Great Zimbabwe Ruinas

Hi All

What an amazing morning, we visited the great Zimbabwe ruins and walked all the way to the top, it nearly killed me. Rellie wasn't faring to well either. It was really high, but amazing, really wonderful, we both loved it. Our guide was so informative and told us all about the history, even to the king having to sleep with his sister to prove he was strong enough to rule.


Narelle climbing some of the way up to the Kings fortress

The senior wife of the king taught all of the young girls how to please men sexually and then the king took his pick and his ambassadors go the rest. The last king has 200 wives. They found lots of stone didlo's, all different sizes, in the hut that was used by the first wife and the girls, it was very enlightening..... Men were definitely the master race in that group.

Outside of the kings fortress

The place was really interesting, the brick work was amazing, all of the walls were made with no mortar at all. They had amazing skill.

part of the inside of the kings fortress

Inside of the lower compound where the kings 200 wives lived. They would have to climb the mountain gto him when required, except for the first wife. The king would descend to her.
We had breakfast at the Great Zimbabwe and then headed off, we spent most of the day driving. and arrived at our next accommodation later that day

Cheers for now

Lones

Zimbabwe…

Well what a day…. It was ridiculous.

We left early and headed for the South African border, we arrived at about 11:30 and stood in line in the hot sun for 3 hours.. for the first hour and a half the line slowly moved forward, people where queue jumping something shocking, it was annoying us, but it was really upsetting the Italians in our group. They were very vocal, I just couldn’t understand anything they said. Then for some unexplained reason the authorities closed the doors to the immigration office for one and a half hours, no one moved…. No explanation, nothing….People were getting very agitated and pushy. Finally a policeman came along and started throwing people down the stairs at the front of the queue. He then disappeared and then he returned, we heard people shouting and the line was pushing back against us, but we couldn’t see what was happening up front. It was very confusing and the people kept closing in around us, as they were forced off the road and further back from up front. We later learned that a South African policeman had been throwing the people down the stair when they pushed in line. Later when he came back and they were still doing it, he used a cattle prod to shock them. They had really annoyed me, but I didn’t want them electrocuted… The South Africans treated everyone in the line with contempt and disrespect, it was an eye opener to see what they did to people. One female officer just ran up and shoved a woman really hard into some other women, for no reason what so ever, it was appalling. Once the line started moving the people from behind where just pushing us along, it was really weird and I was chuckling to myself about the weird things you see when I looked over and noticed how upset my sister was, we had been separated and she was being pushed along by the crowd too. Unfortunately she could not breath in the crush and she could not see me, with all the yelling and pushing she became afraid that they were going to riot and it really upset her. I went to her side and fortunately as we climbed the stairs to the immigration office a lady stepped forward and seeing how upset Narelle was she asked how old she was. I told her and she took us into a separate building where we lined up with just a few people, we were through in about ten minutes, the rest of our group were sent through a long corridor with everyone else, still being treated like cattle. It was very distressing. After we were processed, we went outside to wait for the rest of our group, a policeman came up and told us we could not wait here, after your papers are stamped you must leave the country…. This is all just to get out of South Africa, we have not even began the process for entering Zimbabwe yet….. Lord, help us.

Once we arrived in Zimbabwe the process was easier, they give you a tourist authority to help you with the process. It was still time consuming but only took about an hour all up, so better. BUT… once you leave the border, that is when the fun begins… The local police stop you and look for reasons to get bribes from you. Our guide had all the right paperwork, so they couldn’t fine him or ask for bribes, but that did not stop them stopping you. We were stopped 6 times in the first 15 minutes… Seriously, 6 times. They do not even coordinate the road blocks, once you are out of sight of one, another one is there. Apparently they come from anywhere, they are not local police, they are just looking for bribes. We were stopped at least another 6 times before we reached our destination. We arrived hot and bothered and finally got our dinner at 9pm… What a day

We did see some water buffalo before we left Kruger, and as we could not take any pictures at the border, here is some water buffalo


I am off to bed

Night

Lones

Kruger national park – Day 2

This post was written yesterday, posted today due to internet availiblility

Well if we saw some wonderful amazing animals yesterday, today was twice as good. Absolutely divine. We saw so many animals and I have way too many pictures, but it was a wonderful day.

We left our camp at 6am and traveled until we had brunch about 10:30. As we were eating we were beside a dry riverbed, with patches of deep water still remaining. As I looked left I saw Zebra crossing the dry river bed, then a crocodile basking in the sun then closer on my left a Hippo in the water, then to my right some impala, a few monkeys and further to the right a herd of about 12 elephants. It was amazing, so many animals right there in front of us.

Where we had lunch


Impala


Hippo

During the day we saw Baboons, Warthogs, plenty of Elephants, Zebras, Nyala’s, Kudu’s, Monkeys, Giraffe. We were also lucky enough to see a cheetah and two mail Lions. We had an amazing day. We are now at our camp for tonight, we are in some quaint huts with our own bathroom…. Bonus…

Our accommodation was the middle room, with ensuite...

Our bus may be the pits, but our guides are great. Pumy is our driver and guide and he is lovely, nothing is too much trouble. He is about 30, with velvety skin and he is so dark he shines. Grace is a middle aged white lady who is half south African and half English. She is very knowledgeable, but I suspect that sometimes when she doesn’t have an answer she makes stuff up, I may be doing her an injustice, but that’s what I think..
We had dinner out in the open and a Monkey stole a cucumber, he could have them all as far as I am concerned, they aren’t worth eating. After dinner we went down to a hide nearby and watched the water buffalo, there was about 200 of them. Amazing to watch.

Tomorrow we head to Zimbabwe

That’s it for now
Cheers
Lones

Beginning the tour and Kruger national Park

The following post was written on Saturday, but with no internet I could not post until today (Monday)

Well the hotel we were staying in last night had no restaurant or bar, so we had to order our meal from a menu in our room, there was no other place else to eat on site. The menu was limited and had no descriptions or photos, so we opted for the spur chicken schnitzel. Well…. It arrived in a box with a bit of lemon, another smaller box had the cold chips and cold onion, and no plates or cutlery at all. It was the weirdest thing. Every time we looked at each other, holding our schnitzels like pizza slices we burst out laughing, it was ridiculous, who gives you schnitzel without cutlery??? WHO???

I have a friend who just returned from an African trip, she loved it. She has explained all about their bus, with its tables for playing games on long trips, its power plugs to recharge phones and cameras, its luxury etc. We saw the pictures in our brochures. Well we passed one like that today.. While we were sitting in our little cramped dark dingy bus, with no tables, no power plugs, air conditioning not working properly, no room and tiny windows…. It is like travelling around Africa in a bloody little submarine… bastards….

We did however get to see some wonderful animals, in Kruger National Park. The only drawback is everyone trying to get pictures at once through the f’ing tiny windows. It is like a wild animal stampede in itself… Bloody Sunway Tours. We saw a lot of Impala, an elephant, a giraffe, some zebra, another giraffe and more zebra, another elephant. Then we saw a water buck, a mother Hyena playing with her babies, while dad watched on. We also saw another hyena crossing the road closer to our encampment.

A giraffe, how awesome is that....


What a wonderful sight...

Tonight we are sleeping in permanent tents, with the bathroom facilities on the other side of the camp, about 100 meters or so…. Narelle is not happy…. But we are assured that after this we will have en suites at all our other stops, so we will survive. The beds were comfortable and we got a good nights sleep each.

Our cabin, a bit dark, but as we arrived in the night and left before dawn, it was all I could get...

It was lovely tonight , sitting around with the group and having dinner, the other folks all seem to be really friendly and mix well. The only drawback is the bloody bus, it may take me weeks to get over it.
Tomorrow we start at 6am and do game drives all day, so I hope we get to see some more wonderful animals, they are so close and we got some great shots.

Till next time

Cheers Lones

Hello again
Our second day in Cape Town we went shopping early, too early as few of the shops were open. We then took a taxi to the Victoria and Alfred Water front shopping complex, named after Queen Victoria and her eldest son Alfred, not to be confused with her husband Albert. We had been told how nice it was, very expensive, but also very nice. We discovered the expensive, but weren’t very impressed with the place, it was too big and the maps were confusing, so hard to find your way around in.

Tabletop Mountain

We then decided to do the hop on hop off bus, as we hadn’t seen a lot of the city at that point. It is a lovely city, it does however have many hovel townships that have sprung up due to the large influx of people coming from the country to find work. They build homes with whatever they can find on the roadsides and it is becoming a big problem for the authorities.
We went up signal hill, it was a brilliant view from there, we also went along the waterfront, lovely beaches and we had lunch in a little restaurant with a brilliant view from our balcony. It was a quiet day, but very informative and relaxing. We discovered an area called Bokap with its lovely cobbled streets and wonderful painted homes. A delightful area. We then caught the hop on hop off bus back to Sea Point, it was the long way round, but as we had paid for the day, it was free. We had dinner at the Greek restaurant we visited on our first night.

The view from half way up Signal Hill

The view while we were having lunch.

Some of the lovely houses in the Bokap

Today we brought some books as we both needed something to read on the flight and on the tour. We were then picked up the chattiest taxi driver I have ever seen. He talked nonstop to the airport, he was hilarious. He was explaining to us how he hates Durban, it is the wettest city in South Africa, it never stops drizzling, everything is wet and everything grows big because of the constant rain. Passionfruit grow to the size of Apples, all the bugs grow huge too. Centipedes are about an inch in diameter, snails are enormous and the spiders are like dinner plates. He said he was told the spider were harmless, but he said when you open the cupboards they hiss at you.. There are Indians everywhere and everything is curry, even the sausages are curry. He is never going back and Rellie and I decided we won’t be visiting there either….

What delightful children, they made me smile and wave frantically back at them...adorable

We have arrived at Johannesburg or Jo’Burg as it is known in South Africa and the hotel is lovely and new, but apart from that it sucks. No lift, no bellboys, no tea making facilities, only 30 minutes free wi-fi and no proper restaurant or shop. But we are better off than the two Italian men joining our tour, they arrived in Jo’Burg and their luggage didn’t so at least we have our clothes, which I can assure you all of the people in Jo’Burg will be pleased about, I doubt if they want to see me naked and running about the place…`

Cape Town

We arrived in Cape Town yesterday morning, after a very long flight from Australia, via Singapore. We were picked up at the airport and transferred to our hotel. We are staying in Sea Point, a very nice area on the coast. The staff here are really lovely. This morning at breakfast one of the ladies asked us if we were born in Australia and when we said yes, she said we didn’t have a very strong Australian accent, she thougth we would be saying “Goon on ya” and calling her Sheila. So of course after we finished eating I said “That was really delicious, good on ya Sheila”. I couldn’t help myself, but she got a good laugh out of it. After breakfast we spent some time walking around the neighbourhood and then we had a well deserved sleep. Last night we ate at a local Greek restaurant and the food was delicious.

Today we were picked up by or local guide Sharon and taken out for the day. We started by driving down the coast to Hout Bay, it was a lovely drive, only marred by the weather, it rained on and off all day. We drove along Chapmans Peak Drive from Hout Bay to Noordhoek along a road that is only open sometimes and we got through just before it closed at 10am. I do not know why they close the road…. They do a lot of funny things in South Africa, but they are very nice about it.

We stopped at False Bay and saw the romantic meeting of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, not to be confused with the real meeting of these two oceans, as that is just around the corner…. Hence the name False bay as many sailors got confused and thought they had reached the Indian ocean at False bay. We also visited the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point.

We spotted our first African Animals today, which was a real treat as we thought we would have to wait until Botswana for that. We saw Bontebok, Baboons, ostriches and elands. It was very exciting… We also saw the small African Penguins, they are larger than our Fairy Penguins though.

We visited Simon’s Town and saw a statue of a Great Dane, the only dog ever to be listed in the South African Navy, he was Able Seaman Just Nuisance and was buried with a full military funeral when he died and even the Admiral had to attend. Strange but they are very nice…

We stopped at the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens which we had been told were wonderful and neither Narelle or I was very impressed to be honest. The guide left us to wonder and we sprinted around the place for all of about 20 minutes, it had barely any flowers and no decent ones at all.

We dined at another local restaurant tonight. The waiter went off to bring us menus and then placed another chair at our table, Narelle was concerned he was bringing more diners to our tiny table, but I just thought he was arranging another table nearby. He then brings another chair and places it beside the first and then puts a huge 4 foot high and 2.5 foot wide black board on it, as he places another black board on the second chair, I click, he is bringing us the menu…. And they did that all night with all of the new diners. They didn’t always get chairs. Sometimes they lent them against heaters, or other diners, it was all very unusual, but they are very nice… I did wonder how much it costs to print paper menus, it would save a lot of room. I had my first meal of Ostrich meatballs on a bed of very hot fettuccini, after our meal Narelle was talking to me, but I couldn’t reply as I had ice sitting on my tongue… it was a really hot sauce

The difference between Blacks and Coloureds

Have you ever wondered about this, I have, I thought they were the same thing, but no. Our guide today was coloured and she explained it to us. If both of your parents are black, you are black, if one of your parents are white, you are coloured. So there you go…. Weird but they are very nice…

We learned to say Thank you very much in Afrikaans today. Buy a Donkey, yep, that’s what you say. Buy (although probably spelt different) means a lot and Donkey (Danke) means thank you in German, so buy a donkey is what you say. Our guide was very informative.

Up on the mountains they employ shark monitors or spotters for the swimmers and surfers. They use different coloured flags for different meanings and if there is no flag then there is no spotter on duty and you are on your own. The flags are As follows

Black flag = The spotter cannot see due to low clouds or whatever and you are on your own
Blue flag = All clear no sharks have been spotted
White flag with black shark on it = A shark has been spotted, get out of the water
Red flag or red and white stripped flag = There are sharks in the water. I have no idea why they have two different flags for this, our guide was hard to rein in at times and we couldn’t clarify everything she said.
They also have Baboon monitors that walk around and follow the baboons, if a baboon gets on the road and a car is coming they shoot paint balls at nearby rocks or trees and the baboons move on. They are very nice though.

I finally got the pictures to work, I hope you enjoy them.. more tomorrow

Til then cheers for now

Lones

The beginning...

Lones is off to Africa on the 4th of August, and this time my sister Narelle is coming with me... Hereafter to be referred to as Rellie or Rel, unless she annoys me and then she will become Narelle Ann Thompson.... Just like Mum used to do....:) Feel free to join us on our awesome adventures..