- Countryside living and fantastic food at Chrislin African Lodge in Addo
- Surfing with the locals in J-Bay
- Road trip down the Garden Route
- Breathtaking ocean side hiking on the Otter Trail
- Highest bridge bungee jump in the world at Bloukrans Bridge, Tsitsikamma
- Walking with cheetahs at Tenikwa Wildlife Center
- Brunch at East Head Cafe in Knysna
- Cage diving with great white sharks in Gansbaai
- Spending a night (or two) in the beautiful vineyards in Franschhoek
- Visit the famous Vergelen wine estate in Somerset West
- A meal to die for at La Motte in Franschhoek
- Paired wine and cheese tasting at Fairview, Paarl
- Drive through Chapman’s peak, Cape Town
- Trying not to get blown off the cliffs at Cape of Good Hope, Cape Town
- Camps Bay Ridge Guest House in Camps Bay, Cape Town
- Sunday night cocktails at trendy Caprice in Camps Bay, Cape Town
- Sundowners at the Roundhouse in Camps Bay, Cape Town
- Addis in Cape, etheopian restaurant in Cape Town
- Hiking up Table Mountain and Lion’s Head
- Afternoon at the Neighbourgoods market in Cape Town
- Watching hundreds of kite surfers at world-renowned Sunset Beach in Cape Town
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Top Picks - South Africa
December 1 - 20: South Africa
Before we get started, our apologies for the length of this
post… but we really feel that South Africa merits a few extra paragraphs!
One of the interesting aspects of travelling is comparing
your preconceptions of a country to your actual experiences. While certain
places turn out to be exactly as you envisioned, others couldn’t be more
different. South Africa was definitely
the latter – and turned out to be our favorite country yet. Indeed, within a
couple days of our arrival, our stereotypical concerns about car jackings,
petty crime and great white sharks were quickly overcome by a sophisticated,
inviting culture, an outdoor adventure paradise, and possibly some of the best
food and wine in the world.
After landing in Port Elizabeth, we picked up our car and
started our second big road trip of the year. First stop: Addo, the citrus farm
capital of the country, where we later discovered Ace’s grandmother was raised
on an orange farm. This was our first true South African experience: staying in
a mud hut amongst the orange trees in the countryside, enjoying a surprisingly fine
dinner, and then being treated to an impromptu African song by the kitchen
staff to finish the night. Not a bad start!
From Addo, we moved on to J-Bay (a world famous surf break
and stop on the Billabong pro circuit) for Ace to check out the surf. While the
waves were small and it was a bit of a wind tunnel, Ace had a great time with
the locals. We were pleasantly surprised to see that SA is one of the few
places left where they still actually offer up a good wave to a foreign visitor!
We hung out here for a few days and enjoyed the slightly odd nature of the
town, which felt less like Africa and more like a tiny Californian beach town… but
trapped in the 1970’s.
A little bit sad to leave before the big swell rolled in, we
moved on from J-Bay to the Garden Route, which is (with good reason), one of
the most popular drives in SA – not as much for the scenery (although it is
beautiful) as for the abundant outdoor activities. Where else in the world can
one go for a breathtaking hike along the coast, take your own pet cheetah for a
walk in the forest, do the highest bridge bungee jump in the world, and go cage
diving with the great white sharks?!? The only problem is deciding which things
to do… so we did them all J.
The cheetah walk was our definite favorite; we found a whole new level of
respect for these beautiful animals. As for the bungee jump… well… luckily Ace
wasn’t wearing white underwear!
Last but not least, we moved on to Cape Town, our grand
finale before going back to Montreal for the holidays. Coincidentally, this
couldn’t have been more appropriate as it turned out to be our new favorite
city in the world. Cape Town is one of those places where you feel like you
could spend endless weeks without running out of new things to discover.
We started our week with a delicious (dirt cheap) Ethiopian
dinner with Trip (an old friend from McGill who now lives there) and his
girlfriend Jenn. Little did we know of what an amazing week they had lined up
for us: dinners at their favorite restaurants, sundowners at some of the
classiest spots in town, sunsets beside the ocean, afternoons at the local food
market (amazing!), a big night out on the town in trendy Camps Bay (also where
we were staying at our gorgeous B&B), a trip to their end of town to watch
the hundreds of kite surfers (Trip’s passion – we watched him repeatedly fly 40
feet in the air), a home made BBQ feast, and an incredible hike up Table
Mountain. Table Mountain is a flat-topped mountain overlooking Cape Town – it’s
difficult to describe, but there’s something about it’s unique natural beauty
that draws you to it like few other places we’ve been. Simply put, it was the
hike of a lifetime.
In addition to all of this, we did an awesome scenic day
trip driving through Chapman’s peak down to Cape Point, and spent a couple days
at the vineyard regions of Franschhoek and Stellenbosch, which are within 45
minutes of the city, offering a countryside getaway with wine and food of
quality rivaling the nicest European wine regions, but for a third of the
price. What more can one ask for?
On a final note, we do acknowledge that the appreciation for
places one visits when travelling are significantly impacted by the people you
meet and having an inside scoop on where to go / what to do, and we must shout
out a huge kudos to Trip and Jenn for doing such an amazing job of showing us
around. That said, local friends or not, Cape Town is an incredible city that
MUST be at the top of everyone’s list.
Photos - December 1-20: South Africa
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
November 16 - December 1: Kenya and Tanzania
Python shows, break dancing, camping in the Serengeti,
beautiful beaches, and a Masai goat slaughtering at the local car rally…. JAMBO
(hello in Swahili), welcome to Africa! When Ace first told his stepfather about
everything that we had seen in such a short amount of time, his response was
very appropriate: “Well, what do you expect??? It’s Africa!”
For the first time in a long time, we were delighted to have
company from Montreal on this part of the trip – Marty B himself. The three of us had initially planned to
spend more time in Kenya but, given the escalating violence, opted to limit our
stay to a weekend visit with Ace’s cousin who lives in Nairobi with her
boyfriend, a “Kenyan Cowboy” (a term used for Caucasians born and raised in
Kenya). Julia and Francesco were great hosts, taking us out for dinner and
drinks (where we got to try some delicious ostrich steak), a car rally
(Francesco is the Kenyan motocross champion so a total “petrol-head”), as well
as a local market and BBQ with their friends. While we loved our short stay in
Nairobi, we recognize that it was not a typical visit – they live and took us
out in Karen, a very wealthy suburb of the city not at all representative of
the country as a whole. Staying in this neighborhood showcased the disparity in
racial class in Africa, which we suppose should have been expected but was
nonetheless somewhat shocking.
We left Nairobi very eager to start our next adventure… SAFARI
TIME! This was something completely new to all of us, and definitely did not
leave any room for disappointment. We were
lucky to have a young, highly knowledgeable and motivated guide that brought us
to three Tanzanian national parks over 5 days: Tarangire (home of the gigantic
bilbao trees, abundant elephants and giraffes), the Serengeti (the more typical
African landscape, where we saw thousands of wildebeest and zebras, dozens of
lions, as well as everything else you can think of including gazelles, boar, hyenas,
buffalo, cheetahs and much more), and then finally ended with the Ngorongoro
crater (which is enormous – total area of 400 KM squared), and had most of what
we had seen elsewhere plus hippos, rhinos and flamingos. We were continuously
amazed with how close our guide got us to the animals – smack in the middle of
a herd of elephants (see the video to get an idea), and almost close enough to
reach out and touch any of the “Big 5”. Needless to say, mid-afternoon beer
breaks were an added bonus J.
However, the most special aspect of the safari was the
private camping – at night we would arrive at an unenclosed site in the middle
of nowhere in the national parks, where two helpers had set up our tents, prepared
a hot shower and were already cooking our dinner! It was incredible (and a
little bit scary) to be so close to the animals - one night a few elephants
came strolling through our campground; another, none of us could get up the
nerve to leave our tents to go to the washroom because the hyena howls were way
too close for comfort! Overall this was a priceless experience and it should be
on everyone’s bucket list.
Our final destination in Tanzania was Zanzibar, an island
renowned for its beautiful beaches and the main city (Stone Town) with its eclectic
blend of Arab, Persian, Indian and European influence. We started our week in
Zanzibar with 5 extremely relaxed days at a hotel on the beach – having a
visitor from Montreal on a normal holiday forced us to truly slow down our
pace, so this was kind of like a “vacation from our vacation” ;). Then we spent 2 days in Stone Town, where we
had the biggest dose of culture shock so far (but in a good way). The
combination of a beautiful hotel, extreme poverty, one of the most chaotic
markets one can imagine, and narrow streets filled with unique artisan shops
has left us with both great memories and souvenirs.
So this concluded our first 2 weeks in Africa. We will admit
that we were a bit spoiled, having dipped into the piggy bank and planned this
part of the trip well in advance. Now we are on to a different type of
adventure: an improvised road trip down the South African coast!
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