Here, I’ll describe my first week in Africa
23-09-2005
Today is the big day for flying! I got up at 04.20h to catch the early train, and it was quite a long flight (just a bit over eleven hours) but everything went smooth. The adjacent passengers were from South Africa, so after some hours of talking I’d got a small update of the country’s status quo; still large differences in wealth but no official apartheid anymore. Also, HIV knowledge, security and employment are a big thing, or rather the huge lack of all of these. I was still only about to find out how true this actually is.
As we arrived over Cape Town, I was a bit surprised by the sheer size of the city; a 5 million people town, depending on how you count (the magic word being townships). Janneke picked me up at the airport; we arranged our rental car and took of. It was already night and we had to drive at the wrong side of the road (as we Europeans drive on the right side). Luckily within half an hour we arrived at our beach-overlooking hotel in Strand; a pleasant suburb of Cape Town.
24-09-2005
This morning we tried to get up the table mountain. But as we arrived at the base of the mountain, already we were covered in clouds. You ascent the mountain, by either walking up, or have a cable car take you to the top. However, the cable dissolved in thick clouds within meters, and walking in this thick mist would’ve been quite an interesting undertaking 
So, going up was of no use for us today. Instead we headed towards Simonstown, just South of Cape Town in the direction of the Cape of Good Hope.
As we passed Chapman’s bay, we had a quick look at the view. As we were just getting into the car again, some tourists enthusiastically pointed out the
whales (1); only about 30 meters from the coast. We frantically paced down to get some good shots (no harpoons here), although the big friendly mammals were in no hurry to go anywhere
About an hour and some lunch in Simonstown later, we arrived at Boulders beach. Man, this is a load of
African penguins (2), viewable from a big tourist-filled boardwalk. Although this is their natural habitat, it still feels a bit like an arranged and non-wild setting (like a zoo). Anyway, I always enjoy these clumsy-walking birds; they’re so completely opposite to their gracious swimming abilities. There was quite some traffic of birds (3) coming ashore and taking of for a swim.
After some hanging around with the
penguins (4), we did the Good Hope Nature walk, all the way down the Cape of Good Hope. By surprise Janneke was welcomed by a big baboon with an obnoxious obsession for her backpack (5). These human-like creatures can be quite dangerous, biting and clawing. Luckily, I was not hindered by the knowledge of its potential threat, so I happily photographed the scene of a baboon showing off experienced backpack-unzip skills while Janneke kicked his ass! There were actually quite a lot of baboons; beautiful animals (6). By that time we were unaware that our most exiting adventure if this day was still to come…
Dusk was already setting in when we drove back to our hotel. Looking at the map we decided to take the most direct route heading toward the N2 motorway. As we progressed, the neighborhoods around us started slowly to detoriate; every crossing we passed brought us worse “houses”. The number of white people surrounding us (on street or by care) had already dropped to zero for over at least a quarter of an hour, and even with locked doors we really didn’t feel safe. Now, for the uninformed people; Cape Town is a city surrounded by townships. I would describe them as large disorganized areas, crowded with junkyard shags occupied by too many, poor, black people. I’ve been told gangs rather than the police or any governmental institution rule the places and walking is a tourist is an open invitation to get robbed, raped and killed. Crime rates are unbelievably high (but not recorded because of aforementioned reasons, so no statistics here) and murder is a daily happening. It’s hard for me to assess the realistic threat of these areas, but lots of local people talk about it and we’ve been warned over and over to take good precautions to avoid getting mugged. Anyway, we felt a bit like most white South-Africans do; even though you take try to take precautions, you still don’t really feel safe between the blacks. In our case we locked the doors, watched for people coming up the car, tried to avoid attention and watched our escape routes. Many white people here have a fenced house, in a security patrolled or even fenced neighborhood, equipped with an alarm system with armed response, keep dogs, and guns, have fences for their shop-doors the whole day, reserve the right to deny admission, so you can tell security is a big issue. Anyway, nothing happened of course, and we safely reached or hotel. Quite an interesting day today.
25-09-2005
We checked out and shopped in the Waterfront Mall. A luxurious shopping centre, so you’re assured not to run into the homeless and hungry while you spend lots of money on stuff you don’t need (to impress people you don’t like ). With South Africa, I hoped to visit a cheap, ‘shop till you drop’ paradise. Although things like food, petrol and (black 
) labour come for a little bit less money, (outdoor) clothing and luxuries are price wise not must-buy items. We only got some additional camping gear and food, and headed off for the big central mountain that for one day managed to shake off its clouds.
We took the cable car; climbing would’ve been great but we though it would take too much time. We planned to continue our iternary today and wanted to avoid the hassle of last night by making sure to arrive at Hermanus before dusk. The table mountain turned out to be quite nice; a beautiful view but nothing special on top. Ah well, maybe I would’ve been much more enthusiastic about it after hours of hard work climbing the mountain…
We arrived at Hermanus on time, and the Hermanus Backpackers looked like a very warm & cozy hostel. The hostel owners (like all) introduce themselves by their first name and make you feel welcome. We arrived in a relaxed living-room atmosphere; a small fire and some happy dogs greeting me. However, there was no place for us in the hostel so we turned to Moby’s; ok but nothing special (you enter the premises through the bar filled with drinking regulars, nice people though). Nick took care of us and set us up for a canoe-with-the-whales trip for the next day. We strolled around the little village which was said to boast a huge whale festival (as the first backpackers explained their full bookings). Probably the festival had arrived in its after-party phase.
We had a nice meal of sea-food in a fishing gear decorated restaurant called the Ocean Basket. Noticeable differences with The Netherlands are a waitress introducing herself (first name) that makes you feel welcome (assisting people to sit down and take coats), have a lot of time quickly serving you (they’ll ask at least three times if everything’s ok), and plates and glasses are removed from the table removed from sight the minute they’re empty. This is realized through a high amount of staff, and still the dinners are really cheap.
26-09-2005
So, at 9.30 we were supposed to meet Ivan somewhere on the peer. Six other people turned up and we were distributed among 4 double canoes, with our guide taking the lead in a single-person canoe. Meanwhile he’d keep radio contact with his partner Vanessa on the shore, staying informed on recent whaled sightings. Canoeing the sea was quite an experience, with the waves coming on, and the possibility of being flaked by a whale. The bad news was that we were supposed to stay at least 300 meters away from these largest mammals on earth. The good new is one can be a little creative, by canoeing to places where unexpectedly a whale pops up next to you (so you couldn’t have avoided it, could you?). We definitely saw a lot of whales this trip, some quite close (30m); wonderful. It’s an adventure to “hunt” them by their v-shaped spraying fountains. We could see them jumping and splashing, although this activity was reserved for the deep waters further off shore.
Meanwhile I surprised by a curious visitor, popping up only a few meters from the canoe; a seal! Although canoeing is good, for having a good look at in-sea creatures (seeing more than just the upper part), I think SCUBA diving still is the way to go.
After we’ve seen enough whales and had gotten really cold, we disembarked and took a hot shower in our hostel (great service of the hostel to offer this after checkout 
). Then we took of for the Hoop Nature Reserve. Somewhere along the 90 kilometers of unpaved road we had to cross we had quite an interesting meeting with some
Down at the Hoop Nature Reserve we were able to find a beautiful camp site, down the water shore in a field crowded with
Bonteboks (9). We managed to do this even though the camp site was fully booked due to school holidays; luckiliy there is plenty of space in this park.
27-09-2005
After a cold night (a bit too cold I guess) we hiked a trail trough the reserve. I always enjoy a good hike, this was nothing special however. Somehow the lens got stuck on my camera (I couldn’t unmount it anymore), quite irritating. Later on the day however, after some pulling and twitching, I succeeded and as it turned out, a tiny scrap of plastic (-source still unknown- broken of my kit-lens) managed to block the (un)screwing mechanism. We headed of for Knysna, and collected a huge pile of mud on the rainy gravel-roads.
We arrived at a fine hostel called Highfield backpackers. After getting some groceries in a seemingly all-black neighborhood, we prepared a meal in the communal kitchen.
After dinner, I had an interesting discussion in the living room. I started a small-talk conversation with the guy next to me. It turned out he came from South-Africa so we talked a bit about the country. Victor, as he’s named, also talked quite negatively about the blacks. This is not necessarily special for a South-African, but the strange thing was that, to me, Victor was black himself. And this was where I had it wrong; there three main types of people to distinguish in this country: the whites, the blacks, and the coloreds. Well, I never heard of this classification, but here these groups have a hard time getting along. And the subgroups don’t mix well either; the Boers and English have fought for many years, and the Zulus still kill the Khosian and the Xhosa if they get the chance, probably like the Hutus kill the Tutsis, or the Ethnic-Kosovaran-muslims kill the Albanic Bosnian-Serbians (I lost track of that last conflict long ago). Blacks and coloreds live in different townships, have opposing gangs, hate each others guts, and are treated differently under (current) discriminating laws. To say that last one simple; Victor isn’t black enough to get a government job, or to be pushed up by the black empowerment rules. One explanation of these unfair laws was given to me by the guy I met in the plane; in the current situation whites rule the country, and if you don’t push it for a while, things will never change.
Meanwhile a Zimbabwean guy had joined the conversation. Even though he kind-of was chased out of his country five years ago, he had lots of positive opinions about the blacks, the poor, and the original African bushman way of life.
28-09-2005
We had a look at some craft work in the local shops & markets, decided it wasn’t much and continued our trip. Somewhere along the Garden Route (much hyped, but I think it’s nothing special), along the Tsitsikamma coast, we had our lunch with a nice sea view. When I’d parked the car and walked towards the sea, I discovered a small swimming paradise; marvelous waves, great to jump in and to let them take you away. I roused back to get my swimming shorts and discovered why surfers love this area (Jeffrey’s Bay, a bit further on is a popular surfing spot). The waves were big, able to pick me up and throw me down 30 meters further. Just a little bit cold, but nothing that the shining sun couldn’t fix…
We’d parked our car just behind a single rowed dune. In South Africa, when parking your car near a super market, shopping center, beach or anywhere else, always you’ll find people managing and watching the parking lots. They might help you reverse into the parking spot, direct traffic, walk around with a bat or simply stand around; the idea is that they’ll protect your property while you’re gone. Or realistically; the idea is that you give them money because you should. To parking lot guys can be kids or elderly, white or black (mostly black though, or coloured, man, I’m not getting happy with all this confusing extra knowledge). On this parking space, James managed to keep our Rental car safe during my swim. I gave him the two (or one) rands that seem to be a fitting reward around here…
From the Garden route, we skipped Port Elizabeth and drove through its sister town Uitenhage (which is surrounded by townships) and we headed of to the place we wanted to see: Addo Elephant National Park. Our destination is a large park, unsurprisingly near Addo, and as it name also gives away; filled with Elephants.
At around 4pm we arrived, but the campsite was fully booked (again). We still wanted to have a look around, even though the park closed at six. Well, actually we kind of hoped to still acquire a camp spot after 6 pm. The lady that helped us didn’t promise anything, but had told us we could take any unoccupied site after that time. Unfortunately, the campsite turned ou to be really small, and every spot was indeed taken. This actually has never ever happened to us before, and we’ve visited quite a bunch of NPs in our life (and never booked of course). Well, the pain was a bit less when we found out the site were not “overlooking a waterhole where game feeds day and night”. I doubt if that brochure creator has seen the (current) state of the campsites
At 4pm, we had a quick loop trough the park (by car). We were pleasantly held up by a big
Anyway, after six o’clock we arranged ourselves in a nice “backpackers” cottage at the Orange Elephant. Very nice and quiet. Lané served us food at the accompanying restaurant. My game steak (Kudu) was really tender (this really good food!), and the Mitchel’s from the tap were refreshing, so we slept well. At night we were guarded by a sweet dog in front of our cottage. I notice that lots of people have lots of dogs around here…