Cape Town, South Africa

When we visited Cape town at the end of June 2008, it was at the height of their winter. The sun came out for one of the 7 days we were there. Below we are sitting at a scenic view point at the southern most point of  the continent south of Cape town, the whole southern half of this city is a national park. The beach and cliff scenes were breath taking. We drove and walked around the park for at least 5 of the days.

We stayed at a B&B http://www.enchantedgarden.co.za/  owned by Sonia and Peter Jacka in the town of  Noordhoek just south of the city of Cape Town. We met her through the Portrait Society of America. Her husband is the only doctor in the township of Masiphumelele along the coast south of the city of Cape town. He donates his time and spends lots of energy to raise funds for the community.

Scott on one of the hikes we took in the national park.

I'm at a day care for mothers who live in the township. It's hard to judge by the photo, but it was very small and the children didn't have any toys or tables to play at. Sonia took us there one day when she and her two daughters brought over lots of their old toys.

A street scene in the township, most of the houses were made of these steel sheets.

A local food shop

Namibia

This was our first day on the road. We were a little shell shocked at how bad the gravel roads were. We stopped in this small town of Rehoboth to get gas everyone advised us to fill up on gas when ever you had the chance. The driving times could be very long and as was our experience you might not see another car for 5 hours) We did experience a time on the trip where the gas station was broken and I had to stop from getting too panicked; we did find gas about 45 minutes away.

This was our first lodge in Sossusviei, Scott did a sketch of the guide who drove us through the dunes . The food was amazing and the landscape vast and beautiful.

We saw these hives along the road and our guide told us they were birds nests. 

You can see the little openings underneath.

There were lots and lots of Oryx.

The first lodge we stayed at had 6 huts, but we were the only ones there for the two nights we stayed.

The view from the lodge where the pool was.

The famous sand dunes, photo's of these sand formations are very popular.

We got up early to watch the sunrise.

Below we drove over a dried out river on the way to Swakopmund.

Many tourists and most Namibians vacation in Swakopmund. It has a very strong German influence. 

A well known rug factory.

Right next door they made shoes.

There is a daily sidewalk market for tourists.

It was common to see people walking their animals along the side of the road. Below we saw these people on the drive to our Lodge Darwa Nawas in the Damaraland region.

I thought this lodge called Daro Nawas seemed kind of menacing.

The region called Damaraland was the most beautiful.

There are specific desert elephants that live in Damaraland. Tourists can be disappointed sometimes when the elephants don't want to be found, we were very lucky the day we went out. 

On the drive north to Fort Sesfontein ( the northern most place that we stayed, near Angola) we saw a bunch of Herero ladies selling handmade dolls along the road. The lady below was the first woman we came across and I loved her creativity, I bought about 6 dolls from her.

I'm not sure what the design of their hats meant, but we learned their Victorian looking dresses were influenced by the English when they took over the country in the 1800's.

The landscape became more dramatic as we drove north. Along the way just along the side of the road we saw the Zebra below. Just after that we saw some Giraffe. It was amazing, we weren't in a protected park, just nature. That made it seem like more of a surprise.

We stayed at an old German fort that was converted into a lodge. It had a lot of character, not so much comfort. I don't think they were able to get fresh food either. The landscape was amazing and the Himba lived near by so we were happy. Below some school children came to sing to the tourists at the lodge, they were trying to raise money for a school trip. Unfortunately there were only two other tables besides us, this wasn't the most popular area for tourists because of the distance. The most anxiety I felt on the trip was in Fort Sesfontein, the ATM's were out of money and no one could  take credit cards. Visions of be stranded started to keep me awake. We had US dollars but were running out of Rand. We never saw Americans so we couldn't ask to buy Namibian money from them. After three days they finally filled up the cash station, I think we cleaned it out. It was awkward getting so much money in front of all the locals, but with towns so far apart and cash stations only having small amounts on hand, I didn't want to be broke again.

The first Himba girl we saw below was selling her dolls made of leather and wire along side the Herero ladies.

One day we hired a driver to take us to a couple of Himba tribes. Before we set out he took us to a grocery store to by a bunch of food like tea, sugar, flour etc to give to the mother's of the tribes as a thank you for letting us come and spend time with them. On the road there were some women sitting on rocks waving down cars to try and get rides back to their homes. Our guide said that these women hitchhike about 70 miles away from their land just to come to a specific location where the Red Ochre clay is the best. They spend days and days digging with pick axes to fill up their plastic bags to take back to their families. The bags were so heavy and the plastic material very flimsy. I couldn't believe how strong they were. Well, when we saw these ladies we told our guide we would love to drive them home. After about an hour I started to rethink our decision, but it was worth it and they were so thankful.

You can see clearly below how they use the clay in their hair to make the dreadlocks. They rub it all over their body to clean them self  because they do not have running water for washing or cooking.

Grinding corn

The Children play with the ash and put it all over their bodies to protect their skin from bugs and the sun.

The young girl below is about 12 or 13, she did not know her exact age. They keep their hair in the front until they start to menstruate, then they change the style and move the locks to the back.

Scott drew 5 or 6 women and gave them the drawings as gifts.

I'm showing them a video I had of the elephants from Darwaland. Since they don't travel far from their land when they saw the elephants they all jumped back. To them the elephants seems very dangerous.

The women and children are always happy to show visitors their singing and dancing. Men didn't seem to be around. We did see a few walking with their cattle along the side of the road, but women do all of the work.

Haub Lodge ( where we stayed on the way to Etosha National Park)- one of the oldest and quaintest lodges still around. You had to drive way off the main road and it was in the middle of a great bird watching area. The lodge didn't have real walls just canvas, I was so cold at night I couldn't wait to eat dinner because I was freezing. I kept all my clothes on and had 3 water bottles in bed with me. The manager took us for a sunrise hike through the near by hills.

Etosha Park  is a huge part of northeastern Namibia set aside for wildlife. The landscape is flat and dry. We saw thousands of beautiful Springbuck

The animals are so used to people and cars that you had to drive very slowly because they would walk and sit in the road and didn't care to move sometimes.

Maps of the parks would give you locations of watering holes, you always saw animals there it was a great meeting place. Most of the time 5 or 6 different species would be there together.

Onguma Luxury Safari Lodge was on the eastern edge of Etosha Park. It really felt like we were in a lavish villa, from your private terrace you could see the park and a watering hole where all the animals came. We stayed at lodges with all different degrees of luxury, I prefer just clean and quaint. This place was a little too posh for me.

After Etosha we drove south to Waterburg lodge

Waterburg ridge looked over our lodge 

I was exhausted so Scott went out with the guide to find the reclusive black rhino. They can be dangerous and only come out at night, the guide allowed him to get this close which might not have been too smart.

We spent our last night in the capitol of Windhoek, then flew out the next day. As with all the flights on this trip, we were delayed and had to spend a night in Johannesburg, SA. It didn't really matter to us about the delay, but it wasn't fun that we had our hotel room broken into. That was upsetting.

Tanzania

We flew into the Kilimanjaro airport and drove to Arusha. I had volunteered near Arusha at a school the year before and really looked forward to showing Scott where I had been. Below is a market where all the volunteers could walk to, I knew he would get excited by all the color. We stayed in Arusha for 4 nights before our Safari began.

I took Scott on the same walk up the mountain that I had done a year before. It's amazing how lush the landscape is.

The night before we started on the Safari we stayed in one of these huts. You can see how they heat up the water for showers by using these wood burning stoves.

Masaai animal market near Lake Manyara National Park

Lake Manyara was our first stop on the safari

Ngoronogoro Crater

We pose on a famous rock in the Serengeti Park.

The beautiful Lion above was the last animal we saw in the Serengeti, while driving through the Ngorongoro Crater we came across the wildebeast migration.

The Maasai live all over the Ngorongoro area.

A group of Maasai men welcomed us with a dance.

The men and women kept to their own group. They would dance in separate areas for us. In this particular compound the father had about 20 wives.

The second day of our trek was very long, when we came to the ridge of the Embulbul depression and saw across I didn't want to ask about distance. I tried not to freak out because there was no going back.

We saw this lady on our trek through the crater.

I didn't want to move after finally getting to camp on the second day. We had a cook, Maasai guy to lead the donkeys carrying our luggage and another young Maasai that walked with us.

Almost every time we came to a little village a market was going on.

The dust we had to walk in was hard to deal with. We would laugh at each other because our faces would turn black from it.

The village below was on top of a mountain, I felt a little sorry for them because it was pretty desolate and they have to live in year around fog. We couldn't see more than 10 feet in front of us when we were on the trail.

The volcano didn't seem real. It had erupted the year before and now had gray ash all over it.

Our guide asked some local Maasai to come and dance for us at our campsite that night.

Down the mountain to Latke Natron. 

Our trek to this point was so dangerous with wind and rain walking on a ridge that we couldn't take photo's. Scott had to wrap me in a plastic bad and tape me all around so it wouldn't blow me over. I swear, I couldn't believe that they let tourists do that section. Anyway we survived and were very happy to see the end point at the bottom.

At the end of our trek

That night we stayed at a campsite next to Lake Natron. A place untouched by time. I was already overwhelmed and exhausted but our guide said there was a big market going on just around the bend. I almost couldn't take anymore color and amazing faces. I don't want to put all the best photo's on the journal because we want to use them for our paintings, so stayed tuned to our website.

We went back to Arusha then was supposed to volunteer at a school for two days. Unfortunately the people who placed us there didn't really plan anything for us to do. We got there on a Friday night and since there wasn't any children or classes being held for Saturday or Sunday it was disappointing. We got a tour of the school and area, afterward we gave the head teacher the books and toys that I had brought from the US. The place we were supposed to stay at was pretty disgusting and the drunk men chanting outside our house in the middle of the night freaked me out totally. I never would have let it get to me but not long before we went on our trip a friend of mine had been in Tanzania and bandits broke into her house attacked three people with machetes while she ran for her life in the dark. We went back to Arusha a day early. The trip wasn't over yet, on to Zanizibar

Zanzibar

We stayed at a unique hotel in the middle of Stone town ( the old section of Zanzibar) we walked along the beach watching the boats come in and out.

As everyone said we would we got lost many times in the maze of streets in the city. On the second day we finally made it to the big bazaar.

 I bought spices to bring back home.

We flew back to Johannesburg for 3 nights. We visited a village on the outskirts of town and enjoyed our comfy hotel. The trip was a roller coaster of weather and a hodge podge of lodging and travel conditions. I had no idea what this trip would do to me, I love to plan trips and just like ordering food I can't control my portions. I want to visit Africa again, but not another trip with such an ambitious schedule. I will definitely go back to Cape Town, it was incredible even being over cast most of the time. Namibia was vast and beautiful, but it didn't seen like what we think of as Africa. We really didn't see many black Africans and only got to spend time with the Himba near the border of Angola. Next time we'll fly directly to the northern region where their tribes live. I absolutely loved the Ngorongoro Crater and would go back, I would skip the Serengeti. We didn't get to see the northern beaches of Zanzibar or go swimming, so I would like to do that next time. I guess seven weeks just isn't enough time for even a small portion of Africa!