From Feb. 2 to Feb. 20, 2012, Bill and I plus our friends Fatima and Jeff, and Bernd and his son Mark, spent a wonderful 2 weeks in South Africa. We had planned this trip for almost two years and it finally happened.
Bill and I first flew to Amsterdam and spent a day there. Since I had never been to Amsterdam, I looked forward to seeing the city for one day. And what did we find, a snowstorm and extremely cold temperatures. But I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the day trip! It makes me want to go back to the city in good weather and see the rest of the city.
We then flew to Johannesburg, South Africa to meet our other friends there. The first day both groups took separate tours of the city and into the outlying areas including Soweto. Our tour guide was extremely knowledgeable and took us to many areas of the city to experience the local culture. Bill has been in Johannesburg a couple of times, so he was familiar with the city. This was my first trip. I was incredibly impressed with Constitution Hill and the amazing sense of history of South Africa as presented in the wonderful museum dedicated to the transformation of Africa and the end of Apartheid.
From there, we traveled to Soweto and saw the homes of Nelson Mandela, Bishop Tutu and Winnie Mandela. And then to the Monument to where the new constitution of South Africa was signed. From there we went to the Apartheid Museum. All of this was incredibly moving to me. It mirrored the story of America and how the black race was treated in our own country.
We met up with our friends for dinner that night and had a wonderful first meal in South Africa.
The next day we all met in Pretoria to take the Blue Train (a 24 hour trip to Cape Town by railroad.) This was an amazing experience. Each of the three groups of us had our own club car. The train was an amazing experience, which we had not done before. It was a day of leisure and enjoying the amenities that the train had to offer. Dinner that night was pretty special. It was our second night of experiencing some wonderful South African wines which we would imbibe in for the rest of the trip. We did stop in Kimberley to see the Big Hole, which is where many of the original diamond mines in South Africa were located. We arrived in Capetown around noon the next day, where we were escorted to our respective hotels.
We spent 4 days in Capetown, experiencing many of the sights. We toured Table Mountain, the Victoria and Albert Waterfront, spent a wonderful day in Stellenbosch touring Simonsig Winery, and enjoying the wonderful restaurants including the Roundhouse, Bahia, and Nelson's Eye. We caught up with our friends Keith and Angus while we were there, and got to spend some wonderful times with them.
After Capetown, the six of us then drove in two cars to the Cape of Good Hope, and then along the bottom edge of South Africa to Hermanus where we spent a night. Hermanus is where the whales frolic in season, not when we were there unfortunately. The two groups spend the night in Bed and Breakfastes about a block apart on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. Both places were really nice. Again we walked into the downtown area of Hermanus and had dinner together.
The next day we had quite a long drive to Knysna. We stopped at South Point which is the area where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Indian Ocean with a wonderful lighthouse. From there we drove on to Knysna through many wheat fields and some really wonderful scenery. In Knysna, we stayed 2 nights, in separate accomodations, which were both pretty special. We ate locally both nights, once on the Pier and the second night at the Olive Tree in the downtown area. Fatima, Jeff, Bill and I took a boat to the Featherbed Nature Preserve for a tour down the side of the mountain, while Bernd and Mark went to one of the local beaches.
Knysna was a beautiful inlet from the ocean and we all enjoyed it very much.
We then journeyed back to the Stellenbosch region via route 62 through the mountains to Franschhoek. We stopped at a weird little cafe called Smits Winkel, where we took some nice pictures of ostriches. This was a very scenic drive and we stopped for lunch in Montagu at a lovely restaurant called the Mimosa Lodge. We were due for another wine tasting but the trip took longer than we thought and the others ended up with 2 flat tires, which we had to take care of. We continued our way to Franschhoek, where Bill and I stayed in a winery and Fatima, Jeff, Bernd, and Mark stayed down the road in a very nice hotel. We had dinner in Franschhoek where once again we had some wonderful South African wines.
The next day Mark left us and returned to Berlin. The rest of us flew to Kruger Park and Singita for a 3 day safari. It was a magical 3 days exploring the nature preserve. We saw all of the Big 5 animals (lion, elephant, water buffalo, leopard, and rhinoceros. In addition many varieties of birds, hippos, zebras, gazelles, giraffes, and monkeys. Our guide and tracker were really good so we had five different trips into the African wilderness. I was able to take a large amount of photographs.
The Singita resort called Boulders was pretty amazing. Each group of us had our individual lodge with our own small pool on the deck. One evening after our safari trip all of the people staying at the resort were taken into the bush for a wilderness cookout.. The food was exceptional and it was a great evening.
We then returned to Johannesburg to fly back to New York for me. Bill was to continue on for work in Africa. My plane was cancelled so I had to spend an extra night. Luckily, Bill was staying at the hotel near the airport so I was able to join him. It turned out to be a very special evening because we had dinner with some South African friends, Mark and Anell plus Fatima, Jeff, and Bernd. I was able to take off the next morning on a flight to Atlanta and then back to Brooklyn. We unfortunately had to stop over in Miami because of a sick passenger, but were not delayed to long getting back to New York.
All in all this was one of the most memorable trips I have ever taken. It has also taken me a long time to finish this excerpt of my blog, but my memory of the trip is still with me. I would love to go back to South Africa again because it was such a great experience especially meeting such wonderful people there and getting a real sense of the incredible history of the country.
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