South African Splendor

  Vacation Day +4, +5 Last night as we were running around, sometimes outside the airport, we could not help but notice how cold it was – even by our standards. The locals were all complaining as well. When we woke up today at the Protea Hotel, we learned that overnight, Johannesburg had set the all-time record for the coldest day in their recorded history. Now, this fact comes into play in just a moment. We got to JNB about Noon, and Adam and Steve went right to work on tracking down luggage. First to a SAA check-in counter as a starting point; then directed down two levels to a SAA customer service baggage center. Thankfully the woman there actually did customer service. After some computer tracking, she sent a subordinate to some other area (it has a name but I call it “baggage lost and found”), but she noted that it was in a far different part of the airport and it would take a while. The subordinate took our bag tag tracking receipts and disappeared. We WAITED. Thirty minu...

 Vacation Day +3 Well, I am still writing, so you know what that means. Again, death by a thousand paper cuts and a few deep knife wounds occurred. Here are the highlights. We got to the Cape Town airport on Sunday around Noon and we got some lunch prior to our 3:50pm flight to J-burg (I have to start short-handing this name as it features prominently in this story and it is too long to type every time!). Our connection in J-burg allowed for a 1.5 hour layover - plenty of time we were told to get from our arriving gate to our international departure at 7:25 pm on Swiss Air to Zurich (aka ZRH, which by the way I know now every airport acronym in the world). As we finished lunch, Adam noted a message he received - our flight was delayed by 30 minutes. Uh-oh!! Everyone who has ever travelled knows that this spells trouble. 30 become 60 become 2 hours becomes cancelled. But, optimistically (if you can muster such a feeling after what we have been through), we would still make our conne...

 Day Vacation +1, +2 Well, the fact that I am still writing this blog might tell you something. I will document for our memories sake (and your disbelief/entertainment) our struggles to get home.  First, I am writing this on early Sunday in Cape Town. What?!?! You're right; we were supposed to be on our way back to the States on Saturday arriving there on Sunday. Our long trip home scheduled for Saturday - Johannesburg to Cape Town to Newark to Cincinnati (yes, I did write Cincinnati because that's where we had to end up) -  did not happen. We got to Cape Town only to have our flight to Newark cancelled AGAIN! Mechanical issues ... "plane taken out of service." So, the scramble started all over again with 300 passengers (some like us who had been cancelled the day before) trying to figure out what to do. There are untold details and 'death by a thousand paper cuts' here, but I will give the highlights. No need to read them all unless you want to suffer a bit a...

 Day 11 Flight Cancellation This was our day (Friday) to start the long trek home - Zimbabwe to Johannesburg to Newark to Indy - arriving at 2:30pm Saturday. However, our day started with an early morning notification from United Airlines that our flight from Johannesburg to Newark was cancelled since the plane had mechanical issues and was being taken out of service. Let the scramble begin. With about 300 passengers now trying to find their way back to the US on a very limited number of flights, suffice to say that Adam and I were tag-teaming our approach to getting new flights. We spent several hours on the phone with United (lots and lots of hold time) as well as scouring other airlines for flights. United rebooked us on flights that would get us to Indy late Sunday night - like 11pm. So, we at least had something in place while we explored other options - and explore we did. We had to leave Victoria Town, Zimbabwe and we agreed that when we got to Johannesburg we would get to a...

 Day 10 My Foolish Fetish Today was an all-day trip to Chobe National Park in Botswana. So here is my foolish fetish – I get to add another country to my list of countries that I have visited. More on this later. I will also note that Botswana seems to have its act together more than Zimbabwe – they have much nicer roads and at least they have their own currency. [Side note: Zimbabwe currency collapsed in early 2009 and shortly thereafter, the entire country converted to US dollars as the most reliable currency. So useless was the Zimbabwean dollar that the exchange rate was $1USD = $1,000,000,000,00ZWR! (that’s one billion) The government then struck 12 zero’s off each denomination because of the absurdity of the bank notes, but the currency continued its total collapse. Before it was all over, the Zimbabwean government actually printed a 100,000,000,000,000 note!!!! (that’s 100 trillion)] OK, back to the story of the day. The plan for the day was: Bus ride to Botswa...

  Day 9 Dr. Livingston I Presume The day started with a casual breakfast at the Batonka Lodge, and then we were picked up at 8:15 for our tour of Victoria Falls. Prior to departing, I called Maria and Elise to the outdoor courtyard, and I had them stand quietly with me. They looked at me like I was nuts. Me: “Do you hear it?” Maria: “What? That airplane in the distance.” Me: “Yes, except that is the Falls!” We are a little over a mile away and we could hear a subtle, unending roar from the rush of water over the Falls. Our guide, Eddie, was quite nice and his experience was quite helpful – meaning that we brought rain jackets and he brought long ponchos. The long ponchos ended up winning out as the preferred over-garment. Stay tuned for those details. At the entrance to the National Park, Eddie gave us some history and facts about the Falls. Part of the information helped settle a long-running debate amongst waterfall enthusiasts – which is the biggest waterfall in the world....

  Day 8 Dusty Roads Maria and Adam started the day early (5:30) with another safari drive, while Elise, Connor and I slept a little later and partook of another great breakfast. Departure was at 8:00 for the long 2.5-hour drive to the Mpumalanga International Airport. After getting out of the game areas, we were into towns that sprawled over rolling hills while the mountains towered majestically in the background. There were miles and miles and miles of plantations with neat rows of crops and trees. The area predominantly grows bananas, macadamia nuts and eucalyptus trees (yes, you read it right). The trees grow fast, tall, and straight with the leaves harvested for their scent and the wood used as pulp for paper production. Other crops in the area that are quite common are oranges and avocados. These are so plentiful that they cost about 10 cents each. The International Airport may not be what you would expect based on its name. It is based near the famous Kruger National Pa...

Day 7 The Co-Pilot The Big Five is a reference to Buffalo, Rhinoceros, Elephant, Lion, and Leopard (I put them in this order, not according to size, since the acronym BRELL is easy to remember). Once again, there are many tales to tell from our adventure, but here are the highlights from our afternoon/evening safari (3:30-7:00pm). I hope you enjoy me recounting some of the details as we experienced this adventure. We had not seen a rhinoceros yet, and we spent a lot of time tracking one during our morning safari with no success. So, our tracker (Orlando) and guide (Tracey) were determined to get us a sighting in the afternoon. It was off to an area (we are talking square miles here) where rhino had been seen from time-to-time. As we were travelling to that area, we ran across a group (family?) of about 8 elephants. Some walked right up to our vehicle at times and we could almost reach out and touch them if we wanted (but of course we wouldn’t dare). One of the medium sized male...

  Day 6 The Chase First, I will get into the adventures of the day, and then I will give some other interesting tidbits of information about this place if you care to read on and be fascinated (how’s that for a grabber?). The morning safari starts at 6am, after a 5:30am light snack with juice and coffee. It’s cold in the morning, and since it is winter, the sun is not yet up to warm us. So, we are all bundled up, but they also provide us with blankets and hot water bottles to sit in our laps. Again, I could list lots of animal encounters – beasts and birds – but I will only recount one very interesting one. While driving through the bush, we saw a giraffe head rising above the lower bushes and trees about 30 yards away (9 meters for the international crowd). That giraffe started to walk toward the road and then scampered quickly onto the road – again about 30 yards ahead of us. It was staring intently back into the bush and paying no attention to us. Our guide, Tracy, says, “...