Here is the Trip Video Link!
Full Itinerary is shown at the bottom!
Notes on the trip: Scroll all the way to the bottom
AFRICA : BEST TRIP EVER!!!!
We got some good luck as our bid for first class was accepted. But, even with that it was a very long, long flight. Total travel time to get to Johannesburg was over a good day. About 26 hours by the time we got there. Little sleep. Never again going to try a Valium to put me to sleep. Although for my wife it worked perfectly. Within minutes her mouth was open and she was completely gone. I watched her sleep like she was in heaven and I was in hell for many, many hours. As much as I love her, I felt a bit of dislike for her at times (UGGHH!) Just kidding, not really!
But, we did land and we arrived actually about an hour and a half late. Just in time for dinner. And I will tell you, they are great with the service. Somebody was there right away. Even beyond security to pick us up and help us with our bags. We got to the Saxon Hotel. And this is where Nelson Mandela wrote his book and stayed after he was freed from prison. Wish we could have seen it during the daytime, but beautiful hotel. You have literally five servers taking care of you and prices because of the difference in the dollar, very reasonable. Total cost of dinner ended up to be about $200 and would have been double similar setting in the States. Had a great saxophone player going table to table.
In the morning woke up. Had to get up early to catch our next flight to the Safari, but included is breakfast and anything you want. Phenomenal. Super nice people there. Would definitely love to visit the hotel again. Beautiful grounds. English primary language, everybody speaks pretty good, but their native tongue a lot of them is Zulu and they speak that language seems like predominantly to each other. We did find out from our driver that he's never even heard of a case of malaria happening, but we are on our anti-malaria medication anyway. Up here in Johannesburg it's about 5,000 to 6,000 feet in altitude and he hasn't seen a cloud since April and here we are in August, beautiful sunny day, cool weather, great climate, this is their winter. But, just perfect.
So, when you arrive at the Tintswalo, their welcome committee is out. You always get a towel to wash your hands, and then from there, the service just gets better and better. We were pretty pleased to find out that even though we didn't get in until late in the afternoon because the flight from Johannesburg was broken and they had to get us a new flight. We didn't arrive until about 4:30. They still asked us if we want to go on safari. And so, they took us to the safari truck that was already out, and we hopped on, and there we were. Not realizing, we'd be out in a bush looking for animals that quickly. The way the truck is designed, they had three passenger rows, and the third one is really not part of the truck. It's sort of an add-on. So, you get the highest view, but you're sitting on sort of this air lifted seat. So, a little bit rocky, but you're definitely in the middle of it when you got that chair. The way the weather here works around August is middle of the day, pretty hot, but then it cools down and when the sun sets, I mean it gets cold. You're looking for your jacket, and they bring you blankets. Anything that will keep you warm. But, from the moment we started on this safari truck, we just saw animal after animal after animal. The next day, and the day after that, you do two safaris. One in the morning, which starts at 5:30. They wake you up and you're out there by 6:00. And the other one you leave -- and you get back in the morning by about 9:30. And the other one, you leave around 3:30 and get back around 7:00 to 7:30. So, you're out there a good four hours every time. The list of animals that we saw looks like this: Zebra, wildebeest, warthog, lion, leopard, African buffalo, elephant, giraffes, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, impala, guinea fowl, ostrich, many different kinds of birds, including eagle and vulture, and some beautiful colorful birds, hyena, wild dogs, crocodile, baboons, monkeys. The almost extinct rhino is the black rhino, so we didn't see that. But we saw the white rhino, which is still considered part of the big five. I mean the list goes on and on. Apparently the big five, when you see them, they will not run away from the truck. They're comfortable and used to the truck. But, any other animal besides the big five, you can't get too close to because they will take off. We saw an amazing situation with a lion, the night before, it killed the wildebeest. It just sat there and chowed down. We saw leopard nursing their baby. Every safari in the morning, they would give us a surprise and pull over and have a whole spread set up for us with coffee and treats.
In an evening safari, they asked us what we wanted to drink and we just told them a beer, so they gave us the local light beer on a safari break, and again they set up food and everything else. They also had a couple surprises. One time, they had breakfast in the bush. That was so cool. We didn't expect that. When it ended, all the breakfast was set up, and I mean the food was damn good. They do it right on this water way. Then they had drinks at the bush one night which was a surprise, and they had a whole bar set up with candles, kerosene lanterns, and they had -- I took a picture of the menu but -- a crazy menu of food, and everything was awesome. And also, just new and original stuff I have never seen before. The last night, the dinner was unbelievable. It was a barbecue and again a surprise, and it was out by this area within the property. They got fire going everywhere, and they had an executive chef that just was unbelievable, and they gave Chelle a surprise birthday cake. I mean these people just were amazing. On top of that, it's so nice because everything is inclusive. Anything we wanted in the mini bar is ours. It included a free massage. We ended up getting two massages, and the massage girls were great. Also, they do other things too with the hotel. They were there serving the food, and they all work as just a team doing everything. Eric was not only our guide; he was our bartender. He even took our luggage at the end of the day to the truck that transport us to the plane that took us to Londolozi. At night when you go back to your room, they want to escort you there because you're in the bush and anything can happen. In fact, the last night, all of a sudden, we saw a hyena creeping up on us. Not just particularly us, but everybody. So they had to sort of push the hyena -- not literally push, but get the hyena out of there because hyenas will go after anything and they have incredibly strong jaws and they're fast. There was a story Eric told us about one of the guys fell asleep for a minute and was awoken by a hyena lunging at him, hitting him in the neck and killing him. So, these animals are not something to play lightly with. We definitely did not want to be in a walking safari. Happy to be in the truck. The walking safari can be dangerous, and you're with a guide with a gun. In the car, they don't mess with you. They're very professional, and you can go right up to the animals and they just look at you like you're a tree or something like that. I mean there's a little bit of curiosity but not anything to worry about. Even though at first, you are scared as hell when you're three feet from four lions, which is the first thing we saw, and I was like how can this be safe. But you start to get comfortable with it and realize it's okay. We spent most of our time safariing with another couple named George and Diane from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Nice people, and he was a pretty good photographer and knew a lot about birds. All the other guests there were pretty nice, and mostly we just had wonderful conversations with Eric asking him all about his experiences, other guests that he's dealt with, animals, and everything else imaginable that you can think of. One thing, on a lighter note, is in the bush there is a lot of poop, and I mean there's poop everywhere which was kind of funny. Apparently, by the way, vultures, if they can't get something to snack on, they'll focus on the carnivore's poop and feast on that! I could just go on and on, but it was incredible. And for Chelle to say she's only in heaven would be a severe understatement. She cried on the way out of here because she didn't want to leave.
Londolozi! Just like the other place, you can have them print your best pic on canvas, so Chelle got this amazing picture of the cheetah that we saw – and at Tintswalo she got the elephants she took on canvas. At Londolozi I believe the Cheetah print was pretty large, and I think it was only about $100. Also, you can have a whole editing session with him if you want, complimentary. They also have a pretty cool spa. We did a therapy called body activation, where you actually go in a sauna for 15 minutes and then the cold pool at 9 degrees Celsius : Back and Forth three times. The record was 18 minutes from a girl that works there (straight in the cold pool): I made it 9 minutes and would have gone longer but Chelle made me stop!
Londolozi: The food was unbelievable. I mean, it really was by far the best. Everything was just excellent. I will say one of the things is everything is pretty much complementary, so they'll give you whatever bottle of wine you want and won't charge you extra. The wine was so-so until Kim, the sommelier,picked for us a special Shiraz and it was really good. We started to realize that Shiraz in South Africa is better than Cab (unlike Cali) . The Pinotage is quite good and is a grape mostly in and from South Africa: It’s a blend between Pinot Noir and hermitage. At first we were worried Ptespo and Myrisho would not do as well as Eric and Foster, but our concerns were alleviated pretty quickly. They might move a little slower at times, but they found us so many animals and not only similar things that he had already seen, but different . So we definitely saw a bigger male lion: We heard him call for his brother in the morning which was quite the event. We saw leopards: one of them was nursing. We actually saw a cheetah, which was the highlight of the trip for me and I realized that was my favorite animal. Of course we saw elephants, giraffes. We even saw a honey badger. The hippos, we saw up close.
Saying goodbye was very difficult, to our friends, at Londolozi. But we did it, and we moved on, and we took a flight from basically the bush to a small airport. From there, we took a flight to Zambia. In Zambia, we landed. We had to get our $50 Visa and Libby White was there to pick us up and drove us across the border, where we had to the Visa stamped again in Zimbabwe. From there, it was time to see Victoria Falls, but because it took so long to get through the line in Zambia, we didn't have much time, so we basically ran through the falls. Got some good pictures. They have a neat little park you can walk through, but definitely impressive and beautiful, especially with the perma-rainbow they had. After that, we went in to check into our treehouse, which is called the Island Lodge and Blessed, that's his name, took us from the land, on a boat, straight up to the lodge. We checked in with Peter. Great guy, interesting guy and did a quick turn-around and then got ready for our sunset cruise. On the sunset cruise, we met our new friends from Indiana, Mark and Tammy. Mark can drink like a complete fish and was pretty wasted before you knew it! We had tons of laughs, great conversation, and agreed we all need to eat dinner together one night. This hotel is all-inclusive, so everything, all your meals, are right there. After that, we had a good dinner and ended up drinking throughout the night again with Mark and Tammy and he got pretty excited when I promised him I'd give him some mints afterwards. The next day was just non-stop. Almost too non-stop. We started the day with a visit to the village, where we met Lovemor, definitely a third world village. He showed us around, how they make millet, how they have to tippy-toe to wash their hands. He made me rake the field, which is basically a bunch of sand, because there was sand everywhere. He showed us the projects he's working on, his high-tech stuff. One thing was a system so that you can put cow dung in a pipe, mix it with water, and get gas. It worked! He then showed us his new fishing ponds that he's planning on farming fish to add to their diet. What an interesting life they live. After that, and buying about $70 in their "gift shop" we moved on to the next thing to do, which was the helicopter ride called the Flight of Angels around the falls. The pilot, military guy that had done some work in the Congo apparently: Well he flew like he was still in the war. Suffice to say, Chelle almost puked and I would be lying to say I wasn’t zeroing in on the vomit bag at times!
After that we went to the elephant encounter. I can safely say that was a tough one as well. When we got to the middle of the bush and walked around to get to the elephants because they've got to find where they are first, it was about 100 degrees, super buggy, and of course elephant poop everywhere. Though we did get to pet the elephants and feed them and that is something you don't get to do everyday. But: Once was enough!
Forgot to mention before that we did squeeze in a couple of massages that were complementary that came with the room and as usual the people that give massages seem like South Africa and Zimbabwe love to use at least 10 gallons of oil. Basically they're slipping and sliding so much with their hands, you never really get a massage. More of just a big time oil rub down.
Anyway, after the elephant encounter, back to the Island Lodge. We then had dinner with our new friends. Great times. And even though we swore we would stay out too late or drink too much, we did it, of course. At night, I wanted to go in the plunge pool and like the Indiana Jones movie The Last Crusade when you walk across one mountain to the other, there's a transparent step basically I guess I would call it invisible, that I didn't see and I stepped out from the bathroom to go into the plunge pool and took a nice fall. OUCH! Luckily, I just bruised up my arm. Could have been worse!
Then we had to wake up pretty early in the morning to catch a flight on our way to Cape Town. I was say the Island Lodge is a very nice place but you definitely deal with a lot of bugs and it's pretty remote. And they do have a spa, but to get there or anywhere, you've got to take a boat. Which, on the surface seems kind of cool, but practical purposes big pain in the butt.
So we took a flight, this time we left from an airport in Zimbabwe, said goodbye to Libby White, who was a great host. We enjoyed her company. And went on to Cape Town where Eugene picked us up and took us to our hotel, the Cape Grace. This was apparently the same hotel where Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman stayed when they filmed Invictus. The Cape Grace hotel like so many places in Africa is first class, five-star, and really over staffed. Lots of people to take care of your every need. Great little gym. They had a driver take us wherever we wanted to go. We checked out the waterfront, pretty nice but in the future not a whole lot very touristy so probably wouldn't stay there again. Went for a little run, but hard to run around there to find where the path is, it takes you along the ocean. This night we were able to chill a little bit, get ready, and then we had dinner at the Butcher, which was pretty good but not a lot of energy.
Next day we had the opportunity to meet one of our favorite guides, Mark Murison. He did the whole drive down to Cape of Good Hope, Southern most point of Africa.
We had a great lunch at the Food Barn (the bouillabaisse soup: WOW!! (w/the fresh local fish: Kingclip) and then afterwards went to Kristen’s kickass ice cream. Chelle got a massive donut, which of course, I ended up eating most of it plus the delicious ice cream. Food there's great. Everything's always perfect, set up nicely, and of course with the difference between the ram and the dollar, very cheap.
We also saw Boulder’s Beach, which has the penguins. And, we also went to Cape of Good Hope up to the top of the lighthouse. By then, it was time to head back to the hotel where we ended having dinner that night at a place (I would love our dining room in the wine cellar to look just like). This restaurant was really cool and it was called the Kloof Street House.
The next day, we were welcomed by our guide to take us to the top of Cable Mountain. It's a three mile hike, pretty strenuous. Mostly straight up. Chelle did it like a champ. Wasn't that easy, took us almost four hours. But of course, we stopped several times. We took the cable car down. Some beautiful views. A good work out. After that, we had dinner at Pigalle’s and we met Victor. I wrote a review for him. Originally from Portugal, he has four restaurants, paid a lot of attention to us, opened up a bottle of wine that was 1,000 rand. And the guy was actually shaking pouring it. Then we realized the true significance of the difference between the dollar and the rand. Great food. They had live music, a little slow on the music, but at least it was something! And then, headed back to the room.
Next morning, Mark Murison was ready at 9:00 to take us to the Winelands. We had a great time at the Winelands, stayed with at La Residence in the Elton John Suite. Was the biggest, most luxurious, big time foo foo / over the top. Elton likes to stay there and his autographed pic is framed over the desk. When you walk around this place it's unbelievable. Wild peacocks around which Chelle loved (didn’t realize they could fly way up in the trees!) They had their own animals on the farm. And again, over staff, totally take care of you. The first night, we had a private dinner with the chef, Leonard. That was a pretty incredible experience we never had before. And the next day, we had dinner at a place called “Foliage in Franschhoek” Cute little town, restaurant was decent. Wouldn't probably go back there again.
Then Eugene the next day took us back to the airport. Originally, they had us leaving super early in the morning to go for a tour of the Nelson Mandela Museum, but we decided to sleep in. This place is so beautiful (and expensive), we wanted to at least get our money’s worth and be there in the morning, have their awesome breakfast, and not be rushed out.
We had so much fun at Winelands: Best wineries! Went to 5 wineries. We wanted to go to rickety bridge winery (love their Stone Red) but didn’t have time.
Waterford:LOVED IT
Stark-Conde: LOVED IT
Lunch and wine at Delaire Graff (believe famous designer / jewelry too): Place beautiful over the top
Mullineux: SO SO
Babel Restaurant: Amazing: Fresh veggies from their garden
First one 2nd day I can’t remember
Kanonkop LOVED IT
Got upgraded again SAA airways: First Class all the way from Capetown to Joburg to DC. This time slept! No valuum, just wine , good food, and laid the seat down all the way.
Best Trip Ever: Let’s go AGAIN! LOVE YOU SOUTH AFRICA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Comments