Carole's South Africa

Hi everyone!
At last I have Internet access again. First I will load my notes and the coming days I hope to load a few pictures for you all.
Cheers
Yours, Carole
============================================

Entry: 26.10.12

First day in SA

After a good but shaky flight I landed after 10 hours in Jo’burg.

It took ages to go through passport control but since I was not in a hurry I did not mind much. Afterwards I had to get my suitcase and check in on the domestic flight to Durban.

Then at last, I could go and have a nice breakfast at Mug and Bean. My place at Jo’burg airport. Great food at a great price!

Swiss has a strange concept of vegetarian dishes. Apart from fruits and veggies I got nothing to eat. :o((( So, I was pretty ravenous when I arrived.

This time I ordered only one dish, quesadilla with herbed mushrooms. I expected a wrap but in the end the plate was completely covered with a humongous quesadilla. Of course it was impossible to finish it especially since I had to rush to get the next plane.

On board of the SA flight to Durban I sat next to a friendly South African with Indian origins. He was wearing a tracksuit while his wife was dressed up nicely and during the conversation he told me he was a (church) minister on his way to a wedding in Durban on Saturday. Well he was really underdressed for sure. We had a nice talk about Indian specialties in Durban and he gave me a few tips where to get some yummy food. Since I am off to a full day tour of Durban tomorrow I hope to have a taste at some Indian dishes.

At the airport I took the “very official” airport shuttle. A good service at a cheap price. I expected to see a cab but no, it was a minibus. Yippee! And full of cheeky South African women of Indian origins teasing a “poor” black guy in his fifties who happened to sit there. He was complaining that he was the only guy on board. So they asked him if he was really that scared of them, but he said he was. One told him: “You are no real Zulu man. A real Zulu man can handle 12 wives.” His answer was. “I am a real man. I drink Red bull.” The woman’s answer to this was: ”If you have 12 wives you don’t need Red bull. You are a red bull yourself”. And everybody laughed heartily. Well, that’s also my kind of South Africa! ;o)

Entry: 27.10.12

Today I went on a guided a tour of Durban. The weather was grey but it did not rain.

We started with the Moses Mabhida Stadium which has a unique and stylish architecture. See pics.

Then we drove through the town looking at different places along the way. The center of Durban looks very much like the business district in Cape Town. High rise buildings, cars and mini taxis everywhere, bustling with a lot of people on the sidewalks.

We visited the Kwa Muhle museum which shows exhibits of the Apartheid years such as the passport non-white South Africans had to carry around. It also showed the type of compounds the local workers were put in, the best breeding place for all kinds of serious illnesses …

Then we went up some residential areas where we could look over the whole town. Afterwards we went to eat a “baby” bunny chow. More the size of an appetizer but honestly I don’t think I would have been able to eat a normal size one since it is quite a huge portion then.
The vegetarian variation is filled with beans in a slightly spicy curry sauce and you eat it together with some condiments, such as pickled veggies, see pic.

In the afternoon we went to the uShaka Marine World. A great place to go with kids. Water slides everywhere as well as some interesting and educational shows about “going green”. I saw the seal show with one seal hunting a pirate and the dolphin show which was a lot of fun. The music they played was very loud and I wonder how much it might also annoy the dolphins but the atmosphere was really good. See a few sequences.

I am off tomorrow morning to George Airport, which is close to Knysna, the beautiful town on the lagoon. I hope they have Wi-Fi there so that I can post my notes on the net.

Entry: 28.10.12-29.10.21012

I spent one day in Knysna and did some sightseeing to see the Knysna Heads overlooking the Indian Ocean. The town of Knysna is very small but also very touristic and they have at least 2 shopping malls and 3 supermarkets. So I got to do my shopping for the next 5 days there. On the Sunday the weather was beautiful and I got a good look at the landscape from the plane. On the Monday, it rained most of the time so I was happy I had got some good pictures the day before.

I took a taxi and went to Knysna Elephant Park, my new home for the next 2 weeks, early Monday afternoon.

The park is situated about 20 km East of Knysna. I share a room with 2 other “ladies” and our bedroom is overlooking a pond where ducks, Egyptian geese, black swans and guinea fowls play around. On the Monday afternoon I got to see the elephants as a tourist. It was nice to feed them myself again. :o)

Entry: 30.10.12-31.10.21012

I have now worked only for 2 days but I am already able to recognize the elephants.
Thank God, they all have some distinctive features so you know which one you are looking at.

On my first evening at the park, we had an unexpected visitor. I was eating at the dining table, when I suddenly saw the grey face of an elephant munching on some banana trees and staring at us just outside the window. Since I had seen them all nicely “parked” in the boma about 1 hour before I could not understand how the Hell, there could be an elephant roaming around freely. 3 other volunteers and myself went out to take a better look at it, and here he was, Clyde, one of the bulls, munching his way through the plants in our garden.
The boma being located just about 20-30 meters from the house, he had not been strolling for too long but he definitely had to be brought back in. A volunteer managed to contact some of the guides and they finally arrived a few minutes later and brought the fugitive back into the boma.
As it happens there was a couple that evening staying in one of the guest rooms overlooking the boma and they had actually filmed the whole scene.
So this is how it happened: Mashudu, one of the youngsters, managed to remove the pin blocking the gate to Clyde’s pen and played a bit with it, while Clyde just pushed the gate open and went out for a stroll. I am telling you these guys are real gangsters!!! ;o)

On my second day working at KEP I can say that taking care of elephants is a lot of work. People must clean the pens, feed and check on the elephants from 6 a.m. till 9 p.m. There is even an early morning watch at 5 a.m. where volunteers check what the elephants are doing.

So, these guys keep a lot of people very busy for sure.
What is really nice is to see how the tourists look so marvelled at these “gentle giants”. Elephants are really wonderful animals. They can also be extremely cheeky and they love to play with each other.

This morning and later today I saw how the younger ones Mashudu, Shungu, Keisha and Thato kept on playing together. The amazing thing about them is that you do not hear them. You are standing somewhere out on the field and the next minute, you turn around and you see one of these big guys standing right next to you and you heard nothing. Spooky!!!!

Knysna Heads and the Indian Ocean, view from the plane

I feel so privileged to be able to work with those guys. The people here are also very dedicated to the elephants and do everything they can to make them feel good and happy. The result is that the elephants are relaxed and happily munching away the whole day. It is good to know that they could be saved and because they enrich so many people’s lives, you could say they are godsend.