Bye pat!

cape of good hope

well, our time here in south africa is winding down. the other day we
went to the cape of good hope. the best view is from the top of cape
point, but we came all the way down to the actual water so that we
could get the picture. most people think that the cape of good hope is
the southernmost point on the african continent and that it divides
the indian and atlantic oceans, but that is not true. cape agulhas (90
miles to the SE) takes that honor.

short video of great whites

diving with the great whites was unbelievable.  they are massive and were coming up close to the cage.  the waters were heavily chummed and we had 3 or 4 different sharks approach and make several passes over the 2 hours that we were out.  the video doesn't do justice to the size of the shark as they were 15+ feet long in real life.  it was worth getting up at 4am to go out and see this...

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Headed out to dive with the great whites

....and back in cape town

notice the matching outfits

after diving in mozambique

great diving. here's where i went:
http://www.divesitedirectory.co.uk/dive_site_mozambique_ponto_do_ouro_reef_doodles.html

more good 'ol boys

they ended up buying some mozambiquan garb from a street vendor and
wearing it out all night

sand dunes

here we are hitting the sand dunes with the good 'ol boys from the
backwoods of south africa

the beast

i'm still shocked by how cool this truck was

saw this scene many times over on way through mozambique

never figured out what these were either

they definitely weren't oranges

what are you kids trying to sell us?

never figured out what these were. they were defintely not berries
and they had no taste.

bath time

local bike shop

shopping in downtown maputo, mozambique

i did end up buying those cd's

ox head anyone?

went into town to pick up some camping supplies. pat wanted to grab
an ox head up for dinner.

sunset

not long after seeing the lions the sun sets on the africa savannah

finally saw some lions

it was getting dark and they were a little ways off but we found them

three for one

this is cool because in one photo are hippos, a crocodile, and an elephant

zebra and wildebeast chilling together

this give you an idea of about how close you could get to zebra

zebra and water buffalo chilling together

zebra

kudu

basically the african version of a deer but way cooler - notice the
spiral antlers

elephant crossing

rhino

these guys were awesome!

giraffe

we rolled up really close to a giraffe one day

another baboon

obviously you can get pretty close to these guys

hippos

hippos don't really come out of the water during the day, so i have a
bunch of pics showing only their eyes. this is really the only time
we saw one "kind of" come out of the water (and it's mostly an ass
shot)

chameleon

a leopard that we spotted on a night safari

big game hunter

baboon (not pat)

elephant

i have tons of pics of animals that we say inside the park but will
just post some of the best ones

breakfast before heading into kruger park

we got into the area too late to go camping so stayed at a great place
that was right on the edge of the park. you can't see it but right
below this patio is a huge fence to keep animals from maiming the
guests.

swaziland border control

group photo

swaziland

we pulled over to take some pics while driving through the mountains
in swaziland and these kids came running over and asked for candy.
luckily pat was "carrying" and we gave these kids their fix.

the ride

pat and charity have an awesome old school benz. this is the
parking lot for their building.

student of the year

now that we're back in capetown i can post some pics from my camera
that i took earlier in the trip.

this is the elite student himself in front of his school.

pay day

the durban markets we're a llittle crazy - so much so that i didn't
want to pull my camera out all the time to take pics. this is the
queue for the supermarket since it was the first saturday people had
after they just got paid for the month.

bunny chow

sorry for not sending any new pics over the past few days. we're back
in capetown now because pat had to start his classes back up, but
there's more than enough to do here (went to the cape of good hope
yesterday, going to winery this afternoon and going shark diving
tomorrow).

anyway, here are some actual camera pics to catch you up on what we've
been doing.

this is lunch in durban - we're eating bunny chow which is a famous
durban dish http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunny_chow

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View of ocean approaching durban

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Back into s africa

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Wow what an INSANE past few days. After leaving south africa and entering into mozambique through the border city of kamatispoort we drove into the capital city of maputo (pic). Crazy traffic, pollution, and everyone seemed to be selling something on the streets. It reminded me a lot of the major cities of southeast asia. I did get talked into buying a couple cds so we had some music for the road. We left maputo after driving around for a bit and headed out of town toward porta malongane which is a small town on the indian ocean. We drove about 20km on paved roads then turned off on to a brutal dirt/sand road for the next 50km. We stopped on the road a couple of times to buy fruits of some kind from kids on the road side - we never were able to figure out exactly what we bought. Only saw a handful of cars in that hour drive but saw lots of hut villages and villagers walkng down the roadside. Most people smiled widely and waved as we drove past. Then we were back on a paved road for another 20km and then that road literally turned into sand dunes which we had probably another 30k on. We were hitting HUGE puddles with the landrover and that thing just powered through anything you could throw at it. It was like we we'e in a land rover commercial or something. After a couple missed turns due to no signs whatsoever we finally made it to our campground at melangane and had a huge seafood dinner at the campground restaurant. The campground was right on the ocean and the scenery was amazing. Almost completely undeveloped oceanfront in both directions. We spent the next morning hanging out on the beach and then decided to walk down to the next town, porto de ouro, which was about 5km away. Just as we began our walk some south african guys that were also at the campground on vacation offered us a ride. Of course we got in which was the beginning of an interesting afternoon of 4x4ing in sand dunes and then on to hit some bars in the next town. Things got weird as these guys were basically the south african version of southern good ol boys that liked to booze hardcore. We ended up just having to leave them at the bar and go back to the camp on our own. They did make it back because we saw them later that night but wow did they know how to get after it. Today we got up early and I went scuba diving (which was awesome) and then we drove 5 hours back into s africa to durban where we'll spend the next couple days before flying back to capetown. We're going out now for indian food because durban has the highest population of indians outside of india so it should be good.

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Crossing into mozambique. Going through tedious visa entry process where they even make you fill out a form about the brand of radio you have in your car. FYI: we have JVC

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Having a beer after a long hot day of driving around kruger. Btw the park is huge - about the size of isreal and we have really only been to one small section. You could easily spend a month here exploring.

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Saw tons of animals today - white rhinos, giraffes, hippos, elephants, boars, zebras, wildebeasts. The night safari last night was incredible too - especially because we saw a leopard. Going for one last night safari tonight - hopefully will see a lion (which is the one major animal that we haven't yet seen). Then heading to mozambique tomorrow morning.

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At campsite getting ready for night safari

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A small brush fire by the roadside

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Impalas - which are all over the place.

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Well back into south africa now after driving all the way through swaziland. Camped out in swaziland on sat night and then went white what rafting on the utusi river. Left after that and went on a beautiful drive through the mountains of northern swaziland (which btw has the highest percentage of hiv positive people of any country in the world at 39%). Then spent the night near kruger national park last night. We got into the area too late to enter the park but found a cool hotel to stay at that bordered the park. Had a huge dinner last night at a place called crocadillas which also borders the park and is surrounded by an alligator moat. We ate a ton of of food and had a ton of drinks and it's only $20 a person which is a bit expensive for s africa. This morning we entered kruger and drove at least 150km inside the park and saw imapalas, elephants, baboons, zebras, rhinos and water buffalo. There are main roads that a lot of peopel drive on but we can take the land rover on the basically empty off road trails. Now we just set up camp and are leaving soon on a guided night safari. Still looking for tigers, panthers, wild dogs, hippos, and giraffes.