Day 21: Chicken's Day

It was a semi sleep in day for the Tyndalls, more so for the Versly.  We decided to make today a flex day - the Versly had some logistical/housekeeping stuff to take care of, and we were looking to spend some time as a family.  

We walked down to the Camps Bay waterfront and browsed around, eventually opting to head downtown.   We headed first to Bocap, a colourful Muslim neighbourhood that managed to stay relatively intact during the forceful removal of "coloreds" because of a quirky way the area was written into the legalese of the city.  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo-Kaap

The buildings in Bocap are all brightly coloured and some of the streets are cobbled.  Apparently it is a highly attractive area for real estate and is becoming a little gentrified.  We walked down into the CBD (Central Business District) and just....explored.   The market gardens area was a highlight - both for the long closed boulevard that had tons of food and other vendors, but also for the feel it gave us for the city:  we saw office workers and lots of other locals interacting and ignoring us as you would any many other cities.  It didn't feel as "divided" as other parts of Cape Town, but the sight of many seemingly poor blacks was ever present.

We walked all the way down to the V and A waterfront, all the while exploring this street and that.  It was a bit of a throwback to be back just the four of us - fun.  We found a nice place for lunch - Abby had been scoping it out the day before apparently: after all, today WAS her 15th birthday.  We talked about life as we sat out on the deck surrounded by boats and a mix of tourists and well-to-do locals.  We were back in the Disney side of Cape Town.   Abby was being pretty silly at lunch, and that is always a good time.

We decided to look into renting bikes for the return trip to Camps Bay.  It was about 10km or so all along the waterfront and looked to be a good way to see things from ground level.

The bike trip was fantastic....feeling the wind blow in your face as you pedal under your own power along any waterfront is great - but the views here were simply incredible.   At first we wound our way past vast public park areas that featured rough seas crashing to the shore on our right side.   The misty air was still warm as the sun was shining today.   There were a series of man made, concrete tidal pools at the base of the small cliff side - presumably to reduce the erosion along the shore, but also to provide a nice, safe spot for locals to cool off.  What, with the sharks and rough water, if they didn't have these pools, people might never go in the water here!

Eventually we climbed inwards a bit, then up and back out to the coast where we were between a series of mansions clinging to the steep slopes on our left, and what looked like at-grade parking lots on our right.  But, if you looked over the edge and down, you realized that the parking lots were actually private parking for a series of houses and high end multi unit apartments that clung to the cliffs below us.  It was pretty amazing how they had used this space - but it was no wonder.... the views of the ocean and the surrounding landscapes were fantastic and no doubt in high demand.

We got home in the mid afternoon and reconnected with our long lost travel companions.... had we really been away 6 hours?  It seemed like a lifetime :-)

We ubered to Cafe Paradiso where we celebrated Chicken's 15th birthday.   Why do we call her Chicken anyway?  It comes up on her birthday sometimes...  when she was a baby, she was quite the little eater.  When she was ready to eat, and even in the middle of eating, she would make this little clucking, rooting sound that sounded to us like a chicken... the name just stuck.  Now, it turns out that if you hear more babies rooting around in their cribs, the chicken noises are not that uncommon, but who were we to know - she was our first!   We are so proud of our little Chicken... she is growing up to be a smart, inquisitive, kind, independent, beautiful person.  We decided over dinner... we're going to keep her!  Happy Birthday Chicken!

Day 20: Robben Island

We recovered nicely after the long arrival yesterday.  The plan today was to take in Robben Island, so we Ubered down to the beautifully updated V&A Waterfront, the tourist heart of Cape Town.  The waterfront is very cool - a really nice way to mix the industrial port activities that are still very much active, condos and business offices, and a lot of tourist centric stores and restaurants.   Looking at it from another perspective, its also yet another way they've separated the wealthy from the have nots, which leaves me with a bit of a sour taste in my mouth.  

In Cape Town so far, I definitely see two worlds.  There's a high class, white, armed to the teeth and potentially living in real and imagined fear of crime and violence, and there's the majority of the population - the coloureds and the blacks (I learned a bit about that later in the day) left behind by decades and decades of legal discrimination under Apartheid.

Alex had bought the Robben island tickets online months ago, so in due course we were loaded onto a ferry boat of sorts that was jammed full of tourists and we were headed towards the former prison island.

When we got out of the harbour, the water got pretty choppy.  Robin and I were sitting on the side of the boat at the back and we were taking in fumes from the engine.  That and the rocking seas, and maybe lunch from yesterday (who knows) and I was suddenly not feeling great at all.   It wasn't typical motion sickness, I just felt feverish.

After about an hour of watching the island hang tantalizingly in the distance, we made it to the island.  We were offloaded and led to a bus, where a young female tour guide gave us the run down.  I missed the next 45 minutes of driving, stopping and explanations, but the gist of it was that Robben island was a prison not unlike Alcatraz where the guards and families lived on the island.  There was a school and a church and everything else that you would need for a basic community.  We saw a cemetery for the one time leper residents who were essentially sent to the island to live out their days.  We also saw the limestone quarry where some of the prisoners were given hard labour, including the most famous resident, Nelson Mandela.

The highlight of the day was when our bus group got out and met our inside guide.  I guess he was close to 55 years old, a handsome bald black man with a very commanding voice.  He was a political prisoner at Robben Island from 1983 to 1990 and over the next 45 minutes, he gave us a tour of the key prison areas while he wove in his own personal story.

The guide was part of the military wing of the African National Congress, the military wing that Nelson Mandela himself had founded years before.  Eventually, he got caught and was interrogated as to the locations of weapons caches and where different groups were hiding.  He was very matter of fact that he had told them everything they wanted - torture can make a man say anything.  He described some of the torture methods and it was pretty much as brutal as you could imagine.

When he got to Robben Island, he was sent to work in the kitchens, a pretty decent job.  He walked us through the way things used to be in the 60's and 70's, where white prisoners got the best oft he best (for prison standards), coloureds got the next level down, and the blacks got the worst.  He explained that the coloureds were considered the 2nd original South Africans (after the native tribesmen) and had a higher standing than the aboriginals.  Coloureds would include the Muslim slaves that were brought over from Malaysia and India and had lived and eventually prospered there for years.  

He told us about one inmate that had a hate on him almost from day one.  He accused the guard of serving him just chicken spine with no meat on it (he newbie didn't realize that the meat they ended up getting at the prison was very substandard and picked over.   The guy didn't let his grudge go and always grave our guard the evil eye throughout the rest of his stay.

Our guard showed us Mr Mandela's cell and told us of how he began writing his book, Long Walk to Freedom, secretly from his cell, stashing the manuscript in the garden, page at a time.  Eventually the administration found that manuscript and confiscated it, but it was smuggled back and out of the prison and published.

One of the guards parting stories was that as soon as he got out of prison, he met and quickly married a beautiful woman that he'd met outside the prison.  Turns out, it was the sister of his nemesis who had accused him of serving crappy chicken.  That is funny.

We walked back to the ferry terminal area and this time we got on an up to date ferry with decent indoor seating and nice big windows.  It was a more pleasant trip back to Cape Town for sure.

I was not doing that well, but we did manage to tour around the waterfront and gift shops for an hour and half or so.  They had a number of outdoor busker type performances - music, dancing, comedy that was pretty well done.

After hitting a large grocery store, it was time to Uber back and for me, to sneak into bed and crash.

The rest of the group went to dinner at Codfather's - a sushi and fish restaurant that was apparently amazing.  Beth brought me back some dinner which I struggled to get down, but I was back in bed by 8 to try and sleep whatever I had off.

Day 19: Bagged in Cape Town

We arrived!  Well, Johannesburg airport was a lot nicer than I'd remembered it, even at 2am.  I came to South Africa for a two week business trip in around 2005, and other than the weekend safari I did at a private camp near Kruger National Park (Kirkman's Camp), my memories of Joburg were that it wasn't very memorable.  However, the airport WAS nicer...

We walked down to security, and I could hear Beth worrying about getting through customs with our simple, completely legit birth certificates and our two kids that don't really look like African babies....  

The customs agent waived the Versly through next to us, as Beth sweated bullets next to me.  I figured our agent would either say nothing or give us some rudimentary flack and let us through.  Sure enough, she asked us for a long form birth certificate that indicated the girl's parent's names and when we couldn't produce, she called her cocky, older male colleague over.  He had plenty of swagger for a customs agent... but he was a bit of a douche.  His big play was to ask the girls when our birthdays were...which, well I was shocked that they actually got our days right, but they guessed at 1975 for our years... doh!  He gave us a lecture on child smuggling and let us in... I suspect he wanted a bribe or something, and he actually stole my pen to make a show that he had won.

So... all good, right!?  Yes.... until we went to baggage claim and found an empty baggage handling conveyor cycling around in loops... our bags were nowhere to be found.

At this point, we just rolled with the punches.  Alex and I logged a claim at the lost baggage counter (along with a dozen other people from our flight) and with relatively little drama from the rest of the team, we were off to find some lodgings for the night.  Lol... or, a Wimpy's Diner to rest at for a few hours.   Alex and Kim tried semi successfully to get some shut eye, while Beth feigned sleep, only to pop up like a jack-in-the-box when I asked any of the kids if they wanted to go for an airport walk... "I will!" She shouted while popping up bolt upright.  

By about 5:00 am, we started to rouse... it was almost time to go work on our Joburg to Capetown flight.  The flight was supposed to leave at 6:00, and the office had just opened up.  Even though the South African Airlines lady in Nairobi had theoretically reserved seats for us and told us that the change fees COULD be waived, the staff at the SAA office were assholes.  They ended up making us buy 4 business class seats and 4 economy seats (we later saw that the plane was half full!) and they couldn't really give a shit about our misfortune.  Oh well.

The clan was doing amazingly well - looking back, I can't believe we didn't have one meltdown, one bout of tears, one desperate need to pound back four cheeseburgers or much of any reaction at all.  The kids continued to play cards and kibitz, and the adults moved in and out of sleep and organization mode.

On the plus side, it's really easy travelling without 8 giant back packs!!!

We arrived in Cape Town at 8am, surprisingly only about 10 hours later than our original plan, though we had planned on arriving with bags...  We had prearranged with our rental place to send a driver to pick us up at the airport.  Would things start working our way?

As I made my way out of the secured area, I spotted a slight, older gentleman with a sign "Tyndall - 8".   "Cecil!" I shouted like he was my long last (most likely half or quarter) brother.  This little man was the best sight I'd seen in the last day and a half.

We sped through Cape Town, with Cecil droning on about the surrounding areas... I shouldn't be hard on him, but I was tired.  He did give me a useful lay of the land.  The city is beautifully placed in the crook of a small mountain range and blockaded by the sea and the outer neighbourhoods cling to the slopes at various points, often reaching down to a beachy landing at the ocean.

We had decided that renting a house in the upscale neighbourhood of Camps Bay would be the best thing for us to wind down our trip.  It reminded us of the fun we had in apartment style accommodations in Borneo in 2015.

We were met by a rep from the property management company, a twenty something drip named Tyler, who was more interested in rushing through the house orientation and getting back to his social media feeds than looking to warmly welcome us to Cape Town.

The place was beautiful as advertised, and we got settled pretty quickly.   In no time, we had ordered two Ubers to pick us up and go towards the city to Sea Point where there was a small mall... we needed some clothes!

Uber is the way to go in Cape Town, and by the time the trip was over, we came to learn that the majority of Uber drivers were from out of country - we met drivers from Malawi, Zimbabwe (quite a number of our drivers were from there), Congo, Rwanda, Namibia, Bangladesh and Sudan and just a couple native Cape Towners.

Buying some clothes in Cape Town was actually always on the to do items, as the temperatures during our stay would range from 12 to 20 degrees (it was Winter after all!) and we didn't want to drag all of our warmer stuff with us throughout the safari.  It was actually fun, getting fully clothed and geared up in case our bags didn't show up.   Abby seemed the most concerned, as she had her Birthday in a couple of days, and I guess she had something in mind that she wanted to wear.  As we say quite a bit to the kids... it could be way worse!

Alex had an unlocked phone (I'd forgotten that I had replaced my phone after our 2015 trip and that my new one was locked... damn you Rogers!) and he got a local SIM card so he could keep pestering the baggage guys.  He eventually found a web page that showed the status of our bags, though the status said "NO STATUS", so....yeah.

We walked around Sea Point for a bit, stopping for lunch at a Thai place, then strolling down the strip looking for something interesting.  We stumbled upon an old school DVD rental place (haven't seen one of those for a while!) and the kids came alive and were buzzing around the place for twenty minutes.  They ended up renting five movies.

We Ubered back and Alex and Beth went to grab some takeout for dinner while I waited for my rental bike and trainer to arrive.  I'd arranged for a bike a while ago, and Lez, the guy from the rental shop, was really great about making arrangements for drop off, setup and pickup.  All I had to do was sneak in some rides.   I'm riding across Canada in September with 7 teammates over eight days, raising money for Childhood cancer research (www.thechase2017.ca), and this three and a half week hole in my training schedule was not doing my legs any favours.

While I got my ride in, dinner arrived and it was fantastic!  There's a whole bunch of restaurants and shops along the Camps Bay Beach road which was just a five minute walk from our place.

Well... it was time for some sleep.  It had been a very.... eventful couple of days, and even though we were a little light on clothes and supplies, we were still determined to enjoy the rest of our trip in Africa.

Cecil. Scrawny. Best sight

Check in.  Tyler  drip.

No bags. seapoint mall for some shopping.

DVD rental place. Throwback

Dinner.. takeout Italian

Day 18: Smuggling our Kids Into South Africa

Ahh... today I learned lessons in reading the fine print, patience and teamwork.   Using good judgement would be something I'd wished boarding clerks from Kenyan Airlines had learned.

About a month ago I called Kenya Airlines to get confirmed seat numbers for our two flights.  Our two flights - Zanzibar to Nairobi at 8:50am (arriving at 10am) and Nairobi to Johannesburg at 12:55 (arriving at around 4pm).  We then had a South African Airlines flight at 10pm arriving in Capetown at just before midnight.

When I called to get the seat numbers, the woman on the phone said "yes, your first flight is cancelled I see.....".   Say what?  "But it's no problem, we can book you on the next flight arriving at 12:00pm".  Ok, we did it, without really having a choice.   She assured me we would have plenty of time and the flight times were very reliable etc etc.

Wrong...  our flight was delayed coming out of Zanzibar.... let the stress begin.

We arrived five minutes before our Joburg flight was to depart, but the pilot announced the plane would wait for the thirty or so people in our situation.   We sprinted to the gate and arrived at checkin with passports and boarding passes in hand... a bitchy, automaton clerk informed us of the need for birth certificates for the kids under 18 in order to go to South Africa.

What....the....FUCK.

She was very happy to quickly refer to her thick Kenyan Airlines procedures book and sure enough it detailed the requirement.  

SHIT!

Time was tight.  While I argued, Beth and Alex scrambled to figure out how we could get the birth certificates.  Alex found his kids' in gmail, and I suggested they get on board, but by then, they'd yanked our bags off and we were cooked.   Beth soon found our kids certificates that I'd scanned and put in google drive a few years back.   If we'd had more time, we would have been ok.

The worst moment was the family of five right behind us gleefully stepping forward with the (most likely helicopter) mom shoving her papers in front of me saying "we have our birth certificates".  Alex heard them all (including three kids) laughing at our misfortune.  Future serial killers, no doubt.   Lol.

The worst case scenario I was imagining was that guy that was living in an airport for years, in diplomatic limbo.   But seriously, this was a struggle.   Thank god for good teamwork - I focused on getting us on the next flight to Joburg, while Alex and Kim wandered the airport in search of a South African Airlines rep.  Beth, meanwhile, stayed with the cubs.   A short paragraph doesn't really describe the hours of pushing, arguing, patiently standing our ground, and finally getting to the right people to take care of us.   At one point, after about an hour and half of searching for an SAA rep, Alex, Kim and I bumped into the nicest woman.  With a few kind words, we took a collective deep breath.   Step two, check - getting our new Joburg-Capetown flight confirmed for 6am tomorrow.

What about step 1 - getting the next and last Kenyan flight to Joburg at 8:50pm.... it was touch and go.   Standing at the desk with a really nice woman for hours, I heard a lot of Swahilish (she even said that Kenyan Swahili, the national language was not as pure as Tanzanian Swahili). Amongst the blur of words I heard foreboding words like "waitlist", "birth certificate", "upcharge", "change fee", "oversold".... argh.

Long story short, we were eventually in a a much more relaxed state waiting for our 8:50pm flight.   We'd changed things around with our pickup in Capetown and things looked good.

One of the frustrating things after talking to the SAA rep was that she said "with theses issues, it's a judgement call... the rule is there to prevent kidnapping or illegal adoption.  With some questioning and examination of passports, its not that big of a deal."   I would just have to line up Beth and Abby, Robin and I, Kim and Jeff and then Alex and Matt and it would be pretty fucking obvious it was not a kidnapping scheme.  D'oh.   I wish I'd had her checking us in 12 hours ago....  To be continued...

Day 17: Zanzibar

Ho hum.... just a typical ride to the airport this morning.... we encountered just over 30 lions (including the lioness with three babies who now had an injured front right paw, a simba and lioness who had full bellies and who looked like they were on their seventh day of mating, a large pack just finishing a feast), a few large shareholders meetings (this is my new nickname for a gaggle of vultures fighting over a kill - very fierce and lots of heated chatter), a gazillion wildebeests, a small pack of elephants, a small horde of startled mongooses (kids loved those), and the usual riff raff of giraffes, hippos and gazelles....

As Dr Evil would say: "pretty typical, really"!

We left at 6am, discussing with Tom and Grayson just what those ferocious noises were last night at around 10pm - apparently some hyenas were trying to move in on some lions eating a wildebeest near our camp.... I am lion, hear me roar.

We had a great boxed breakfast in the middle of the savannah overlooking the Mara River... ahh...sad to see it go.

The airport was actually a hard packed runway without a terminal building (save for a washroom) that was surprisingly busy.  We got there fairly early, and watched as one plane came in, dropped off six to ten new tourists, picked up some more and took off.   Tom checked that we were on the manifold for the Coastal Aviation flight to Zanzibar and all was good.

Our plane arrived 15 minutes before our departure time, and we soon had to say our goodbyes.  We were not tearful, just happy, satisfied, grateful and somehow left with the feeling that we would see them again.  I hope so.  Some guides dream to one day own a Safari company.  If one of them did that, we would be sure to return and help them out.

We had been a little worried about the strenuous warnings about bag weights being 15kg each, no exceptions.  However, when the young pilot jumped out of the plane after reaching the "gate" (ie a predetermined square of hard packed dirt, just off the "runway"), he proceeded to help us throw our bags behind the last of the ten...no hang on.... nine seats in the plane.  Hmmm.... there were two other tourists joining us so that made ten...

When I boarded the plane last with Beth and Abby, the young pilot said "someone needs to go in front because we are full".  Alrighty then, I gladly volunteered!  I scrambled, half folding into the cramped copilot's seat, careful to avoid touching any of the gazillion buttons, dials, foot pedals and the "stick" sticking out in front of my waist.  Tight for sure, but very cool.   The briefing was short "we are heading to Zanzibar, please fasten your seat belt and don't get up" - I could have thrown in a lot more humour and drama than the pilot, but I didn't want to show him up....

Just like that, we took off down the bumpy runway and we were headed out of the Serengeti.   The pilot was quite busy with his dials and Nav system, setting a bunch of way points and engaging the auto pilot.   Pretty cool.   Then, when he was all set, he grabbed a newspaper and started reading.   I felt I should keep an eye on things...lol... but I flip-flopped between reading and dozing off.   It was really cool seeing the passage of cloud to bright blue sky directly above my head in the panoramic pilot windows. 

The flight wasn't too long, maybe an hour and a half.  Zanzibar is a coastal island that used to be separate from Tanzania but became part of the country in the sixties.   It has a history as a slave trading outpost of Portuguese and Arabic influence.  The main town called "stone town" has a bunch of superlatives, but bottom line it's a UNESCO world heritage site.

We'd arranged a van to pick us up and whisk us the 10 minutes to town.   At first, the place reminded me of Barbados - very "island" feel with similar infrastructure and buildings, but when we got to town, it felt like an old Portuguese fort town that had fallen into disrepair many years ago, then selectively cleaned up....only selectively.   It wasn't until later, when Beth and I were checking out the sunset from the rooftop pool of our hotel, then it dawned on us - this town reminded us of the old Portuguese fort town Galle in the Southwest of Sri Lanka.

After checking in, we decided we wanted to get lost for a bit.  Stone Town is a bit of a maze of alleys, bordered and crossed by the occasional wider street that could just fit three cars wide.  There were all kinds of the usual tourist shops (more than usual actually), lots of Tour operator shops and all varieties of hotels and restaurants - from one star to the Hilton.  

We had lunch near the beach.  Our summary so far was that it was a pretty dirty, broken down place.   There was lots of garbage everywhere.  It did have its appeals however:  some cool old architecture, near old fashioned carved wooden doors and windows, and a pretty interesting waterfront with lots of fishing and tourist specific boats.

By around 4:30, we dropped the kids off at the hotel.   The adults had their minds set on spices and tea, so we headed out to a local market not ten minutes from our house.   Abby pointed out that the alleyways reminded her of Jaisalmer in Rajasthan and I had to agree.   She pointed out that there were many similarities in the Islamic touches to a lot of the architecture.  She has an amazing eye for those details.   

Zanzibar is predominantly Muslim, but it seems similar to the rest of Tanzanzia in that it still feels like "anything goes" - that is, liberal to conservative, you see it all here.   I really got the feeling that at one time, hundreds of years ago, this place may have been  a busy, cosmopolitan melting pot of races and religions... a bustling trade port in a key location to serve Africa, the Middle East and South Asia - for spices and unfortunately, people.   While there are a few mosques here (with the nice sounds of the prayer crying out five times a day... I love it!), there's also a Jain temple, Hindu temples, Anglican and Catholic churches and more.

The adults wound our way to the central local market.  It was easy to find - follow the busier alleyways full of tourist fare then listen for a cacophony of sounds from the market.    We got to the front gate of the indoor section and were hit by a wave of reek from the meat and fish market... yikes.   We went inside and picked one of the spice vendors.  It wasn't long before we were loaded up with clear plastic bundles of spices, teas and coffees.  Our little vendor was happy and so were we.  

When we were almost done, I asked a guy with a half toothless grin if he knew where I could get "dates".  He couldn't really speak English, so before long I was in the middle of my spice vendor and his neighbour and two other guys trying to figure out just what dates were.  They guessed "lychee ", no, "mangosteen", no, "avocado", no.  Then, the first guy looked at me with an "a-ha!!!" excited look and gesture.  He motioned for me to wait, and he took off.

We waited for thirty seconds, then figured he was gone.  We kept walking, emerging from that market only to enter the huge outdoor "fruit market".   This was more our speed and smelled a lot better than the interior section.  I eventually found a date guy and got a kilo of dates.  Just then, Alex and Beth called over and said "Craig, your friend is back".  He came over to me with the happiest face and pointed down to one hand that had a box of "grapes"!  I laughed so hard, but at the same time felt sorry for him.  He had a sheepish look when I finally explained that "these are DATES, those are GRAPES".  I did give him some Shilling for his awesome effort, and he seemed happy.  Too funny.

We browsed around for another twenty minutes, then started weaving back to the hotel.  Alex and Kim had their eye on some shops, so Beth and I headed for the hotel pool that was due to close in thirty minutes.   We needed to cool off.  After all the relative cool temperatures we had on Safari (mornings and evenings maybe 17 degrees, afternoons as hot as 24 or 25 but relatively dry), Zanzibar was sunny, warm (26) and pretty humid, so we were baking.

Sharing a bunch of Indian dishes for dinner at the rooftop restaurant was a good way to end the day, however, Alex, Matt, Abby and I still wanted to check out the night market.  

We tucked the other four in, and walked down to the waterfront park about two minutes from the hotel.  The night market is a daily street food market that has four different kind of vendors... drinks and snacks, shawarma, kabobs (of all kinds - meat, seafood, veggies etc) and Zanzibar pizzas.   The pizzas were actually crepe like pastries with the filling of your choice, carefully prepared in a square and fried in ghee on a large frying pan.  We opted for dessert pizzas (Nutella only and one with Nutella, mars bar and banana) but you can also get meat fillings with lots of other options.  The crepe/pizzas were quite good and Abby and Matt were very happy.

I have to say, the people in Zanzibar, like the rest of our interactions in Tanzania, have been fantastic.  Everyone greets you what a smile and a Swahili "Jambo!" greeting.  Even the vendors who are trying hard to get you to come to their store or buy their product or service on the street always stop when you say no and respectfully back off.  The service staff we've had have been super friendly and smiley, and though we've had our small share of service issues, we always try and remind ourselves that this is a foreign country, they don't speak the best English, and they really do mean well.  Service with a smile, even sometimes subpar, has really made the visit here fun.

We have the third of our four big travel days tomorrow as we fly to Cape Town.  We first take a short flight to Nairobi, then a five hour flight down to Johannesburg, then a short jaunt down to Cape Town.  Hopefully everyone has their relaxed face on tomorrow.  I'm looking forward to our Lastleg.   It should be a great way to unwind the last chunk of our great trip (as well as getting back on a bike!).

Day 16: River Crossing

Bright....no... dark and early, we dragged ourselves out of bed and made our way to the cars.  It was 5:45 and though I'd slept really well, some of the adults didn't with all of the mooing of the wildebeests.  We got in our respective cars while Grayson and Tom loaded up picnic breakfast and lunch boxes.

We drove North, heading towards the Sand river which eventually merges with the Mara river.   The road was pretty nice and as per usual, the feeling of driving in the morning was exhilarating rather than sleepy.

Tom had warned us in the blah blah last night that we'd have to be very patient today - sometimes you have to wait for hours before seeing a crossing, and sometimes it just never happens.  Wildebeests were hardly predictable - go figure.  

It wasn't long before the landscape changed into more open vistas with only the occasional tree.  We started to see lots of bones and vultures... another killing field?

Grayson rolled the jeep to a stop and just like that we were parked in front of a large male lion.  Beautiful.  Nearby, more of the pride were spotted... first, three lionesses with full bellies staring down a hundred wildebeests who seemed to know that the lions were full (a dearly departed friend perhaps?) .... next, a bunch of juveniles with the tiniest cub we've seen so far - its fur was almost dark brown and she looked to be the size of a very small house cat...  next, three lioness with a couple of cubs.... another male lion a little younger than the first.... finally we saw three baby cubs the size of house cats with a large lioness watching over them from a couple of meters away.

It was no wonder that every time you saw a small river valley or depression in the plains that had long green grass, the thousands of wildebeests surrounding the area were uniformly thirty meters back of the edge of the verge.

By around 7:30, we got to the Mara River.  At some points, Kenya lay right across this river, at other points Tanzania was still in sight.  Grayson propped us up on the edge of the river with a great view of some hippos and crocs.  It was then that we noticed a half upturned dead hippo being munched on by some hungry crocs.   Crocodiles need to eat meat that has rotted a bit, as their teeth configuration lacks canines so they have a tough time pulling fresh meat off a kill.  Because of this, they tend to drown their prey and sink it to the bottom of the river for a while until the flesh starts rotting.  

However that hippo had died, it had clearly started rotting a bit - the crocs were having a field day.  Their strength showed through in the violent bursts of energy when they pulled a chunk of flesh off and waggled it side to side until it suited them to swallow.  So cool.   It was kind of funny that both Beth and Abby asked during the encounter how the hippo had died...  my guess was either heart attack or diabetes....

Breakfast time couldn't come any sooner - and to our surprise Tom and Grayson pulled into an open area and proceeded to set up chairs they'd packed away in the jeeps as well as a picnic blanket.  The breakfast boxes redeemed the meal from last night a bit - bacon, pancakes, hard boiled eggs (ew... though Alex enjoyed the donations), juice, toast and a tin of pineapple and watermelon... yum!

After a leisurely breakfast, the boys got word that someone had spotted some black rhinos.  We headed back where we'd come from before breakfast.  Suddenly, Grayson just took off, and our adrenaline levels suddenly jumped in anticipation to match the jeep's acceleration.  I felt we were headed for a crossing instead of the rhino spotting, and I was soon proven right.  

We pulled up next to the Mara river and witnessed one of the coolest things I'd ever seen.... thousands of wildebeests were crossing to the North side of the river.   Their bodies were teeming with nervous energy.  On the near bank, thousands more queued up in a semi organized, equally nervous pack, poised on the edge of the riverbank.  The bank itself was unpredictable - sometimes there was a bit of a sandy zigzag that brought some of the animals closer to the water level where they hopped in.  Other times, there was simply a slope which ended in a small dirt cliff - the wildebeests that got pushed over to those spots would have to leap into the water below - sometimes a meter high, sometimes more.

The challenges with getting across the water were numerous.   Like the mass start of the swim portion of a triathlon, there was lots of pushing and shoving, and even more kicking forwards and backwards.  Then, there was the fairly strong current in some parts of the river, which caused the line of crossing animals to get warped and bent downriver, as if the current was simultaneously dragging them all downstream.   The rocks, both under and above the surface were another issue - the wildebeests hooves (or paws as Beth called them) were not meant to tackle slippery surfaces.  They would slip pretty badly when in the water, but when clambering over large smooth rocks that were sticking out, it was like watching New Canadians at the hockey rink for the first time, clinging to the sideboards for their life.

We watched as some of the animals, particularly the young ones, would get separated from the frantically crossing pack, and struggle for sometimes minutes to get back in the pack.  We didn't see any of them not succeed, but we did see one large male who seemed to have broken a rear leg.  He struggled to one of the little oasis rocks, trying to stand up, only to flop back on it's side in obvious pain.   We lost track of him for a bit, but when that herd had decided it was going to take a pause from crossing, and the last wildebeest had crossed the Mara, the injured male lay at the far side bank.  There was no way he was getting out of that water and up the steep bank.  He would have to wait for crocs, lions or hyenas to put him out of his misery.

Phew.   Lucky.  So lucky.   We'd watched the crossing for about an hour and a half, but it felt like five minutes.  Although we'd all seen videos of the crossing, it was so visceral to experience it in person. 

We managed to catch another crossing, but ironically all of the jeeps crowding in to watch that crossing started blocking the path of the oncoming wildebeests so much that they got skittish and called it off.

Tom and Grayson took us to some shade trees fifteen minutes away and we excitedly recounted our luck.   We broke out lunch boxes and started to nibble away, when Grayson gave us a heads up that we were on the move again.   They'd located another crossing not far from where we were.

We arrived to find about five other jeeps watching a smaller group (when I say smaller, it was still thousands deep) crossing from the North side back to our side.   Just because there's a general migration pattern from South to North during this season, the wildebeests were obviously free to cross back and forth a few times, and these guys were headed our way.

Suddenly, I heard some excited tourist sounds from the other cars...like they were watching a gladiator's match.  At first I thought it was their first crossing (we were total vets by then) but then we noticed an infant wildebeest being trashed and dragged underwater.   Croc attack!   The water was deeper at this crossing and the crocodiles were having a field day.  One by one, we say crocs approach the line of wildebeests crossing the river.  We saw at least two official takedowns, maybe three.  The croc's modus operandi was to latch on, twist and drag their prey underwater, and they were pretty damn effective at it.   In the aftermath, all you would see would be the tip of a floating body as the crocodile swam away and eventually dragged it under the water, no doubt searching for a good hiding place where it could wait for the meat to soften up for a few days.

Wow.  We have seen so much.  We had some more good conversations with Grayson while we finished our lunch boxes.  He told us about his twin sister who had died a couple of years back.  Her name was Grace and they used to call each other G.  It sounded like they were very close.  He also showed us pictures of his five year old daughter and three month old son (he actually said three months, twenty two days.... he's very precise :-)) and his wife - a very photogenic family.

We spent a couple of lazy hours after lunch, parked under a tree.  The kids continue to amuse themselves quite easily and endlessly - it was hard to imagine just how well they'd get along in such tight quarters for such a long time.

On the way home, we saw a couple of interesting things, but nothing to justify slowing down much.  We'd had an exhilarating day.   However, when we saw a female ostrich doing a mating dance and a male ostrich nearby, the adult jeep decided to stop and see if there was going to be any action.  He did end up taking a run at her, but she was playing hard to get and fluttered away from him.

Moments later, back driving, Grayson stops, quickly checks his binoculars and says "yes, a female lion with a cub in her mouth".   What?  He saw it from about 800 meters away?!?!   We sped up to the scene, and radioed Tom to come back.   Sure enough, when we got closer, the mortals in the car could see the cutest little cub in her proud mother's mouth.  The lioness walked it over, quite casually, every once in a while dropping it and changing position then grabbing it by the back of the neck again.   She walked right up to us, then down into a small gully, where she dropped the cub on top of another little one that was waiting there.  They were so cute.   Grayson said "she will go back and get another... you are so lucky to see this" - she did and we were.   

We watched as the two little ones squeaked and played.  In about two minutes, mama came back with another cub in her mouth and dropped it on top of the other two.  She proceeded to lie down and lick them clean affectionately.  The cubs had something else on their mind, and worked their way down the side of the lioness and convinced her to roll over and let them feed.   The little nursing cubs were so cute - they would occasionally swat each other while searching for a nipple to suckle.  We could have stayed there for hours.

What another special day.  We got back to the camp about a half hour later, just in time for a little rain to hit the area.  It was kind of a nice change as it was a pretty dusty day from all those wildebeests trampling in the sand and dirt.  We are off tomorrow, and wanted to give Tom and Grayson a proper goodbye so we did that and gave them a good tip for the outstanding service and treatment they've given us over the past 11 days.  I couldn't recommend them, Amanda and African Scenic Safaris more - absolutely outstanding in every way.

We finished the night off by playing a few rounds of 8-man President then stumbling home in the dark and the rain... and the constant mooing of thousands of wildebeests who had yet to make the crossing of the river.

Day 15: We the North (Bound)

Today was a bit of a transition day.  As part of most visits to the Serengeti National Park, one of the "must" things to see is the Great Migration, a mass movement of mostly wildebeests and some zebras (and their corresponding entourages and predators) from South Serengeti to Kenya (May to July) and then back again (August or September to November).  The animals are essentially following the water and the fresh growth of tall grasses that are good to eat.  The predators are following the wildebeests and zebras which are also.... good to eat!

Our goal today was to drive the 100 or so kilometers to our North Serengeti camp.  The drive was pretty uneventful, though I found the change in terrain and fauna pretty cool.  Gradually, the terrain got hiller, and the number of trees exploded - never getting into a density that you would call "forest" but certainly much more than the relative sparseness of the central Serengeti.  

One thing that caught us off guard was when we passed an overturned, regular sized Safari Land Rover.  It was pretty beat up and apparently one of the tourists in the car had suffered a broken arm.  Shitty thing to happen on a Safari for sure.  

When we passed one of the midpoints of the park, we crossed a small river bridge and turned into a viewing area for hippos and crocs.  Sure enough there were about thirty hippos three quarters submerged in the still water of the semi-dry river, and a half dozen crocodiles catching rays at the side of the river.

The kids were mostly reading or napping the day away today, and that was cool with us (though what choice did we have really?).

At around one, we stopped to eat our boxed lunches at one of the camp sites.  These sites were for do-it-yourselfers (though they still mostly travelled with a guide and chef) who really wanted to rough it (or save money, or both).  Grayson said that that campsite was one of the rougher ones, since it was in the more remote Northeast section of the park, but the adults all gave themselves a pat on the back for their relatively luxurious choice of accommodations.

After lunch, we took a route running up and down in the foothills of the Lobo mountains, which ended up being a very bumpy and fairly uninteresting road, though we did see a bunch of cattle that some Masai shepherds had illegally snuck into the park to graze.

As we rejoined the main north road, we began to see small packs of zebra and wildebeest.  Before long, they were large herds of both animals grazing all over the place.

We arrived at our North Serengeti tented camp.  The staff were excellent, but the overall feel was that Kati Kati was far better.  Still, we had a nice welcome drink, a very awkward briefing from a middle aged, newbie assistant manager, and a quick tour of the facilities and how to use everything, which was nice.

In the late afternoon, the kids were playing cards in their massive family tent, while the adults sat around in the lounge, sending some updates home on the limited wifi (the first since Tarangire) and mocking ourselves as we invented a few first world problems.... (easier to mock when spoken with a teenaged valley girl accent)

• The wifi sucks (when we don't have wifi, we are great, when we have wifi, we whine that it's not Netflix quality streaming!)
• The double vodka and mango passion fruit drinks that Alex, Kim and Beth got were a tad sweet and the ice melted a little faster than they would prefer
• The tented camp rooms were a little warm (until we opened the back windows as well)
• The sound of ten thousand wildebeests mooing nearby was sometimes drowning out our conversation
• A couple of flies were pecking away at a lampshade and it was slightly irritating
• Beth didn't have slippers and a bath robe in our room like Alex and Kim had (turns out they were in the blanket box)
• The charging station only had 40 outlets available...

Dinner with Tom and Grayson was fun, though the food was mediocre to be honest.  We had Robin give her imitation of Tom's daily briefing which was pretty hilarious,  even more so when Grayson pointed to her and said "she has a lot of confidence!".

Well, Tom gave us the REAL briefing.  We have a big day tomorrow for our last day on Safari.  We are hoping to catch some migration action, so it should be fun.

Day 14: Who are you guys?

It was an early wake up today, with breakfast at six sharp and just enough time for us to make our own lunch boxes before we were packed into the cars and off to do a sunrise cruise.

The morning, at least for the first three hours, was very quiet... in a nice way.  The boys were looking for the two leopards we watched mate last night.   The feeling was that there was a good chance they'd be hunting or enjoying a kill.  

Sunrise was quiet and beautiful.

We bumped into three lionesses on the prowl and decided to follow them.  They went in and out of hunting mode - occasionally keyed in and alert, then alternatively relaxing.  They lazed by the car one time, then moved off under a tree.  We watched for a good hour before suddenly they took off across the road, went down into the high grasses and towards a large tree.  It was only then that Grayson said "oh...there is a leo-pard eating in the tree!".  The tree had lots of large, horizontal branches which made for a stable enough climb for lions (who are not even close to as adept at climbing as leopards are) and two of the lions did indeed jump up and climb into the tree to try and steel what the leopard was eating - a gazelle.  The leopard, no match for lions, not even in a tree, gracefully leaped out of the tree, perhaps twenty feet from the ground, landing with barely a sound, and bounded up a larger tree next door.  Grayson shouted with excitement "Oh my god.  Who are you guys?!?!".  It was very funny - he was shocked with the luck we'd had before this little scenario, and this one was the icing on the cake.

It wasn't long before one lion jumped down out of the tree, then the other.  Grayson noticed, with his eagle eyes, that there were bees bothering the lions.  A bunch of hyenas, who had gathered under the tree in hopes of getting some morsels of food, scattered.

Eventually, the lions gave up on any more tree action, and they headed back to laze under the tree near our car again.  What an exciting moment for our group.   Grayson spotted another leopard in a small tree about a hundred meters down from the scene of the crime, and we figured it was the female half of the pair we were tracking this morning.  We'd found our couple after all.

We continued driving to the east, a little away from the Seronera River valley, and near the Masai Kopjes.  We found three cute little lion cubs playing in a marshy area.  We watched them for a few minutes, wondering where their mothers were.  Turns out, they were out hunting, as we ended up spotting them about five hundred meters away trying to stalk down various prey with little success.  We are learning that the lions are very opportunistic "hunters": meaning that they will take the easiest options first - someone else's kill, an old or sick animal, an injured animal, or a baby animal.  The healthy, full grown prey have attributes that make them harder to kill and may only succumb to very desperate or skillful lions.   

We spotted a couple of jeeps close to a small bush in the middle of an open field, and immediately thought "a cheetah!".  We were wrong, as there were four cheetahs!! :-). A mother and her three cubs lay ten feet from our jeep.    

On the way to lunch, we stopped and watch a herd of about 40 elephants.  Some where circled around little babies who looked like they were napping in some mud, others were a little ways off, drinking from the nearly empty river, while the large male tuskers were quite a safe distance away.  I love and can't get enough of watching elephants.

We ate lunch at the visitors centre again.   The fat little rodents we watched yesterday were at it again.  They are called Rock Hyrax and, like every other animal in every zoo or animal park in the world, you're not supposed to feed them - the signs say so, the guides tell you, but when you see a table of ignorant tourist surrounded by about twenty overweight rock hyraxes, you start to suspect that not everyone listens to the rules!

We got back on the road and started chatting with Grayson about the business model behind the Safari companies and how guides are compensated.  It turns out that although full time guides attached to companies are paid a monthly salary, the salaries are fairly low and vary greatly from company to company.   The majority of the guide's compensation comes in the form of tips.   Although we were well aware of the tip expectations (Amanda had told us that $30-40USD per guide per day was a general rule of thumb) we didn't know that it was the lions share (pun intended) of their compensation.   For Grayson, the salary seemed secondary to whom he was working for, how they treated the guides and what kinds of clients they brought in.  

We returned around 3pm, had a nice shower and a did a little laundry.  Then the four of us chilled and had a beer on our porch, relaxing while listening to the jackass-hyena (Robin) and the other kids in the kids quad tent.  Kim and Alex downloaded a bunch of pictures and video on to their iPads - we are going to have a fantastic collection of "documentation" of this trip.  This is our last night at Kati Kati camp and I have to say I will miss it.