle class white backgrounds, but we were glad to have seen this side of South Africa's experience since Apartheid stopped being the law of the land.

A chilly drive to Stellenbosch - South Africa's Wine Country

Did we mention that it's becoming fall here, and getting colder and wetter as we drive south?  After leaving Fish River Canyon, we drove a long day, through drizzle and chill to a backpacker lodge in Citrusdal, just over the border to South Africa.  Some of our group were up until 5am shooting pool and drinking, so it was a quiet ride to Stellenbosch.  The temp dropped and we started dragging out sleeping bags to bundle in.  The weather turned a bit better as we pulled into the Stumble Inn, Stellenbosch, but it was still very socked in.  Rita & Weldon joined the tour again after their bypass flight to Capetown (needed because Weldon's broken collar bone was too fresh to take the bumpy truck ride).  We went with them to lunch at a wine bar to start off the tasting days in fine fashion. 

After listening to the bawmp-bawmp-bawmp of club music through the door of our double room at the Stumble Inn into the night, we moved rooms, then were off on a tasting tour of four wineries.  The day was clear, blue and barely cool -- as if the wine gods favored our little group.  Fairview and Simonsig were our favorite wineries, but by the end of the day our tongues were so pickled, it's hard to say if we gave the last two a fair chance.  That night we went to dinner with a few of our wine comrades, who regaled us(after dinner) with tales of local bus rides through northern Africa.  30 plus people on a 24 person minibus, debarking through the windows, biological spills from fellow passengers and two wheeled circuits of hairpin turns.  The seasoned travellers among us sum such things up by saying 'TIA' (This is Africa...).

Fish River Canyon and on to South Africa

We did a couple long drives since the Dunes and saw the second largest canyon (after the Grand Canyon) in the world.  The views on the way led to a lot of quiet gawking as we passed.  A few of the pics are posted in the photos section of the blog ... not much to say that doesn't make us sound like we're about to go running off into the hills to commune with nature. 

Into the Dunes!

We spent a couple gorgeous drive days moving through the desert outside Swapokmund, then moving in toward Windhoek(which we didn't visit).  We stopped at some of the largest sand dunes in the world and met Bushman -- as he told us to call him -- for a tour of Dead Vlei, a dry valley closed off from the mountain rivers in an area called Sossusvlei.  We learned the basics of desert survival from this odd, nimble man (a white Africaans, in spite of the moniker) who would point out spoor and various small animals as we slogged through the sand, then skitter off on bare feet over the red sand.  The sand is red because the winds from the ocean pick up iron and deposit it.  We went to a flat white basin that was Dead Vlei, full of very old trees that are so dessicated that just touching them can draw splinters.  Amanda HAD to touch it, and came out unpricked, then we took pictures before hightailing it back to the 4WD Toyota pickup (with twenty or so of our new friends -- a very crowded 4km ride out to the vlei!) so we could catch our truck called Pumba back to Dune 45 for sunset.  We got some great picks from up on the Dune, and it was a wildly magical place.  Amanda sat on the knife edge of the dune pouring sand into the wind while Brad slogged up to the very top.  the views here were truly amazing

Check out our Africa Photos

If you want to see a few of our pics, go to the Photo Albums section at the right side of this blog page to open the Albums from Zambia, Botswana and Namibia.  :)

UPDATE: New photos were posted on May 21 so feel free to check it out - many more on Namibia.  A few on south africa also added

Geronimo! Let the games begin....

Amanda and I made it to Swakopmund - this is a town that is well, a place that makes you feel like you are no longer in Africa.  Namibia was colonised by the Germans (as many countries in Africa were colonised by mostly european countries in the 1700-1800's).  Swakopmund was created in the German image with most of the buildings looking like something out of Bavaria.  it is pretty wild to be here.  One of the adrenaline capitals of Africa.  

On day 1 after we arrived, it was time to skydive.  ah, yes, jumping 10000 feet from the plane over the sand dunes.  Why not?!  we did a tandem jump and needless to say the guys we jumped with were wacky and a bit out of their mind.  Amanda and I went up together.  Thing is, their normal plane was in the shop, so they had a leased plane and this plane was purposely missing one of the doors.  It was very tiny plane - fit the pilot, plus 5 of us crammed in the back (seats were removed).  Amanda had to sit with her tandem master for the whole flight up to 10k feet with the door missing.  She could look down into the abyss.  I had sky dived once before in Iowa, but Amanda had never done it and well, is not a big fan of heights.   once amanda was out, my guy strapped me to him and we slowly moved to the door, then swoosh, you are out of the plane.  It really was breathtaking and the 30 seconds of free fall is out of this world.  we have some great videos of both of us doing it.  we'll try to post it at some point. 

On day 2, it was time for sandboarding.  Yes, it is basically snowboarding, but down a large and steep sand dune with a single snowboard strapped to both feet.  It was a blast after spending time getting the hang of of it.  One of the highlights was in addition to the snowboarding, you could go down the backside of the dune on a slope they called "Dizzy".  You laid down flat on a wooden board - like wood panel kind of board, and flew down the slope.  I went 60km/hr (about 45 miles per hour) down the slope.  the fastest time was 72km/hr among our group of adventurers.  if you went fast enough, you hit a small jump at the end of the run.  I was just short of it, but some other guys made it.  Unfortunately, the oldest member (56 years old) of our traveling truck tribe hit the ramp and then proceeded to fall first on his shoulder when he landed.  It led to well, a broken collar bone.  Ouch!  He was still in good spirits afterwards and wanted to have a beer but but figured a beer before going to the hospital was probably not a grand idea. 

after the sandboarding, we took a 2 hour cruise among a bunch of the dunes on a quad bike.  Basically a large motorcycle with 4 wheels instead of 2.  We drove on the side of the dunes and screamed down them kind of like a roller coaster.  The scenery was amazing. 

Amanda and I had some great game meat in this town.  Normal game meat in Africa are things like kudu (a kind of antelope), springbok (another kind of antelope), zebra and other kinds of local game.  we had some excellent springbok.