Cape Town Addendum

When we were in Cape Town we took a tour of a lovely botanical garden that had been created originally by Cecil Rhodes (the man of the Rhodes scholarships, and, to our surprise, de Beers diamonds) We had been wandering around looking at Protea blossoms.  One of the Proteas is the national flower of South Africa.  On a side path, walking and talking to our guide, Lazarus, a 2 meter snake slithered across the path.  I had spotted the thing first because I was watching where I was stepping.  Lazarus was walking and not watching.  When I pointed out the snake, he really seemed 1.) incredibly relieved that we had stopped and 2.) a bit annoyed with himself for not even noticing it until we were almost on top of it.  It wasn’t until today that I looked up to see what type of snake that was.  We were close enough to get a good look at it.  It really didn’t care about us at all.  Good news - it kept going.  Bad news.  That 2 meter, grey snake was a Black Mamba.  I prefer my wildlife views to be from a safari Jeep.  

We’re fine.  But I’ll continue to watch my feet when we walk.

18 NOVEMBER LAST DAY IN MOZAMBIQUE AND LAST IN AFRICA

We got up, had breakfast, then decided we’d walk back to the spa.  It’s the first really sunny day we’ve had in a while.  The view from up there was gorgeous.

We went back to our room and walked up the beach looking for shells.  The tide was out and the shore was a combination of sand and mud.  Great for wading birds looking for snacks.

We had lunch by the pool.  The Mozambique speciality is peri-peri chili flavor.  We had tasted it in a fast food place in Vancouver, Canada and in Washington DC called Nandos.  This is really a delicious treat!

We hung around a bit more, then at 4:30 we walked to the “Beach Club” which was the place we landed when we first arrived.  We took a Dhou Sunset cruise.  Another couple with us were from South Africa (Joberg) .  They’ll be going home tomorrow and will be on our boat ride and flight from Vilanculos to Johannesburg.  We, of course, will keep on going - two more plane flights before we get home.  The sunset sail was beautiful, peaceful, and, with our South African partners, friendly.

Here are a few photos

Some views from the resorts spa at the top of the hill.  The resort's boats.  The little red kayak was a way of ferrying out things to the boats.

The cliff the children climbed is seen better in the photo above.

The spa had a pool that the birds thought was just perfect.

On the walk back to the cabin, we noticed the sand dunes in the distance.

Low tide along the beach.

A stranded resident

Views from our sunset Dhou ride.  One of the nicest boat ride I've taken.

Our captain and his first mate.

Tomorrow home - eventually.

17 NOVEMBER, AN ISLAND TOUR

We had breakfast and signed up for a drive around the island.  This place is much larger than we expected.  The island is 37 km long.  Our side of the island faces the mainland.  On the opposite side, the side that faces open ocean, is an enormous sand dune.  Several small lakes are at the base of the dunes.  These lakes have both crocodiles and flamingos.  The birds weren’t around and the crocodiles were nesting and hidden.  So we walked up part of the dunes. It was really a great stroll.

After the dunes walk we went through a village with widely scattered huts, a school, a clinic and a few other buildings.  The huts here are circular and built from straw.  A lot of the locals came out to wave and say hello.  It was a bit odd.  I guess we were providing entertainment.

Here are some photos of our tour.

At the base of the dunes were brackish lakes of various sizes.  Crocodiles would have been seen in non-nesting times.

The wind created waves that left salt deposits on the edge of the lake.

It was very windy on the dunes. We were getting pelted by sand in these photos. When we got back to the resort, I realized the wind had dumped loads of sand into my hair.

Some children from the local village.  The houses in the village were somewhat far apart.

Obviously, we were some kind of entertainment.

A house and a pump.

They grow, amongst other things, cassava. Near the rounded hut in the distance is a fish-drying rack.

The local school.  The paths are lined with really nifty seashells.

The building in the photo above was half devoted to a local medical clinic and half to a community center.

A view from the cliffs along the road back to our resort.

The local kids scrambled up the cliff to visit.  The little girl carrying the baby went up with the rest of them, although the baby didn't seem so pleased.  The children are carrying little spiny fish they netted out of the water.

A local carver displaying his wares.  The resort had a number of his items, and we bought a wind mobile of turtles.

On the beach back at our cabin. The view is looking back to the cliff in the distance that the kids had climbed

Our sun shade and a resting Charlie

We got back to the resort, had lunch.  We spent a lot of today reading and resting.  It’s been our quietest day on the trip, and necessary.  Then Chuck and I headed to the spa here which is at the top of a hill with a wonderful view of the ocean, the beach, the island.

Back for dinner.  Then more resting.

16 NOVEMBER 2017, JOHANNESBURG TO ANTANTARA RESORT, MOZMBIQUE

For the next few days my blog will be picture less until Charlie and I can figure out how to get his computer to decide to work.

Update.  Charlie's computer needed two days to get over boat rides.  Two days later, it started up.  On the ride back to the mainland, it stopped (for two days) then started again!  We took it to the Genius Bar.  They looked it over, it appeared to be fine.  It just gets a bit seasick, what can I say.


We got up in Johannesburg, had a lovely breakfast, and were picked up by 8:30.  Sam was back!  That was nice, he’s a great guide.  We went to the airport and listened to news about Mugabe and the mess in Zimbabwe.  Just before we got to the airport, Sam tried to get his pick up man to the right place.  Poor guy was waiting in front of the international terminal, but Sam new that South African air would have to check in from the Domestic terminal.  After watching this poor dude run from the international terminal - we got checked in and all was well.  Normally, airport checking are pretty simple, but this was one of the few that help was really appreciated.  Our flight was delayed about an hour.  The original plane was supposed to come in from Harare, Zimbabwe, but was delayed.  A new plane was put into service in its stead.

We flew to Vilankulos, Mosambique.  We had to buy a visa to get in.  Part of the rigamarole was a photo and two pointer fingerprints.  After my photo was taken (we were an hour late anyhow) the system broke down.  GAK!  I broke the computer with my photo, how bad is that? Eventually we got through.  We were met on the other side of the gate by guys from the resort.  They put us in a van and drove us through the streets of Vilankulos.  It’s an interesting place - much poorer than anywhere in South Africa.  Mozambique is Portuguese speaking - I didn’t know that.  There were ads for Peri Peri - like the chicken at Nando’s. -  We had seen a Nando’s in South Africa (a place we had tried in Vancouver, Canada, and in Washington DC). The world is both wide and small - all at the same time.

We got into a van and drove through town to the shore.  We waded into a boat, and took a one hour voyage to Bazaruto Island, and the Antantara Reseort.  We were met by dancers and driven to our beach front villa unit.  Quite lovely.  The wifi is only at the reception here - so here I sit.  When we got to reception the first time, Charlie’s computer decided, enough is enough.  We’ll try other things to get it going.

Here are a few photos when we first got to Bazaruto Island.

The boat that took us from the mainland to Bazaruto Island.  We had to wade out to it.  How deep we got, depended on the tide.  The tide was out - we had to wade deeper to get to the boat.  I'm short - this isn't easy.

The boat house/bar/fishing building

The greeting committee.  

This tree was on the path to our cabin.  I think it's a kind of guava, I should have asked.

We had a beach front cabin with a little thatched-roofed area to hide from the sun. Twilights are gorgeous here.

Once we were settled in we took a Tuk tuk like van to the spa.  We sat, had a glass of wine and watched the ocean.  It was spitting rain, but was so peaceful, if was wonderful

Back to our “cabin” for a rest.  We went to dinner around 7:30 and had a great Middle Eastern buffet.  We’re schedule to take a back woods trek tomoow to look at local creatures.  To be continue..

15 NOVEMBER, WEDNESDAY, OUR TOUR OF JOHANNESBURG AND SOWETO

We went to breakfast at the hotel after our morning wake up.  Again, a lovely breakfast.  South Africa has a tremendous British influence, but tea is really inconsistent around here.  Cape Town tea and our Johannesburg tea were bleh.  Tomorrow we'll get coffee. 

We did hear that Mugabe was forced to stay in his rooms and his wife Grace had left the country.  He is 94 years old and she was moving in to take over when he died.  Grace overplayed her hand, and the army moved in.  We also heard this morning that the US had told all US citizens in Zimbabwe to hunker in place.  Whew!  We got out in a nick of time.

At 8:45 AM we got a phone call in the room, our driver was ready to go.  We went and met Sam.  He was an interesting character and the day was fascinating.

Our first stop was the home of Nelson Mandela.  The president's home had been in Pretoria, but the government offices were also in Johannesburg.  Mandela didn't want to move back and forth.  The home is now the property of Mandela's grandson

We then went to the Johannesburg prison site where Nelson Mandela was held.  He had it torn down, leaving a few reminders of what had been there.  From the rubble, a court house was built.  Apparently, more government buildings and offices will be erected where the prison used to be.

The building in the photo above was the holding building where people were held while waiting for their trial.  Several of these were in a row.

The interior of the courthouse.  The trials are by a panel of judges.

The photos below are shots of downtown Johannesburg taken while we were driving.

A block of stores were Indian owned, and clearly looked just like the shops in India.

The building above is the Johannesburg (Joberg ) police station

We went to the 50th floor of a building in downtown.  It's apparently the tallest cement structure in Africa, if not the world.  Unfortunately, the morning was drizzly so some of my photos have suffered a bit (a lot)

The bridge is the Nelson Mandela bridge over the train tracks.

The radio tower.

Just a view of the main streets

One of several stadiums in town.

The region of town to the south had been a heavily industrialized area.  When fighting broke out during the worst of the apartheid conflicts, a number of businesses moved out of town thinking that civil war was about to break out.  It never happened, but the businesses never really came back.  With an unemployment rate of about 26% the South Africans could use their help.

The next stop on our tour was the township of Soweto (Southwest Township).  Townships are to Johannesburg what Districts are to Cape Town.  The Blacks were moved from their original homes.  Their homes were torn down.  New homes were built to accommodate Whites, and the Blacks were sent out to various Townships, Districts.  Sam told us he didn't have electricity to his home until 1994.  Things were definitely not equal. 

A big surprise to me were the number of lovely homes in a corner of Soweto.  Professionals built these places in lieu of the "matchbox homes" that were built to replace the shanties.  I have a photo of a few of the nice places.

The home above was built by an electrician - it's in the shape of a transformer.

The homes below were built for immigrants who were homeless in Johannesburg.  Places for men not families

Apartments are coming in to replace the dormitory like structures above.  This way families can live together.

The Whites built a two power stations and situated the cooling towers so the pollution would dump on Soweto.  With the improvement in the lives of Blacks, the power stations were torn down, the towers decorated, and bars and a bungie jump site opened up instead.

The poorest parts of Soweto are the shanties.  We had brought some candy.  A local parent had the kids queue up for treats rather than just mass together.  I'm handing out candies and things were very orderly.

Across the street from the shanties was a dump site.  There really aren't any facilities for that around, much to the delight of various pigs, goats, sheep, and dogs.

Another view of the shanties 

These are the matchbox houses

One of the matchbox house benefits was running water and indoor and outdoor toilets.  

Winnie Mandela's house.  She lived here after she divorced Nelson Mandela

Another view of the towers

Some local school kids.  This is the exam time of year, and the kids had just finished their morning exams.

Nelson Mandela's childhood home.  He lived on the same street as Desmond Tutu.  Two Nobel Peace Prize winners make it quite an interesting street.

In 1976, the Apartheid government decided that they'd up the ante. They decided all school textbooks should be written in Afrikaans.  For non-Afrikaans speaking Blacks, and with teachers who didn't know the language too well either, school scores dropped dramatically.  This event really started a lot of the opposition to the Apartheid regime.  A huge group of students in Soweto began to demonstrate against the textbooks.  The police came and shot into the crowd.  Eleven children were killed and many more were injured.  The first to die was a boy named Hector Pieterson.  A man came up behind him, and picked him up and brought him to a clinic.  Unfortunately, Hector died.  The man, Mbuysa Makhusu, fearing he'd be shot for trying to help the boy, left town.  He was known to have gone to Botswana, and to have gone to several other African countries.  He then disappeared.  His whereabouts were unknown until moderately recently.  He apparently was in a Canadian jail.  He'd been trying to get into Canada illegally.  Canada sent him back and the story had a happy ending.

We had lunch at a place that served African food.  My new favorites are Chikalaka (a spicy onion, tomato, bean, combo),  and samp (dried corn that has been crushed - stamped with beans.)

After lunch we went to the Apartheid museum.  The place covered the history of apartheid and the attempts to stop it.  It went on from 1948 until 1994.  The most disturbing history we read was the election that occurred in 1948.  A strike had occurred and Jan Smuts was the head of the Nationalists party.  He did not receive a plurality of votes and the city people didn't like his group much.  Rural voters did, however, and he was elected.  Sounds kind of Trumpian, in more ways than one.

A view from the Apartheid museum.  There's a fun park there and a casino across the street.

A view of town on the way back to the hotel.  We'll have room service tonight.