Kill the Robot!

After much nagging by my dear Terry I'm going to try to add a new component to my updates. Whenever I find something remarkable, crazy, interesting, befuddling or otherwise notable while blundering my way around South Africa I am going to try to explain it to you all (hopefully with pictures attached). My aim is to try to impart some of the more interesting nuances about South Africa to you all. And as an added bonus since I'm not from these parts I haven't yet become jaded when it comes to some of the "normal" things that occur here that either make you laugh or just shake your head in amazement...

So for part one I have chosen to highlight one of the unofficial South African past times/hobbies/national sports. While it is common knowledge that games steeped in British tradition like rugby, cricket, and soccer are popular here to the point of distraction a little known past time here is killing robots. For those of you not yet introduced to the South African vernacular, robot does not as you might think mean one of those little gear box machines that has been created and programmed by humans to relieve them of their work load. No, here robot means traffic light and I can only guess that it is so named because if you squint at it just so as you flash by in your car it may possibly resemble a very sad B grade science fiction version of a robot.

The rules of the game are quite simple as there really are no rules except that in order to consider yourself victorious you must have flattened the robot (street lights are an acceptable option as well) in question with your car, or if not entirely flattened it must be teetering at a precarious angle. Generally speaking, South Africans are rather proud of their cars; if you are here for more than a few days you will begin to note that an inordinate number of cars on the road are the products of the proud German tradition of auto making. This being said, they would not generally be inclined to bash them into a metal pole, but if you introduce a tot or 12 of whisky into the equation suddenly it becomes quite a sport to nail and obliterate unsuspecting and/or cheeky robots. Depending on the severity of the knock some robots will stop functioning while others continue working at a very horizontal angle, and as long as the lights are flashing (regardless of the angle) you must obey them, it can make intersections more fun...

But don't worry, the resources that go into replacing and resurrecting said robots does not go entirely to waste because the native South African population is a very enterprising group. If a robot goes more than a few days with out being repaired (it usually takes a week to 10 days) you will quickly start to notice that pieces are being removed and recycled probably in some township somewhere. If I had to guess, if I drove for more than 30 minutes a day here in Johannesburg I would say that I would probably manage to find a dead robot every other day, what a sport!

More fun at Simbambili

We know it has been a little ridiculous lately, what with all of our crazy adventures and weekends away, but you all know that you are always invited to come along; we'd really love to have the company!

Last weekend was yet another beautiful trip to Simbambili, I'm sure you are tired of all the wildlife pictures by now but every time we go out there nature just keeps treating us to new and fantastic sights, and of course this past weekend was no exception... If there was a theme for our latest trip to the bush it would have been cats. With the help of our rock star ranger, Lazarus, and tracker, Joseph, we were positively bombarded by leopards and lions this trip. I think the total cat count was 7 leopards (some seen on multiple occasions), 11 lions, a genet, and a civet (not sure if he is a cat but looked a bit like one). Aside from the very cooperative cats we also saw giraffe, bush buck, waterbuck, kudu, wharthogs (some being chased by lions), a hippo out of the water (a first for me), chamelions, duiker (one being eaten by a leopard), elephants, african buffalo, impala, baboons, a honey badger, owls, grey louries and I'm sure a few other things I have forgoten...

The highlight of the trip for us was finally getting to see the 5 month old leopard cubs that we have been looking for since they were born. Their mother, Safari, has been doing a great job hiding them from us, but all the hard work was worth it! In addition to this we saw Mfufenjan ( the dominant male leopard in the area) on a very active "honeymoon" with a female from the area, we saw Seseka and her one year old leopard cub on a duiker kill, a pride of lions at play on a termite mound, a lion chasing down a wharthog(she missed), and two lions cullering (roaring) in the full moon light.

Now that winter is upon those of us in the southern hemisphere we also spent quite a lot of time bundeling against the cold on the night and early morning drives. I think we brought a full closet with us on the car each time we went out, and were definitely well branded with Simbambili gear. As an absolute treat on those cold nights we always had a beautifully made fire waiting for us in our room when we got back in the evenings.

As I said before, it was a wonderful trip and we are already counting down the days until we can make it back out again! Here are more pictures for thouse of you who are interested (Simbambili May 2006).

The SAMA Awards

Our latest adventure was a short trip up to Sun City, a huge and elaborate casino and vacation club, two hours north of Johannesburg. Terry and I drove up to lend our support to Ange and Eleni at the South African Music Awards. Ange is in the music business here and his artist, Etienne Steyn (a very good Afrikaans musician, go buy his CD) had been nominated for the best pop artist of the year. Despite some really crossed fingers on our part Etienne, unfortunately, did not win the award this year but we are all pretty sure that next year will be his!

We all stayed at a sweet little guest house owned by a lovely French couple and we can highly recommend their lodge, the Authentique French Guest House for the cute rooms, friendly owners, and lovely breakfasts.

After our arrival we had a few free hours to explore the area before we had to get ready and it was recommended that we make a visit to the Lion Park nearby. I can definitely say that we all really enjoyed our visit there and were spoiled by getting to play with two 3 month old male lion cubs! Its hard to imagine that the little babies that were attacking our fingers and camera bags will be such imposing and deadly animals in a year or two. So even though we weren't able to get pics of the wild cubs on our last trip to the bush we got you a few of babies that in another two years will be released into one of the national parks here in South Africa.

After a bit of prepping and posing for pictures we headed off to Sun City to see the awards show which turned out to be a fantastic and very cultural experience for all of us. The fashion, music, and vibe were a unique blend of western and traditional African sights and sounds. It was an amazing thing for us to be able to see the changing tides of South African culture from our seats in the theatre. Here are more pictures from our weekend (SAMA Photo Album).

Public Holiday Season Part 4

Greek Easter (and my birthday) were a fantastic time! Tere was lots of incense, lamb, and celebrating with friends. It was also a nice respite from our busy travel schedule, not that we are complaining! As a fun little bonus one of our Easter dinner hosts happened to open a very large bottle of my vintage year (without realizing the connection) to celebrate with, I must say it was a very good year!

Last weekend was yet another 5 day weekend, and Terry and I used this little chunk of time to drive out to Ballito, a sweet little beach town just north of Durban. Thanks to the fantastic weather I was able to come away with a very nice (and SPF'd) tan and we also managed to find some amazing restaraunts, I know surprise surprise. Terry's highlight was when I agreed to hang out at the pub to watch the Blue Bulls vs. the Sharks (a rugby game to those not fluent in SA teams). Somehow we managed to take very few photos over the last few weeks (and none in Durban) but here they are! (Birthday Pictures)

Now before you get too jealous, remember all of these adventures (except the Simbambili one) were built around public holidays, but you can still be jealous anyway because it has been a lot of fun so far! I'll repost more updates soon. After Durban we spend the following weekend at Sun City for the South African Music Awards and then the following weekend we are back at Simbambili and then after that we are back at Sun City for a Greek concert... Updates to come soon!

~Genevieve

Public Holiday Season Part 3

Terry and I spent Easter weekend on a real African adventure. We loaded the Jeep up once again and set off for a long weekend in Mozambique. Terry had to be in the capital, Maputo for work so we decided to go down early to Ponta d'Ouro for a few days of beach and diving.

Unfortunately for us, on the way down our trusty Jeep's power steering pump called it quits. Through luck, perserverence, and maybe a little help from above we managed to find a mechanic in Ermelo (that's the edge of the middle of nowhere) willing to give up his Good Friday holiday to help us out. After a few patient hours we realized the only way the Jeep was going to manage to continue was if we bypassed the power steering systen, so out came the pump, in went a smaller belt, and with a little use from our biceps we were back on the road!

It would have been a very lovely weekend on the beach but we were treated to a lot of rain during the time we were there and when you are in a tent rain is not your friend... So as much as I enjoyed snorkelling and looking at the fishies and reefs, which was a lot (Terry said he hasn't seen me that giddy in a long time)! I was definitely ready to pack up and head to Maputo on Sunday.

The way to Maputo is what you might call a road on a generous day. Mostly it was soft, deep beach sand that held water in remarkably huge puddles but every now and then we were "treated" to tar road which was more like a continuous series of pot holes with a few pesky bits of road in between to bump you around (see photo). Five hours and 170 kilometers (105 miles) later- do the math on MPH there! we arrived into Maputo and into the arms of a very nice hotel to dry off and shower properly.

Before the civil war, Maputo was one of the nicest resort cities in southern Africa, now 15 years after the war has ended it is still slowly scrapping its way toward recovery and is still a shell shocked remainder of what it had been (see photo of one of the main streets). On the up side the prawns are still good! Since there was no consensus on safety I ended up staying in the hotel for the 3 days we were there while Terry took care of business. (More Mozambique Photos)

Public Holiday Season Part 2

After our lovely trip to the Midlands we had a few days to unpack and start the planning for our next weekend away to the safari lodge at Simbambili. Usually Terry and I make this trip on our own as not everyone is as flexible as we are when it comes to packing off to the bush for a few days but happily this time we had a full house with us. All of Terry's family plus all of us extras were out en masse to watch the animals and give the staff a hard time!

Mimi (Terry's mom) and I spent a marathon day in the shops gathering all of the food and necessities that the troop would be needing and then cooked and packed it all up into what became a very full Jeep. All of the hard work was well worth it and we all ate incredibly well on our stay.

As far as highlights from our sightings we saw plenty of amazing things, some big and some small. On this trip our ranger and tracker, Chris and Doctor, seemed to be able to find all of the cool creepy crawlies for us to inspect close at hand. We got to play with a Schleggels beaked blind snake and a very confused chamelion who wasn't quite sure how to turn from green to slightly pale white person but he really did give it his best shot. We were lucky enough to see 2 attempted hunts, one by lions and 1 by leopard but neither managed to grab dinner while we were watching. Our luck with lions was amazing this trip and we were priviliged enough to sit with a pride of lions who were helping their sister home by cullering (something close to the MGM lion roar but more grunty sounding). It is impossible to describe the feeling you get when you are sitting in the midst of animals who are making those sounds. I learned that we humans are biologically engineered to get scared when that sound is anywhere near(here is one of the old males we saw, not so pretty after 13 years of hard living in the bush)! We also saw 3 month old lion cubs for a few minutes. Seeing them play was incredibly adorable; I wish I could share a picture of them with you but we came across them at night and weren't able to get a picture of them.

Another first for us was to see a group of about 100 vultures helping themselves to what was left of a large male Kudu. As Terry's official favorite sighting of the trip we have plenty of photos, none of which really do the sighting justice. The crazy noises those birds make (especially in a group that large) sounded like something out of a B grade Hollywood movie! Clacks, hisses, screeching and all. Last of the top sightings was a few minutes with a huge male elephant, his head was at least 15 feet high and his tusks were probably about 5 feet long. And lucky for us we caught him in a good mood and he let us sit and watch as he ate and bossed some of the girls around...

The real excitement came when we were caught off guard during a drinks break by a lion and had to race back to the vehicle, thanks to Tina for capturing our escape on camera! No just kidding! but Tina did do a great job of photographing our traditional bush foot race on the airstrip and as usual Terry won but it was a good showing by everyone involved! And through all of that we only got stuck once! (More Simbambili Photos)