Last Day in Port Elizabeth - Addo

Sunday, 11/25

Beautiful weather this morning. The ocean was dead-calm and the sun was already peeking through the clouds. Greg showed up at nine, and we had one more passenger today, Paul, a Jameson marketing representative from Dublin. Between his Irish accent and Greg’s not-quite-Cockney British, listening to conversation was a treat.

Today was the Addo Elephant Preserve, and our pitfall of the day was getting stuck on the road for about 45 minutes while they cleared a multi-car collision. At least four cars, maybe five, and rumor had it there were 3 fatalities.

Once traffic cleared, we were at Addo within about 10 minutes and drove for about 3 hours. The vegetation was very different from yesterday. Thick bush, making it harder to spot game, but we still enjoyed up-close and personal looks at the elephants, as well as wart hogs and kudu. It took awhile to adjust to the different appearance of the elephants and wart hogs. Here, they were covered in the red dirt so they appeared red instead of the grays we were used to seeing.

We drove alongside an ostrich who refused to yield enough of the road to get past him until Greg reached out the window and ruffled his wing feathers, at which point he moved faster until he was in front of our mini van, but now we were stuck behind him until he decided to move to the ‘animal’ side of things and leave the road to the cars.

We saw new birds, including a goshawk, and a new antelope, the red hartebeest. Zebra gathered near a water hole and terrapins swam inside it.

Road signs warn that dung beetles have the right of way—they’re very important in recycling the elephant’s output. There was also a predatory zebra snail, about the size of my hand. After a drive to the top of the mountain for some vista photographs, we stopped for lunch before the return trip to the hotel.

Tonight’s our last night before the return to Cape Town where I’ll be working. We’ve allowed a day to settle in, and I’ve said I’d be available if my assistance is needed with getting things set up. With luck, we’ll have a more reliable Internet connection and I can try to catch up on all those day-to-day routines. I have to admit, it didn’t take long at all to get used to not being in touch with the outside world. I’m not sure I’m looking forward to plunging back in.

Touring day Port Elizabeth to Graaf-Reinet

Friday, 11/23

Cool and overcast today. Our tour guide called and suggested changing our schedule to avoid what would be a bad day for looking at stuff, so we sat around and managed to log onto the Internet long enough to make sure there were no crises that couldn’t wait, and delete a bunch more spam. It began raining in earnest, so we were glad the guide wasn’t out for a buck regardless of the quality of the tour. Helps to have some flexibility.

During a lull in the rain, we wandered back to Jimmy’s Killer Prawns and had their lunch special—a bottle of grilled prawns (the service presentation was a half-bottle container, upside down) along with rice and a glass of wine. Afterward we went across the street to the aquarium/museum/snake house, although it didn’t seem the snake part of things was open. The museum part was interesting—lots of local history, plus maritime exhibits and natural history (although Dan found a few errors in the labeling, and the vestigial hind leg bones on a whale skeleton were in the wrong place). We caught part of their sea lion (Cape fur seal, actually) and dolphin show and roamed the fish tanks in the aquarium. They’re renovating, and it wasn’t as good as the one in Cape Town, but it passed the time on a rainy afternoon.

We read our new books, finished the leftover wine & paella, and called it a night.

Saturday, 11/24

We woke to discover that yesterday’s rains made for the biggest storm and flooding in the past 20 years. After breakfast, we met Greg, our guide, in the lobby and headed out for Graaf-Reinet, an historical town about 300 km away. On the way, we stopped at a cheetah breeding facility that also rehabs orphan hoofstock. We saw four cheetahs that are going to be released into the wild (a game preserve), as well as a young cub who was delighted to romp and practice hunting skills on our legs and shoes. She was playful as a kitten—a BIG kitten, and even knocked my sunglasses off when I bent to scratch her ears. Dan has a couple of tooth marks in his arm as a souvenir as well. The landscape is desolate. Red earth, scrub bush, and not a lot else, although we saw enough game to make the drive interesting: blue crane, bontebok, weaver birds, springbok, ostrich, a Cape gray mongoose, duiker, European storks, a mountain tortoise and an unidentifiable furry thing that might have been a hyrax.

Photos of the breeding project facility are on my website, here.

For pictures for the second part of the entry, you'll have to wait until tomorrow.

In town, we toured the 200+ year old downtown area with its Cape Dutch architecture, visited a small museum of home life during the settlement days—all Europe, with little or no African influence. One room was devoted to butter making—guess that was an important Dutch thing.

From town, we drove to the top of the mountains, which is the “Valley of Desolation” in the Camdeboo National Park. This part of the country is rich in dinosaur bones and is supposed to date back several hundred million years. The views of the rock formations are spectacular, even if it meant climbing a bit at altitude to get to them.

It was after seven before we got back to the hotel. We went for Indian food this time, and the waiter was very concerned that we gringos might not be able to handle the ‘medium’ heat level we ordered. We also learned that rice doesn’t come automatically the way it does at our local places in the states. There was some huge music award/festival going on by the beach and the streets were full, unlike the night before.

Back in our room, we took a few moments to enjoy the full moon peeking through a halo of clouds over the water. Turndown service at this hotel means marshmallows on the pillows (in plastic, though). I’m starting to have chocolate withdrawal, although the hot chocolate I had with lunch helped.

Port Elizabeth

It's been a week since we got onto the plane to head home. For the first time since we returned, I slept past 4:30 AM. I even spent much of the day doing tedious paperwork for my job, the first time I trusted myself to balance their bank statement. Haven't tackled our household account yet!

Wednesday, 11/21

Departing Zimbabwe is a lot easier than entering. No more departure tax (at least not obviously—it’s included in our ticket prices), and very low security checks. Nobody in Africa ever made us take our shoes off, and here they didn’t even screen laptops. Dan's belt (we think it was his belt) set off the security alarm. The guard looked at him, shrugged, and said to go on through. Even through it was a short flight of less than two hours, they served lunch and the wine & beer were free. Tell that to Delta.

In Jo'burg, baggage came off the conveyor one piece at a time, with huge lags between pieces. Maybe they were going back to the plane for one cartload at a time—the planes land out on the tarmac and we’re bussed to the terminal. Although this was the end of the formal tour, we still had 5 days before the Cape Town conference. We were looking forward to a little decompression time. We bade everyone a farewell at the airport and braced ourselves for another flight. Our next stop was Port Elizabeth

In Jo’burg, our porter knew a lot better route to the luggage storage; the escalators are ‘trolley friendly’ as someone with more than half a brain designed the wheel base to fit the riser spreads. We managed to convince the man issuing boarding passes to let us check our three bags, then proceeded to the gate. This was a snack flight (sandwich), and the booze was still free. No bus to the terminal this time, but baggage wasn’t much faster off the plane. Cab to the hotel, where they expected us—two days from now.

The night crew seemed pretty spaced out, but they did find a room for us (given that we had a confirmation and a voucher saying we’d paid), but showed very little in the ‘customer service’ arena. “Go have a seat,” was the best they could do. We ended up in a two bedroom-two bath time share apartment for the night, with the promise that our real room would be vacated in the morning. With no help from them, we found a place to eat within walking distance (Jimmy’s Killer Prawns).

Room had a great view, though. The Indian Ocean was right out there.