Johannesburg

Because of the way different pieces of our round-the-world logistics worked out, we had a five-night stay in Johannesburg. The staff at Kirkman’s Kamp was shocked we were staying there that long, and only slightly less shocked when I clarified that our hotel was actually in the city’s northern suburb of Sandton. Meanwhile, I was shocked at their shock. Why would anyone think five nights was too long in one of South Africa’s most important cities?

Our flight from Kruger to Johannesburg was short and turbulent, but long enough to add 2 barf bags to our count. We made our way to the Gautrain station to buy our passes and board the train to Sandton. When we exited the station, we saw a shiny, modern city. Google Maps said it was a 12-minute walk to the hotel, so we started hoofing. As has been the case everywhere else we’ve visited in Africa, the sidewalks were under construction. It was 97F degrees and sandy. We passed two Radisson’s on the way, and I began to regret my hotel decision. Then, as we checked in, we had trouble with reception. We finally got it sorted, but they must have mixed up our reservations. Theo had a splitting headache and took to bed as soon as we checked in. The extra mattress they provided for Tori was stained and gross looking. The kitchenette was simple. The apartment was clean, otherwise. I felt alright and up to the task of getting things done. I went back to reception to ask for dinner recommendations and an outlet adaptor. The receptionist was kind and helpful. When I asked about taking the Gautrain in to Johannesburg, she looked at me with alarm. The receptionist and a taxi driver/guide in the reception area told me that you need an escort or guide to go there, for safety. The guide offered to take us and gave me his number. Then I noticed some Americans outside and talked with them. They were on their way to the airport, having spent three weeks in South Africa. This taxi driver had taken them to Soweto and the Apartheid Museum today. It sounded like something we might do.

I returned to the room to call for dinner delivery, but I couldn’t get the phone to work. I went back to reception, where she let me use the phone. I placed the order, then paid for our rooms. I returned to our room and realized there was a billing mistake with the hotel. Then our food arrived, but instead of the 2 large bottles of water I ordered, I got two small bottles. Frustrated, we set out the pizza anyway. I looked for plates and found only four. Then I realized there was no dish soap. That was it. I lost it. The WiFi didn’t work. The cell signal was poor. The apartment felt crammed, and I couldn’t get food delivered correctly. Even the TV didn’t work right - it would be fine until it just turned blue and had to be turned off and on again to get the program back. I went to bed that first night very frustrated and very tired, feeling for the first time since leaving the U.S. that I didn’t at all want to be where I was.

Our original plan for Johannesburg was to do some sightseeing, but to spend more of our time doing school work, running final errands before India, and relaxing at the pool. As it turned out, our hotel apartment was a good base for this, poor WiFi not withstanding. Sandton is full of big-name corporations and high-end shopping. We visited the Sandton City Mall several times for lunch and shopping. Determined to experience at least a little of what Johannesburg proper had to offer, I booked us on a hop on/hop off City Sightseeing bus tour. Those red, open-top double-decker busses run tours in many major cities, and I had wanted to do one for a long time. As it turned out, this was probably the best way for our family to visit Jo’burg. The city is far more run-down than I expected. Even though I had read that despite the drop in crime, the city is not really a tourist destination - which is why the recommended hotels are in the suburbs. The streets are narrow, the drivers are crazy, and everything is dirty. It looked economically depressed, and I was surprised. Later in the tour, we drove through an economic revitalization zone. That was encouraging.

We listened to the audio guide on the bus and learned that Jo’burg was founded as gold mining town in the mid-1800s. If there hadn’t been such a valuable resource here, there never would have been a major city here because it lacks something all other major cities have - water. It is an inland city with no river or lake or other natural water source nearby. (The country’s drought put major stress on Johannesburg’s infrastructure; several hospitals were without water and had to turn away patients.) The gold mine barons placed the mine dumps on the south side of the city, away from the white and wealthy downtown. Later, the black townships would be sited south west of the city, with the dumps forming a physical and visual barrier between the two.

The tour continued out to Gold Reef City Casino, where we boarded a small van for an excursion through Soweto. This area is a major part of the apartheid system. I found the history to be really distressing and saw many parallels to the history of American racism. I was most moved by the Hector Pieterson Memorial, which honors the students killed by police while protesting (among other things) the government’s rule that schools would no longer teach in English, but in Afrikaans - the language of the oppressive apartheid system. The girls seemed to get the most out of that stop, too.

We drove down Vilakazi Street, where Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu have both lived. We passed a few other landmarks and listened to the stories. The tour was over-crowded, though, and I had no view out of the bus. I had hoped to go inside Nelson Mandela’s house and visit the Apartheid Museum during our Jo’burg stay, but the timing was just not there for us. As we finished the tour on the big red bus, we went by Constitution Hill. This is another important place in South Africa’s history, but it was late in the afternoon and none of us were up for extending our tour. Still, it was a good day and a better option than staying at our hotel or in suburban Sandton exclusively.

Safari Time in South Africa

In my opinion, everyone’s first visit to South Africa should include a wildlife experience to see “zoo animals” in their natural habitats. For ours, we chose to visit Kirkman’s Kamp in the Sabi Sand Game Reserve, adjacent to Kruger National Park. We flew from Cape Town to Kruger-Mpamalanga airport then drove two hours to the camp. Our driver told us a lot about the region, especially the farming that goes on. From the moment we arrived at Kirkman’s, we were in the lap of luxury.

We had four game drives during our two-night stay. Our ranger, Rikus, and our tracker, Richard, were very good. The first drive took place on the afternoon of our arrival. We saw elephant, a pair of rare saddle-billed storks, and a female leopard who passed right along our vehicle. The ranger knew she had made a kill the day before, but we weren’t able to locate it on this drive. There was a magnificent sunset, which we viewed from a picnic stop on the banks of a dried river (more on that later), and then a night drive to view the nocturnal species.

Dinner in the Boma was entertaining and delicious. One guest celebrated a birthday, and the staff brought out a cake for her, to her surprise, before delighting us all with song and dance.

We saw the effects of drought in greater detail on the second day. This area’s rainy season has been very light on the rain. Fire risk was high and the Sand river, which runs through Kirkman’s Kamp, is dry, the lowest it’s been in years. We saw elephants dig through the sandy river bed, and thankfully they did find water.

As our drives continued, we saw more animals that we expected. There were several types of antelope (impala, nyala, kudu, bushbuck, waterbuck, duiker), baboons, vervet monkeys, buffalo, elephants, giraffes, hippo, leopards, lions, white rhinos, and warthogs, among others. The one animal we wanted to see but didn’t was zebra. They aren’t seen as much in Sabi Sand as they once were.

We did have an excellent and thrilling rhino sighting. An adult male stood five meters from our open-air vehicle, chewing a log to presumably eat the termite mud inside. We stopped the vehicle and watched him for several minutes. Rikus told us about the horrible poaching situation and the likelihood of rhino extinction in several years. Looking an animal in the face as you hear about its imminent demise as a species a pretty impactful moment. The girls all listened very carefully at this, and we learned the poaching is done to collect the rhino horns, which are prized more than gold. As we drove off, the rhino followed. We stopped at the river bank again and saw a group of adult female rhinos walking along with at least one adult male and some young rhinos. The log-chewing male made his way down to them, then shooed the babies away as he protected his territory from the usurping adult male. Eventually, the group of rhino made their way back up to our side of the river bank and the tussle between the males began again, just a few meters from our vehicle. It was definitely too close for our comfort and Rikus drove us out of there before these massive animals got any closer.

One of the elephants we saw - an adult female - had a short trunk. We learned that it had been caught in a snare, which amputated it. She healed on her own, but because of her injury she has been ostracized from the herd. The rangers suspect that it is because of her loud breathing. She has a calf, though, and the pair of them were sighted frequently. We decided that baby elephants are probably the cutest big animals on Earth.

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The giraffe sighting on our first morning drive was also spectacular. It seemed to me that we just turned a corner and - wow - there they were. We watched them eat from acacia trees, despite the massive thorns on the branches. As we drove on, we came upon a group of young giraffe playing with each other. Their awkward skipping and running after each other in circles was fun to watch, and according to our ranger, it was rare.

The king of the jungle also made an impressive appearance. Reports of a male lion entering the property came over the radio. Rikus skillfully drove off trail to spot him, taking us up and down steep (ish) riverbanks and through some brush (watch the thorns) to follow the majestic lion. His majesty took a ding about two weeks ago, though, when a giraffe kicked one of his fangs nearly out of his mouth. As the lion walked past us, you could see how little he seemed to care about his dangling fang. He was still king.

Two nights is not much time for a safari experience, and we certainly lucked out by seeing as much as we did. Our stay at Kirkman’s Kamp was one of the highest highlights of this round-the-world trip, and we’re all thinking about when and where we’ll take our next safari. As Theo said on one of our game drives, “I could do this every year!”

Four Months Done

In our fourth month of travel, we visited Spain, France, Belgium, Morocco and South Africa. The art and architecture of Spain’s Andalusia region showed up again in Paris at the Louvre and in Morocco in Marrakech. We enjoyed scenery on the long drives between our base in Sevilla and the neighboring cities of Cordoba, Jerez, and Huelva. Our brief stay in San Sebastián gave us a hunger to return. In Paris, we met up with good friends, took selfies with Mona Lisa, and stood at the base of the Eiffel Tower. We did no sight-seeing in Belgium, but we walked everywhere in that little old city as we ate good food and took care of some final errands before leaving Europe.

We returned the leased van with a little more than 14,000 km on the odometer, which we clocked over 94 days through 14 countries. Through many long drives and audiobooks and short parking garages, the Vasavagen treated us well. Driving through Europe allowed us a different glimpse of each country than what you get by train or air travel. What an experience!

Month four began in Europe and ended in Africa. After weeks of fairly repetitious travel (drive to a city, check in to an apartment, walk to find food, figure out transit, visit a museum, rinse, repeat) we visited Morocco as a part of a guided tour. It was supposed to be a group tour, and we were all very disappointed to learn that we were the only guests booked. The disappointment cleared quickly as our guide and driver took us from Marrakech through the High Atlas Mountains and out to the Sahara Desert. We drove through the highest pass in Morocco, drank mint tea on the daily, and pushed way out of our comfort zones by riding camels through the sand dunes to camp overnight at a traditional Berber camp. In Morocco, I felt a perspective shift occur, and although I can’t quite articulate it yet, I can say that I cried more than once on those long, Saharan drives.

From Morocco to Cape Town, South Africa for a relaxing week overlooking Camps Bay. Our Airbnb rental was fantastic, as was the food scene. We took one sight-seeing trip (penguins!) and spent the rest of the week recharging. It was during this week that we discovered we were the recipients of some parting gifts from Morocco: bed bug bites and traveler’s diarrhea. Fun.

Four months to the day of our U.S. departure we arrived in the Sabi Sand Game Reserve for our safari stay. On our evening drive, we saw elephants and white rhinos, many types of antelope, one hippo, a beautiful female leopard and a pair of the rare saddle-billed stork. It was an amazing end to a pretty amazing month.