Today we drove down to Cape Point/Cape of Good Hope.  Although it’s only about a 45 minute drive from Cape Town, the trip takes a full day with all the scenic stops along the way.  Our first stop was Muizenberg beach, a beach located on False Bay, where the water is much warmer than the Atlantic side where wetsuits are required to enter the water.  Muizenberg is popular with surfers and swimmers and is famous for having colorful beach huts and soft “nap worthy” white sandy beaches.  Just watch out for the Great white sharks!  There are “shark spotters” on hand though to warn those who brave the waters of any Jaws sightings.  Are you hearing the Jaws music in your head too? 

Colorful beach huts on Muizenberg Beach

After Muizenberg our next stop was Kalk Bay where we stopped at a charming cafe to get our daily caffeine infusion. Kalk Bay is a sleepy seaside fishing town often compared to certain New England towns.  We did some shopping in the boutiques and browsed the art galleries and then headed to Boulder’s Beach, home of the Jackass Penguin.  It’s at Boulder’s Beach where you can get up close and personal to the stinky little guys.  They’re cute, but as far as hygiene goes, you’d think that for a bird that spends a fair amount of time in the water they wouldn’t be so smelly. Unfortunately, you can smell the penguins before you can see them.  Hanging out with a bunch of birds in tuxes was cool!  It was so funny watching them sunning themselves on the boulders, almost like they are working on their tans. We even saw a mommy penguin sitting on her egg and then we saw another one abandon her egg.  Now, I’m no expert and the conditions aren’t the same as they were in March of the Penguins where the eggs constantly had to be held by the parents, but I thought it was weird that she left her egg entirely unprotected.  Someone should call Penguin Protective Services!

Penguins in various states of romance at Boulder's Beach

We said goodbye to the jackasses and continued onto Cape Point.  On the way we saw some baboons walking along the highway and when we finally made it to Cape Point we saw baboons perched on the roofs of buildings.  They particularly liked to patrol the area on the roof above the outdoor cafe and would sometimes jump down and swipe someone’s food.  We also saw ostriches hanging out.  Although there are places in South Africa where you can ride them or watch them race, we preferred to watch them in their natural habitat.  I also preferred to watch them on my dinner plate as well.  The Cape of Good Hope, the Southwestern most point in Africa, was beautiful.  I walked on the nap worthy sand and saw giant sized seaweed that belonged in a Peter Benchley novel that had washed up on the shore.  It was erie how abnormally large the seaweed was…very 20,000 Leagues Under Sea.

20,000 Leagues Under Sea-esque Seaweed

I had another weird foreign language speaking experience while waiting to buy my ticket for the tram that transports visitors to the top of Cape Point.  I don’t know why, but some German guy started speaking German to me and with my 2 years of high school German I was sort of able to communicate with him.  Plus, I think there are enough similar sounding words so that helped.  It was bizarre though. First, the French with the West Africans and now German with some random guy from Munich.  I swear if someone tried to test my mandarin, which is pretty much limited at this point to “Ni hao,” I might’ve thrown myself off the top of Cape Point.  

At the Lighthouse there’s a sign that tells you how far away from certain cities you are.  The Cape of Good Hope is 12, 541 kilometers from New York, just in case you’re wondering.  As I stood there I couldn’t help, but think about explorers like Bartholomew Dias and Vasco de Gama and how they sailed around the Cape of Good Hope in wooden ships.  Kinda made my 18 hour flight look like a walk in the park.  And FYI the Cape of Good Hope is home to the legendary Flying Dutchman (take that Pirates of the Caribbean).

On our way back home we stopped at Fish Hook beach, my favorite beach in Cape Town.  The beach was huge, the sand was once again “nap worthy,” and it was just a gorgeous beach.  However, there was a disconcerting sign stating that people should not be on the beach by themselves because there had been a lot of “attacks.”  Not exactly something you want to read when you’re considering a walk on the beach.  Picture this, you’re having a romantic walk on the beach and your date gets mugged.  Awkward! Not to mention ruins the mood.  So, we decided not to go looking for the shipwreck that was on the beach due to the fact that it was nearing sundown so we headed back into the city at which point our car decided to start acting up.  We pulled into a gas station and tried to ask the attendant if someone could look at the car, but they don’t do those things there and there was a bit of a language barrier with the attendants (this was a common problem I found, as an example, it took two zulu speaking girls at a fast food restaurant called Nandos located in the airport to translate to the third girl who was taking my order what it was that I was ordering in English).   I just happened to ask an Afrikaner if he knew of a service station and as luck would have it his friend was a mechanic.  So, he called his friend and luckily spoke to him in English (I’m guessing so we didn’t think he was saying “yeah, listen mate, I’ve got two young girls here that look good for raping and killing, you game?).  We followed him to the mechanic and the guy looked at it for us, basically said it wouldn’t die and it was safe to drive back home, but that we needed to get it fixed ASAP.  So we went home to Camps Bay, had dinner at a restaurant on the beach, drank some wine and watched some episodes of Lipstick Jungle and passed out! Excellent day!

Fish Hook Beach

I arrived in Cape Town at 11 p.m. on Saturday night, which was just enough time to get settled and catch a good night sleep (crucial as we were waking up early for a tour of the wine land region).  The South African wine region is about an hours drive from Cape Town and is very reminiscent of Napa and Sonoma.  We hired a driver, which is key!  His name was Wilmart and he introduced himself by saying “you know Walmart, well my name is Vilmart, like Walmart.”  Ok, Vilmart…can you rollback the price of being our private driver then like Walmart does?  No?

Our first stop was Noble Hill, owned by an American family and is located in Paarl.  The son, a Harvard grad, helps out.  He spent a large part of his life growing up in Nigeria and the family has an agricultural background.  Talk about a dream life-moving to one of the most beautiful areas in the world and working on your family’s vineyard.  Noble Hill was by far my fav vineyard (although not my favorite South African wine.  Experiencing my favorite SA wine would have to wait until I visited some local restaurants).  But because my friends were local celebrities there (basically because they were such Noble Hill wine lushes), we got the VIP treatment there and we were slightly buzzed by 11 a.m. 

From Noble Hill we headed to Glen Carlou also in Paarl Valley…pretty vineyard and one of the women working there is from a Cali wine family and her father named a wine after her, but our “sommelier” was a bit of a jerk so that diminished the experience.  It didn’t stop me from buying a pinot there, but when I went to pay for it with my credit card the guy was visibly and verbally annoyed.  He signed loudly when I produced the card and told me he hated credit cards.  I told him that he could either take the card or forget it.  Can you imagine?  

We then went to the town of Franschhoek  to have a decadent lunch at Le Bon Vivant.  The wine was spectacular and the beef medallion was to DIE for (pictures to come)!  I could’ve skipped the starter though, but 2 out of three ain’t bad!  Due to the time constraints, we skipped over to another wine region called Constantia.  We went to a few vineyards there…they were so-so, but I picked up a 2005 pinotage of  Groot Constantia (2005 was an excellent year for South African wine).   Pinotage is a signature South African grape. which I love.  Looking back, I probably should’ve devoted another day to wine tasting in the wine regions, but it wasn’t like I was deprived of wine the rest of my time in Cape Town as each dinner always contained a minimum of 2-3 various bottles of new wines.

We finished the tour around six and said good by to one of our friends who headed back to gloomy London.  Luckily, he’s moving to New York in a few weeks and I plan on dragging him to all things African in New York.  In his honor though we deemed it appropriate to open a bottle of pinotage to have with dinner.   Trader Joes better start expanding its South African wine selection.  That’s all I have to say on the matter!

Day two of the Safari

We woke up at 4:30 a.m. and had a quick breakfast of coffee/tea and “rusks,” which according to wikipedia is a “rectangular, hard, dry biscuit or twice-baked bread (zwieback),” which we dipped into our hot morning beverage of choice.  They were delicious!  In a way, it has the consistency of biscotti and it tastes sweet.  After that we loaded up our gear and headed off to the Letaba camp, which is north of Skukuza, the camp we stayed at after our first night.  I was tired, but energized by the thought of the day ahead of us.  

The day started out slow, we didn’t see much to begin with, but we finally started seeing impala (basically a type of antelope that I’ve termed the “rabbits of the bush,” because there are so many of them).  We saw more wildebeests, buffalo, hippos, water monitors, waterbuck, kudu, zebras (including babies), giraffes (also including babies), elephants, and a whole bunch of birds.  We saw one lone old man elephant who was near death.  Apparently, elephants get 5 sets of molars and once their 5th set of molars starts to get too worn out the elephant will die of malnutrition.  It’s sad and they are such incredible creatures, one of my favorites!  I went to the elephant museum in Kruger and I read that elephants are known to bury the dead…they will cover up other dead elephants, hunters, and other animals with leaves once they die.   

We also saw hyenas up close and personal!  Talk about scary looking animals.  One hyena was like 2 feet from my car window.  You want to talk about being freaked out!  But the piece de resistance was seeing 5 male lions hanging out at the side of the road with one female lioness.  They were mostly sleeping and just chillaxing.  Apparently, it’s rarer to see male lions because they just sleep 20 hours a day and wait for the lionesses to bring them their food.  Typical!  However, one of the male lions got up and started walking towards the car in front of us.  I wish my camera was quick enough to catch it!  I got some great pictures of the lions and pray they turn out!   Evidently, lions and hyenas are arch enemies, which naturally made me think of the Lion King.  According to my boy Neil, if a lion kills a hyena, it will refuse to eat it and vice versa.  On another note, we were told there we leopards in the area, but we didn’t see any and leopards would be one of the only Big Five that we didn’t see.

As far as my fellow safari companions, I’ve decided that Neil is like the cool camping South African uncle I’ve never had, even though he’s old enough to be my father.  He speaks English, Afrikaans, Xhosa (the clicking language), and Zulu and greets people in their native tongue.  I love the English chick, but her “everything is better in Britain” husband grates on my nerves.

I’m so in awe with nature right now, well in a civilized, not sleeping in a tent kinda way.  I’m now dreading going back to New York and wondering if I could hack it as a safari camp guide on a private reserve.  Then again I must remind myself that I’m not living real life right now and that I’ve felt like packing all my worldly belongings in 2 suitcases and saying sayonara to New York at some point during the last 5 trips I’ve taken (with the exception of my trip to the Middle East).  Nevertheless, right now I’m loving Mother Africa!

It's gonna be a long flight kids!

So far so good on the solo honeymoon.  I spent 24 hours traveling to end up in Johburg for an overnight stay before heading to Victoria Falls later this morning.  I’ve been refraining from telling fellow travelers that I’m on my “honeymoon,” when asked the purpose of my trip. 

Despite the fact that there was a “hot guy convention” at the back of the plane (evidently Colombia Business School has a group trip here…note to self get hooked into Colombia bschool when I get back), I was stuck in the “native section” of the plane, which provided to be interesting entertainment, if not interesting aromatically.   I was immediately intrigued at JFK as I watched all the Africans arrived dressed in suits, dashikis or fun dresses with matching hats (in my head, I called these ladies “fruit ladies” because they looked like ladies who carried fruit on their heads).  We Americans were a pathetic representation of fashion, myself included, in our jeans, shorts, and tees.  Again furthering my point white people are boring and dashikis and fruit lady dresses, like saris, are great for “fat days.”   And P.S. the first time I was in West Africa, I noticed how formally Africans dress, but you can’t pay me to spend 18 hours on a plane in a suit, well maybe if I were flying in first class rather than in the steerage section of the plane.

At this point I have a large Senagalese man spooning me.

In the first 24 hours of my honeymoon I managed to snuggle with two men.  From NY to Dakar I sat next to a Senegalese man who was returning home for the first time in 9 years (imagine not seeing any family member for 9 years).  Anyway, he kept trying to bogart my leg space which is when the inadvertent snuggling happened.  From Dakar to Joburg, I was seated next to a guy from Mauritania who pretty much crept up on me while I slept and practically spooned me.  I can honestly say there’s no other feeling in this world like falling asleep sober and waking up to have a large African stranger sprawled all over you.  It was very awkward extracting myself from that situation.  Why oh why couldn’t I have sat next to “hot safari guy” (a dude I saw in JFK who was decked out in safari gear).

So some initial observations/questions:

1) Why is it I always get stuck next to the annoying American in immigration?  My nerves were already frayed after an 18 hour plane ride, I really didn’t need some fat midwestern woman pushing me in line loudly announcing to her traveling companions that “THEY DRIVE ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE ROAD.”  Really?  Say it a little louder Linda, I don’t think they heard you in Boise.  Then her husband told others who weren’t sure what to do going through immigrations to “tell the agents you’re here on holiday…that’s what people say here…holiday.”  Embarrassing!  There should be a test you have to pass to get a passport.  If you don’t know how to get through immigration, you shouldn’t be allowed out of the country.

2) Wolrd Wide Wrestling really is world wide-it’s on tv here so happy to report that it’s not just confined to trailer park U.S.A.

3) We really need to get on the metric system program.  I can guestimate the math for kilos and Celsius, but I’m anal and the fact that I don’t know the exact conversion annoys me.

4) On the way to the hotel I saw a restaurant called “Simba” with a giant lion on it.  I laughed.

5) I also passed by a company called Sky Net and tried not to freak out after watching too many Sarah Connor Chronicles shows.

6) Netflix has killed my social life and plane movie watching enjoyment.  Of the 30 or so movies I had to choose from on the plane, I’d seen all but Night of the Museum, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, The Simpsons movie (couldn’t even finish it-it was so bad), and Lakeview (same).  However, after watching the traveling pants, I now want to move home to my native Greece and wear bedazzled hippie jeans.

Here’s to hoping that there’s no political instability (well any more than usual) when I’m in Zimbabwe riding an elephant tomorrow.  The PM’s wife was killed in a car crash and was watching some of CNN international last night (that is before the channel went out) and it was suggested that it might not have been an accident!  When will I just be happy to travel to places like Paris and call it a day?

A thousand apologies for the lapse in time from my last post.  Sorting out my travel plans to what I’m terming my solo honeymoon has been more difficult than I initially anticipated, not the least of which involved the USPS nearly losing my passport en route to the Zambian embassy in DC and my near homicidal like rage over this (trust me my response wasn’t limited to a simple frustrated Seinfeldian “Newman”).  So, needless to say I was left with little time and inspiration to put pen to paper or in this case fingers to keyboard.  But on this Valentine’s Day, having furthered the cliché of what “white people” like (see http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/23/19-travelling/ ) I feel inspired.

You may remember that when I last left you, I was in love with “Kenneth,” my sweet talkin South African travel agent based in New York.  I am sad to report that Kenneth is dead to me now.  Word of advice guys, if you say you’re going to call a girl and you have a “special plan” that she’ll “really like” and you never call, you risk banishment, or in this case loss of a great commission. No girl likes to sit by the phone, willing it to ring Kenneth, you cheeky git!  Kenneth lost out on mucho dinero by not calling me back, a fact which became painfully obvious as I signed off on the final total with a different travel agent (who yes I did facebook stalk) before ever stepping foot en Afrique.   However, I am able to justify my expenditure by realizing that while some people choose to have offspring, I travel.  And at the same time South Africa has been my dream destination for my honeymoon.  And not to go too negativo on the fat arrow carrying baby’s holiday, but who knows when that will ever happen, sooooo I’m taking myself on my own honeymoon.  Yes, you heard me!  Hear me now and believe me later, solo honeymoons will become the new black!

I’ll be traveling solo in Zambia, Zimbabwe, and on a safari in Kruger before hanging with a friend in Cape Town.  On my solo honeymoon portion of the trip, I’m hoping I’ll meet my future husband.  See here’s how the scenario plays out in my head, I’ll be enjoying an African sunset and a cocktail at the hotel bar in Joburg as Toto’s Africa song is playing softly in the background and I’ll happen to turn my head and I’ll notice him saunter in.  He’ll, of course, be tan and have that well manicured rugged look going on, the kind that can only be manufactured in that Out of Africa movie kinda way.  He’ll saddle up next to me at the bar and order some manly drink like an 18 year old single malt Scotch neat and strike up a conversation.  We’ll realize that we’re both going on the same safari the next day.  He’ll be in the ballpark of say 34-37, his name will be something like Jackson or Forrester or Vaughn and at some point in his life, like me, he will have been educated in Europe.   He’ll be ex-peace corps a/k/a a trustifarian (I have a theory that only affluent kids can afford to spend two years post-university kicking around third world countries) and after a brief stint in the corporate world he decided to return to doing international development work and has spent the last 10 years saving Gorillas in Uganda (a little Gorillas in the Mist anyone), digging wells in Rwanda (cuz it ain’t the Hotel California, it’s Hotel Rwanda), helping refugees in Darfur (Lost Boys of the Sudan, peut-être, I think my heart just skipped a beat), and teaching people how to cultivate their own maize in the Congo (come on shake your body, baby do that Conga).  He will have managed to do this while not turning into a dirty hippie. And maybe he’ll be a widow whose photojournalist wife died English Patient style while on assignment in Sierra Leone.  The widow thing adds a tragic element to his generally privileged life and shows that he’s not a commitment phobe, thereby preempting the question that my father asks me when I tell him about a guy, which goes something like, “well, if he’s so perfect, why isn’t he married by now?”  That’s Dad’s standard question as he’s uber suspicious of any man over 30 who is still single.  When I point out that I’m still single, he tells me that’s different because I was focused on higher education until I was 27.  Gotta love dad!  To his credit dad’s instincts have been spot on!  Anyway, Peace Corps boy and I will realize that we’re in love as we’re sitting around the boma after a solid day of game drives and we will quite literally drive off into the sunset.  Don’t you just hate me at how perfect my love affair with my future husband is going to be?

And now that I’m planning my solo honeymoon, I think it’s only fair that I register for it a la Carrie Bradshaw, don’t you?  I’m not above doing it, especially at this age!  After all in light of the amount I’ve had to dole out for engagement parties, bridal showers, weddings, and baby showers, I think it’s only right.  Oh, and here’s a news bulletin for those of you single and baby free, there is now something called “push presents,” which a new mother gets just for having the baby.  What kinda scam are you married and parental people running?  By my count that’s three presents for getting married and two for having kids and you’re going to begrudge this charmingly adorable well traveled single lady a gift for her solo honeymoon.  Communists!

So, be on the look out for my registry announcement. It’s coming to a mail box near vous!

After my last blog entry, a friend insisted that I visit Colombiancupid.com (a site that she “researched” before we headed off to Cartagena). I miss my UN diplomatic dating style of yore, so I decided to throw caution to the wind and logged on in the hopes of finding my media naranja (which for all you out there stuck in gringo land roughly translates into my other half, it’s a slang expression that’s all the rage in the Spanish speaking mundo).

Aye dios mio!  After reading some ads, I’m convinced I have a better chance of having a foreign affair at the International House of Pancakes or by way of celebrating the moments of my life with an international house coffee moment! I couldn’t help escape the feeling that I was dealing with some sort of illegal mail order bride scheme.  Take for instance Tony, who btw is “fond of Mexican food,” and prefers that his lady have “some spoken English.” I agree Tony, it helps if you both know the same language, it takes two to tango there papi.  My guess is the only Spanish Tony knows is chalupa.  The mail order bride feeling was further solidified when I noticed that they have English to Spanish translation software.  Proceed with caution amigos, things get lost in translation.  Just ask my Chilean friend Fernando, who wants “a sincere woman, that like him to do the sport, to have children and to do well together.”  WHAT does that even mean?

I was particularly unsettled by the fact that Jesus who is 41 and from Texas, not to be confused with Jesus 33 from Israel, is looking to marry someone young enough to be his daughter as he’s only interested in ladies who are 20-35.  And FYI, “Magic,” also a Texan, is “just as comfortable in shorts at the beach as in a tux at a formal.”  Really Magic?  Because I know that I’m sure as hell not as comfortable in a ball gown as I am in beachwear!   I mean does anyone in the movies ever say “let me slip into something more comfortable,” and don a tux?

29 year old Nicholas from Colombia (South Carolina that is), thinks he’s “very attractive” and is in search of a woman who is “good looking, hard working, and a giver.”  Can I get an amen from the ladies that it’s music to our ears when a man specifies that he wants a “giver”?  Reading between the lines here, Nico is looking for a maid or a sugar mamita who can afford one.

I suppose it’s not much of a shocker that the authentic and uber caliente Colombians live in Miami or nowheresville, FL.  The best looking one was 34 year old Juan from Miami who wants to date anything from a fetus (18…hola can someone say barely legal) to someone more age appropriate (37).   I’m tempted to ask What Would Jesus do in this situation, but I think we know (see Dallas Jesus above). Anyway, Juan is hot enough that I may be willing to overlook his potential pedophilia like tendencies. 

Perhaps my favorite posting was from Len in LA who writes, “Am I musical you ask? I can move a little bit. All my tan skinned friends steal my sh&t on the dance floor…it used to make me a little loco.”  Um, borderline racist profile!  And please no profanity, Juanes!

As of now, my best hope for global love is “Kenneth” my hot sounding and funny South African travel agent who I might use to book part of my SA trip.  I love him because he’s a straight shooting bloke who tells me what’s bollocks and what’s not.  Sorry Nico, but that’s the kinda man I like, one who takes care of ME, but at the same time doesn’t blow smoke u know where!  Seriously, the only smoke I want to see is the smoke billowing up from Victoria Falls.  Kenneth’s office is only two blocks away from mine so I might have to have an in-office consultation to discuss details.  He did suggest that I might enjoy having cocktails.  Ok, he said it in reference to the rest period on safari, but that’s a minor detail.

Maybe I will meet my international man of mystery in South Africa and be swept off my feet by his bastardized, yet irresistibly cute accent!  But seeing as how it has the highest HIV rate in the world, I think the only thing this Sheila will be kissing is my safari guide’s butt so as to ensure I don’t get eaten by a Lion.

Until then, I plan on doing my own “research” by going to rugby and cricket matches (btw, am I the only one who finds it extremely annoying that we’re the only former colony where those sports and high tea never caught on)?