Butts...

We took lots of pictures of animals throughout our trip, but it often seemed like we could only see the back end! So here is a collection of some of our 'butt' pictures!

Hello, Irene (and Happy Birthday Ryan!)

You wouldn’t think that a hurricane heading up the Atlantic seaboard would affect us here 12,000 km away in Africa, but this storm caused a huge problem for us. On Saturday, it became evident that Irene was scheduled to arrive at JFK the same time we were on Sunday. Unfortunately, the airlines noticed this coincidence as well & cancelled our flight. Actually they only pretended to cancel it, they reinstated it 12 hours later as a freight flight – but more on that later. So how do we get home? I guess that’s not so easy when you are halfway around the world! South African Airlines supposedly has 3 flights a day to NY, but the next flight that we could get on was September 11^th! Unbelievable! As much as I am loving Africa, I really miss my dog & my bed! Also, that would mean my kids would miss the first TWO weeks of school. Talk about starting off on the wrong foot. Illana talked to every rep on the phone, plus every travel agent in Cape Town – very confusing & time consuming! We tried to fly through Dubai, London, Ethopia (truly!), but one, this made for really long flights & layovers in not so nice places & two, will cost lots of extra money. SAA was going to give us a full refund, but Illana did such a good job of getting the cheapest fare that anything outside of SA -> JFK on SAA would cost us extra. Finally Rich & Illana sweet talked a SAA agent to send us to DC on September 4^th for no extra charge – thanks! So we will arrive in Dulles on Sunday morning 9/5 & then we rented a super cargo van (remember 8 people 16+ bags!) to drive us the 5 hours home.

So on Sunday morning we were glued to CNN watching Irene hit NY/CT. It really didn’t look that bad so we were hopeful that JFK would re-open quickly & we could have our flight back. Well, SAA never told us that our flight was switched to a freight plane & not cancelled, so 2 hours before it was supposed to leave one of the many travel agents we talked to noticed that we were still on that flight. We thought about taking it, but JFK was still closed and the idea of taking off for a destination that wasn’t accepting arrivals was a sketchy one. Add in a freight flight with no in-flight entertainment (4 kids + 17 hours) with an unspecified layover in Dakar and we decided to skip it. Later we found out it landed Monday afternoon in JFK (our limo driver was there to meet us too!) Ouch. Oh well. Next problem, were to stay for the next 6 days. Susan & Johann, our hosts, were heading out to vacation on Tuesday morning. They offered to change their plans or for us to come with them. But we didn’t want them to do that & the place that they were going was supposedly very beautiful, but it was 6+ hours away. I wanted to get closer to home, not farther away. Also we needed to have an internet connection since Rich, Leonard & Illana all needed to work (no more vacation time!) Leonard’s aunt to the rescue! She offered her family’s beach house in De Kelders for our use. One hour from Cape Town, right on the coast, plenty of room + good cell access! Problem solved.

Once all the plans were finalized Monday afternoon, we packed up our bags & loaded them into the poor VW van (crammed full!). The kids said their tearful goodbyes to Susan & Johann, as well as all the neighborhood kids they had befriended. We chugged up over Sir Lowry’s Pass with hangliders flying over us and down onto the Whale Coast. De Kelders (the caves) is between Hermanus (whale watching capital of the world) and Gansbaai (shark cage diving center) on Walker Bay. The house is beautiful & right on the water. You look out the window & you can see whales playing in the water! They are everywhere. Haven’t seen any sharks – which is fine by me!

Anyway today is Ryan’s 11^th birthday. Didn’t think that he would celebrate it here, but a birthday is a birthday, so we made a cake (not much choice in cake mixes here!) and went to Spurs for dinner…again! I felt so bad because we didn’t have any presents or cards for him, but he has been a good sport about it & I promised him a party when he got back – so I think it’s been a good day for him. At least it is a memorable one!

So Happy 11^th Birthday Ryan! Love, Mommy, Daddy & Rachel!

Cape Point

Cape Point is at the southwestern most point of Africa. Cape of Good Hope is there as well. I have always wanted to go there. In school, when we would learn about the explorers & how dangerous it was to ‘round the Cape’, I thought that it would be cool to see where 2 oceans meet. The Atlantic & the Indian ocean don’t actually meet there, but don’t spoil the moment for me please! It is spectacular! Incredibly views & a long hike up to the lighthouse at the top of the point, even Ryan’s face was red by the time we got to the top. We are 12,000+ km from NYC – a long way from home! We were hoping to see some of the Cape baboons at the point, but all we saw were ostriches. This one ostrich was very funny. It was in a parking lot, eating stones (aids in digestion), so we drove up to it to see it. It runs behind a big rock and ducks down & hides. It poked up its head every so often to see if we were still there.

The ride down to Cape Point was beautiful as well. We drove through miles of dunes. We stopped in Muizenberg to watch the surfers & to see the cute colored little beach shacks. We stopped in Simonstown to see Just Nuisance’s statue. He was a Great Dane who was the mascot of the Royal Navy during WWII. Also there were more outdoor markets to shop in. We stopped at Boulders Beach to see the penguins, smells very fishy! You used to be able to walk down on the beach to see them, but now you are not allowed. But there were plenty to see there.  After Cape Point we drove over to Chapmans’s Peak. On our way we did see some of those ‘very, naughty’ Cape Baboons. The drive up to Chapman’s Peak is very narrow & curvy as you go up to the top. And another spectacular view. Having the ocean and the mountains so close together makes for many breathtaking sights!

Cape Town!

Flying down to Cape Town from Joburg, we got to see some of the land of South Africa. We flew over Kimberley which is where the big diamond mine. Even 30,000 ft in the air you can see the big hole in the middle of the town that is the mine. The middle of the country is very arid, but as you approach Cape Town the mountains start to appear & as you go over them, everything starts to turn green. It is the rainy season in Cape Town & spring is just starting, so everything is greener. Table Mountain is very dramatic and is very large in the middle of the city, right on the water. We are hoping to get a clear day & go up to the top one day. The clouds seem to hang over this mountain – it’s called the ‘tablecloth’.  The beaches are beautiful but the water is still cold – 12 degrees Celsius (55 degree farenheit). We are staying over by Somerset West, by the vineyards (they call them wine farms), again with Susan & Johann. They are brave enough to have all 8 of us in their house for 8 days and they have a bed for everyone!

We drove past the Strand (the beach) in False Bay and up Gordon’s Bay (no guardrails!) but we spotted our first whale! I can’t believe how close they are to shore! So many waves as well. The weather forcast for this week is not great, several days of rain ahead. But Johann, says ‘ you’ll get four seasons in a day’. So I don’t think it will be a complete washout. So on the rainy Sunday we had down to the waterfront, called the V&A (Victoria & Albert) waterfront. Similar to the South Street Seaport, only bigger & nicer. We went into the Two Oceans Aquarium, where Ryan took a picture of every fish in there. The spider crabs, were the one thing that I really didn’t like, they were almost as big as Ryan! In this aquarium, you can dive in the shark tank, so it was weird to see these divers floating around in the tank!

The shopping at the waterfront was great. The Red Shed is full of crafters with their booths. You see lots of wooden animals, beaded animals, animal skins, wooden bowls & statues. Rich is happy to compare prices on his giraffe, it looks like he got a good deal. A rainy day well spent! The next day we woke up to more rain, but it looked like the skies were clearing so we headed over to Stellenbosch, which is a college town surrounded by wine farms. In fact, the wine farms now charge for wine tastings, because all the college students would drink them dry for free! We stopped at Ernie Els’ place, beautiful gardens with a koi pond & large rocks – the kids played in this garden while we took a look inside. Rich bought some wine, but we didn’t taste any – I must be getting old, 10am is way too early to start drinking!  Then we headed over to Tokara, which is Susan & Johann’s favorite wine. Johann is a conisseur of wine. Every night he brings out bottles of wine for us to try – reds, whites, pinot noir, rose, vanilla white, coffee red. Anyway, we tasted & bought some wines. Loved the olive oil there & bought some bottles of that as well. I’m starting to panic on how I am going to fit everything in our luggage to get home.

On Wednesday, rain again. So we started out by doing some more shopping. We went to a sports store (like Sports Authority) to check out the Sprinbok gear. Everyone in South Africa wears green & gold, for their Rugby team, the Springboks. Imagine all of the US wearing Yankee colors! They were a little low on green & gold wear but Ryan decided to get a cricket set & a rugby ball. Still not sure of the rules, but he is figuring it out. Cricket games can last for days (and I complain about baseball games being too long!). But Ryan and Steffan have been playing rugby everyday with the neighborhood boys. Not sure what that will do to his football game when we get home! But after the shopping, again it looked like it was clearing & we headed over to Speir, which is a wine farm that has some animals as well. There was a bird of prey exhibit that the kids loved. You could pay to hang out with the spotted owls. So the kids had so much fun having the owls swoop around them and land on their hands, arms & even heads. They fed them chicken feet (which was gross). The barn owls you could only pet, but if you sang to them they would dance! There was also a cheetah rescue sanctuary as well. So we got to pet a cheetah. They are bigger than you think! The kids were very good, the longer that you are calm & don’t stress the cheetah out, the longer you get to pet them. What beautiful animals! One was just laying around & then this man wearing a striped jacket went by on a Segway, you had to see that cheetah go. I think he thought it was a small zebra! Now thoroughly drenched (turns out the sky didn’t clear up) we headed by home. I have been trying to keep up with the laundry, but it has been hard. The washer is a ¼ of the size of mine at home & they don’t like to dry their clothes in a dryer. So the clothes hang on a line inside until they dry, which in this weather takes a very long time. I broke a dryer trying to dry out some of Ryans stuff!  The next few days will be sunny so we should all dry out!

Rachel's post

Okay so on day one we went on a 14 hour plane ride…it was awful never doing that again ever!!!!!!!!!!! So once we arrived in jo-burg it was about 8 at and we still had to have dinner and stuff. I was exhausted so there’s a time difference of about 6 hours ahead so we arrived at 8 that means it was about 2 in the afternoon back home. We spent a couple days in jo-burg touring and we went to gold rush city and went down in a mine! Cally you would hate it it’s so claustrophobic down there!!! After that we went to Sun City we stopped at this place called a curio shop. There were all these poor people trying to sell you their stuff saying it was handmade and then you would go to the next person over and they would have the same exact thing identical to the last…ya they were REALLY annoying. My dad loved it though he loves to bargain with the natives…so I’m NEVER going back there again. Once we hit Sun City that’s when the real fun began. We went on safari after safari! I was the elephant spotter because I was the only person who could actually spot the elephants. We saw the most of wildebeest’s and impala. We also saw a lot of rhinos one of them came up to the vehicle we were so close! I freaked then! Oh and everyday we were there we saw lions which is very fortunate…the last day there was a HUGE male lion walking along the road that was cool. Oh one time on the safari we went to stop and have breakfast at a viewing point and I really had to use the bathroom…we found the bathroom but it was a brick wall with a tin roof and there were rocks and sticks blocking the entrance and there was no door…I still used it cause it was insanely clean but it was really strange. That night when we went back we were playing spud (our fav game) outside our room. We invited the people next door to come play with us. There was a 15 year old Bryce, 13 Kyle, 12 Jodi, 9 Tamika, and Ronan 8. They were from Botswana. And they were a lot of fun…we tried to meet up the next day but failed cause we went to see birds instead. Once we got to the bird aviary we tried to feed them (we would feed the “go away” birds on the porch of our room bread) I succeeded first then so did Ryan Bianca and Stefan. Then a bird flew up and landed on Leonard!!! It was cool then all the birds started landing on me it was awesome! I had birds up my arm! But that was the last bit of fun there after that we went on our drive back to jo-burg. The boys dropped me mom Illana and Bianca off at a mall and we went African shopping! It was really cool. They don’t have like Aeropostal, Abercrombie and Fitch, or Forever 21 instead they have stores with different names but identitical clothing. I went into one store that was a mix of H&M and Forever 21. That was my favorite store. Once we were done shopping the guys picked us up and we went to a steak house called spur and it was exactly like outback except outback is themed Australian and spur is themed American…it was kind of insulting cause they had native paintings on every wall and danced to country music the whole time! But on the plus side while we were there I got a balloon and my face painted!!!!! After that we went home packed and went to bed. We woke up got on the plane and that’s where I am now on my way to Cape Town! I’m going to pet a cheetah and walk with penguins on the beach! Can’t wait!!! JJJ

Ryan’s view

My favorite thing that happened over vacation was that in Sun City there were monkeys playing all over the trees and the street and they were eat all around us and we got great pictures and it was so much fun but my mom and sister didn’t come because they didn’t care that much today we are3 going to a cheetah farm to pet asleep cheetahs and tamed cheetah did you know they can run up to 75 miles per hour and 120 kilometers per hour.

Goodbye Sun City!

We didn’t really take advantage of all the things that we could do here; although Johann & Susan enjoyed the casino. So we did go over to the bird aviary & the kids got the birds to eat out of their hands, took a look at the beautiful Gary Player golf course, played in the arcade. Rachel begged to go on a Segway tour, but we ran out of time. Just outside of Sun City, Rich did some more bargaining at a little curio market. I stayed in the car…I don’t know how he enjoys haggling like that! So we headed back to Johannesburg for a quick overnight stop and then we will fly down to Cape Town the next morning. But we did make a quick stop at a mall. Rachel had lots of fun shopping. They are starting to put out the spring/summer clothes. But it’s weird, they combine food stores with clothing stores. Woolworth’s which is a supermarket also has clothes at some of its stores and the malls have grocery stores in them as well. It looks like Pick’n’Pay, another supermarket, sells the same clothes that are found in Target. For dinner we went to a play called Spurs. It’s considered an ‘american’ steakhouse. It’s a lot of fun, especially for the kids. The wait staff, all dressed in green & gold (Bok’s colors!), does this 2 step kind of dance every ½ hour. We said it was Ryan’s birthday so they brought him dessert & sang to him! They also got their face painted in the kids play area.

On our way back from dinner, it was after 8pm & dark. We weren’t going far to get back to Johann & Susan’s house. They live in a very nice area called Northcliff. But it really startled me to see these men lying down in the middle of an intersection like they were waiting to get run over. I guess that this is a way to get a car to stop & then they can rob you or hijack your car. Very unsettling – lots of people run red lights at night & I can see why.