A WORLD IN ONE COUNTRY sure describes one of my
favorite destinations, SOUTH AFRICA!
Dick
and I and 16 others have really loved our COLLETTE EXPLORATIONS Adventure. We
started out with 4 nights in what I feel is one of the two most beautiful
cities on earth, Cape Town; Sydney, Australia being the other one. We
stayed at the 4/5 star at the SOUTHERN SUN WATERFRONT, within a 15 min walk to
the famous Waterfront Harbor, a restaurant, entertainment and shopping Mecca.
We all had dinner at the KARIBU Restaurant, located right on the harbor,
offering Native Specialties like Ostrich and Bobootie, a lightly curried minced
meat, baked in an oven, one of many national dishes.
My
favorite one day trip in the entire world was just as wonderful this time as
the previous four. We started our adventure of the Cape Peninsula driving
around Table Mountain and the incredible scenery of Camps Bay Suburb, down to
Hout Bay, where the water was very rough as usual. We weren't sure the
boats would operate over to Seal Island, but we were lucky and got a large
vessel to cruise the short distance over to see the Cape Fur Seals and resident
Hump Back Whale which we were lucky to spy! Continuing down the coast you see
"Amalfi" like Scenery ending at Cape Point the SW tip of the African
Continent. You talk about breathtaking scenery, it's here for sure! There are
two good eateries here but watch out for the bird's who will try to take the
food right out of your mouth! Take the Funicular Ride up to the top for the best
views and keep your eyes out for Baboons who will steal any snack you may have
open if you encounter one while there! Continuing up the eastern coast you come
back to Simonds Town where our wonderful Tour Mgr Roger grew up in a Naval
Family (South Africa's Naval Headquarters) and the location of the Cape's other
major attraction, Boulders Beach and the home of a huge colony of South African
"Jack Ass" Penguins. This was a huge hit with our animal lovers!
Another must see in Cape Town is KIRSTENBOSCH Botanical Gardens located in the
shadows of Table Mt Range. Here you you will see myriads of the national
flowers, the Proteas, if they are in season. Due to very windy conditions, the
Table Mt Cable Cars were not operating which is always subject to weather conditions.
One nite we had dinner in the home of a local family which our group enjoyed.
We
had two very enjoyable winery visits in the nearby wine area of Stellenbosch.
The first was the Waterford Wine Estate where we enjoyed a Dark Chocolate and
Wine Tasting-pairing and the second was BLAAUKLIPPEN Wine Estate where the
ladies really loved their weekly Sunday Flea Market and loaded up with
practical and not so practical treasures. I got lots of unique bracelets,
others got cute dresses etc. We all loved our visit to the historic University
Town of Stellenbosch founded in 1678 by the Dutch Settlers which is where
future groups will be spending 2 nights.
We
left Cape town after 4 nights (which I consider the minimum to do any justice
to it) and took the spectacular coastal road along False Bay stopping to see
surfers ride the huge waves hoping to avoid Great White Sharks in the
process! Our destination was HERMANUS, the Whale Watching Capitol of
Africa and also one of the top wine areas. The Whale Watching season goes
from September to December, similar, to Lahaina, Maui which goes from December
to March. We stayed at the ARABELLA COUNTRY CLUB HOTEL and SPA, a superb Golf
Resort which one of our couples played. We enjoyed a cliff walk lead by Our
Tour Dir. Roger offering myriads of photo opportunities of Walker Bay.This
scenery
rivals
the California Monterrey Coast and the French Riviera! Try Bientang’s
Cave a eatery and wine bar right on the water.
We
flew out of Cape Town to Johannesburg and headed north to the ENTABENI GAME
Conservancy, located in the Waterberg Mt. Range. Our lodge the 5 Star HANGLIP
Mountain Lodge was everything you could expect in a luxury cottage complete
with veranda, huge tub, and tented king size bed. The food was excellent but the
piece de resistance was the totally excellent game drives. We went immediately
out into the bush in our open air Land Rovers and felt we had 4 of the best
Land Game Drives on the trip, full of all the major antelope/bucks like the
South African Springbok, (the national symbol), Waterbuck etc. plus those funny
pigs the Warthogs, which all of us both ate as well as photographed. If you
told me I would enjoy their meat, over Kudu, Ostrich, Crocodile or beef, I
would have said you are nuts, however, I agreed that it was delicious! We saw
four of the Big Five there with the exception of the elusive Leopard, plus
giraffes, Our early am game drive hit the jackpot for us and our Game
Tracker/driver, Obrey when we spotted a lion couple basking in the am sun!
After waiting patiently for them to start hunting, one of our two land rovers
got to see the female race off after a warthog and our Land Rover immediately
returned to the scene and were rewarded by a male "King of the Beast"
walking so close to our vehicle that we could reach out and touch him! We
also were lucky to catch two cheetah brothers sharing their wildebeest kill. We
lunched outdoors and dined one night under the stars with an outdoor Boma
(African BBQ)
Just
so you know the timing sequence for game drives, in order to have the best
chance of viewing the most variety of game, you get up about 5:30 am and into
the vehicles by 6, with a quick cup of coffee under your belt and often have a
coffee and biscuit in the bush. After about 2 and a half to three hours, you
return about 9 am for a huge breakfast. Some mornings you will have an optional
Track Identification walk with your Game Tracker which is very interesting
about birds, Dung Beetles etc, You can relax in the afternoon after another
lunch and off you go on your 3 pm 3 hour game drive. We all loved this private
game reserve and can strongly recommend it. Our Entabeni Adventure was capped
off with a very exhilarating drive up a one lane “road” to the top of the
Hanglip Mountain where we had Sundowners overlooking breathtaking scenery full
of every type of game including Giraffes etc!
After
an early am game drive, we drove 3 hours back to Johannesburg and went directly
to Soweto, the largest township in South Africa with an estimated 4 million
residents and the location of South Africa's independence led by Nelson
Mandela.
We
hired a local resident guide for a memorable tour of this "city within a
city". My first visit there was in 1981 during Apartheid and it was
nothing but a huge slum full of tin shacks as it was in 2000 and 2004 visits.
This time there was a huge improvement as the South African Government has
built myriads of "matchbox" houses and torn down a lot of the shacks.
We got a very good appreciation of what Nelson Mandela and fellow patriots went
thru to gain their freedom. By the way, the movie MANDELA can be seen on
Netflix and I recommend it.
We
flew up to Victoria Falls on the 8th day and checked into the VICTORIA FALLS
SAFARI LODGE, a rustic 4 star resort overlooking a watering hole where upon
arrival we saw a small herd of elephants drinking, which raised a lot of
excitement with our group. We started right out with a walk around Victoria
Falls, one of the Seven Wonders of the Natural World, including Rio
Harbor, the Grand Canyon, the Great Barrier Reef among others. Since it is
summer, and the water flow is beginning to increase, it was a good time to view
the falls because the last time I was there it was in May and you were soaked
with mist from the Falls and couldn't see very much. Most of our group took the
Flight of the Angels helicopter rides and the ones who took the short rides
said it was not necessary to take the more expensive longer one. Fyi. They all
recommended it!
We
paid a visit to a local native village Chief who was in charge of about 3000
people and was the head of arbitration in the village for disciplinary actions.
Villagers are very neighborhood conscious and all try to help each other out
with problems. There are three major tribes in Zimbabwe and his was the NDEBELE
Tribe. After looking around this tidy village with its Mud Huts we drove to the
Elephant Rescue Reserve where we were able to feed these magnificent creatures
and pet them as well as Sylvester the Cheetah, a two year old Orphan who would
have to live his life there as he doesn't understand how to operate as a
Cheetah Predator. He'll remain a Cat Ambassador the rest of his life being
petted and fed. We really loved this visit and got a lot of laughs from the
video they made of all of us interacting with the pachyderms and Sylvester. If
you want to take a short elephant ride, that's possible too, but most of us
were happy just meeting these giants close up and personal!
Our
final safari destination was the gigantic (size of New Jersey) Chobe National
Park which was located only about an hour over the Botswana Border from Vic
Falls. There was no longer any charge for US citizens for visas, and we only
paid $45 cash for a double entry visa to enter Zimbabwe. While on the financial
subject, Botswana only has 2 million citizens and the country is doing much
better financially than its two neighbors, Zim. And SA. due to its Diamond
Mines, strong tourism industry and stable government. Both of its neighbors
have seriously falling currency, as the SA Rand deflated about 30 percent the
first week of 2016 alone which made everything we purchased a screaming
bargain! Botswana is mostly desert intertwined by the Chobe River where our
CHOBE MARINA LODGE was located. The Okavango River Delta which flows all the
way from Angola and Central Africa into the Zambezi River takes up a huge area
where you find world class lodges offering incredible Water Animal Viewing
Experiences. We took two cruises on the Chobe River bordered on the opposite
bank by Namibia. I absolutely love looking at Hippos and we saw dozens,
splashing in and out of the River and some with newborn babies, sooo cute! I
learned that Hippos can't swim and can only bounce up and down on River bottoms
to move around and can stay under the water for up to 6 minutes! We saw a
herd of elephants with babies and learned that elephants can swim and are good
at it. Botswana has many thousands of elephants which usually can be seen along
the river banks but not as much in the summer rainy season.
Well,
all 18 of us agreed that this Safari Adventure more than lived up to our
expectations, and we all made new friends as well with age ranges from the 20s
to 70s. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN LEARNING MORE ABOUT THESE DESTINATIONS, PLEASE
GIVE ME A CALL. I CAN TELL YOU THAT COLLETTE VACATIONS, A 98 PLUS YEAR OLD
FAMILY OWNED US TOUR OPERATOR EXCEEDED OUR EXPECTATIONS. OUR WHOLE TRIP
INCLUDING AIR WAS ONLY ABOUT ½ THE COST OF MOST AFRICAN TOURS INCLUDING 4 AND 5
STAR HOTELS AND MOST MEALS!
PAT
CRONENBERG 513 200 5488
CELEBRATING
50 YEARS IN THE TRAVEL INDUSTRY
