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Let's start at the beginning... The plane to Johanesburg.
In just a few words, it was long (9 hours more or less), tiring and during the night, oh and very uncomfortable so I didn't sleep shit >_<. At least we got fed and could watch movies on our own.
We arrived at Johanesburg and promptly managed to get the road in the wrong way. For 30 minutes. Into the city with the biggest ethnic conflict of the region. Into a fucking traffic jam. Best start to the trip ever :D.
Anyway, the roads where surprisingly good an there isn't much traffic once you've cleared the city. You do see some crazy stuff on the highway though... Picture this: a massive 8 lane highway, midway gap included. Now picture this: a smiling black guy not too old not too young pushing a trolley and waving at passing cars. Now combine the picture. Yeah, africans are crazy, I haven't been surprised at anything on the road afterwards. Even when they drive outside of the lane, you know, that space where a lot of people use to walk when there's no choice and you have to follow the road. Did I mention that there are more people walking on the roads than cars going through them? Did I mention the hundreds of school children who have to walk to school? Through those same roads? I think you get the picture.
Scary.
South Africans, at least at first impression, seem happy, all the people that were working on the service business anyway. They always come at you with this big smile on their faces, saying "hello, sir, and how are you today?", it almost seemed cartoonish, but they sounded sincere, as if they actually gave a shit about your day so you feel compelled to answer "I'm fine, and how are you?" just to get them to answer "Oh, I'm fine. What can I do for you?"
I don't know if they really are happy, how can I? But they seem to be doing fine, they're proud of what they've achieved, specially really proud of Nelson Mandela. I have to read more about this man  .
You know there's barely any buses in SA? What they do is they have this vans they use as taxis. If you're going in the same way as the van, you just hop in, pay a small fare and get off where the taxi starts going a different way than where you're going. This is the system they used in Spain (at least in some parts, probably not Madrid or Barcelona) 30 odd years ago. Many people try to hitch a ride as well, yeah, the roads are pretty crowded but there are almost no cars, go figure.
So anyway, we headed off to the kruger natural park, and saw our first impalas (some kind of antilope) on our way to the shack. We got two of them (family of 5 here), and they were alright so we finally caught some sleep at last :D, and got ready for a big animal spotting day  .
An impala, chewing its head off, as usual.
There's something particularly captivating about animals in the wild, roaming through the savannah. I don't think I'm ever going to visit another zoo in my life, at least not until I have kids...
I guess the big difference is that animals in the zoo are just standing there, nothing to do all day, getting fat, looking sad. How would you like to live in a cage for the rest of your life? I mean, come on...
Animals in the wild are awesome. You see a baby elephant running between the legs of the mother, being protected from all the dangers around them. The same big elephant that is flapping her huge ears while she's literally ploughing through the trees by the side of the road, maybe 2 m away from your completely unprotected car. Awesome :D.
Cute elephant and mom
"Whatcha lookin' at?"
"I'm trippin' "
We saw all kinds of herbivores on the first day: jiraffes, impalas, rhinos, buffalos... And we also managed one of the big cats! A lone male cheetah! It crossed in front of our car. It's the fastest mammal on the earth , can get up to 110 km/h, which is pretty crazy .
"What, you wanna start something? Do you?"
This fucker can sprint from 60 m away and cut your throat in less than 3 seconds.
We saw two big families of elephants crossing in front of us (we're talking about more than 20 elephants here). I had never seen anything quite so big, so close without a fence in between.
We went back to the shack and were the victims of some vicious monkey action. It took about 5 seconds, but in that time, a monkey came up to our table, picked up the fruit bag, climbed a tree, opened the bag (teared it apart, the motherfucker) and ate half of a banana, then dropped the bag and ran away.
"Im in ur tree, eatin ur banana"
On the next day, we saw a ton of hippos lying in the sun, some jiraffes kneeling to drink (they only drink every 2-3 days, so it's quite the occasion), and some big baboons carrying their little kids on the back. No lions though  , man where we disappointed, the carnivores are fucking hard to spot. We even got into the night saffari to try and catch them hunting, since they're more active at night, but we had no luck . We saw more or less the same thing we did by ourselves but it was cold as fuck and shitty flashlights are definitely not a good substitution of sunlight . The only interesting thing we saw was a running hippo that crossed in front of our truck, hehe, that was funny, legs going all over the place :D.
We said our goodbyes to the park and headed off to Sabie, we had enough animal spotting for some time. Talking about waving goodbyes, there was this guy pissing in the highway, prick in hand, not even bothering to turn around when our car went by and smiled and waved with his free hand. I thought that was hilarious, my mom didn't see that he was pissing at first and waved back, hahaha.
"Goodbye"
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I'm coming over for the World Cup in two years, save a spot for me :p
Beautiful pictures, get me even more hyped about going.
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awesome pictures
i liked the bird one alot
but are there alot of accidents? like if an animal just ran into a road and a car smashed into it?
because it doesnt seem liek there are any barriers =/
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On August 16 2008 00:10 kpcrew(Gg) wrote:
awesome pictures
i liked the bird one alot
but are there alot of accidents? like if an animal just ran into a road and a car smashed into it?
because it doesnt seem liek there are any barriers =/
There are no barriers, it's a national park , you basically drive around where the animals do their own thing, they pretty much ignore the cars anyway. You're never supposed to go over 50 km/h (I guess, 30 mph?), so driving into animals shouldn't be an issue, but we were told there are a few accidents each year, don't know how many.
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Thats such a mind blowing photo
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Spenguin
Australia3316 Posts
Tee hee the bird one, its giraffe btw
Nice pics
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South Africa4316 Posts
Haha, welcome to South Africa Are you still in SA, or have you gone back already?
Our roads are fairly decent, unless you go onto the smaller roads where you'll find quite a lot of potholes. Overall, if you stick to the highways you shouldn't have any problems. One thing that you should watch out for when driving is orange/amber traffic lights. In SA, amber means you can still make it. If the light goes amber you can expect at least five cars to still go over, often the last two going over on a solid red. So yeah, look both ways before going over a traffic light, might find an ambitious person going over in your turn.
As you say, South Africans are generally very happy people. It's one of the things I noticed the most in Europe was how unhappy and unfriendly the people there were. I'm not saying that everybody in SA is happy, but in general, I think we're a fairly friendly population.
Nelso Mandela... is a big symbol for South Africans. He fought against aparteid, was thrown into jail, and after his release continued to fight against apartheid and eventually became the first black president of SA. He is a great person, no doubt, but more than that he is a symbol of South Africa's long struggle against apartheid.
As you point out, there's barely any public transport in SA. In the apartheid years, everyone "important" (eg. white) had more than enough money to buy a car, and no-one cared enough about the black people to organize transport for them.
Another important reason why we don't have public transport is that (in case you didn't notice) our cities are massive but not very densly populated. An example of this is Pretoria (where I live) which has a population of 2.4m people, but a population density of 850 people per square kilometer. Compare this to Hong Kong with 6000 people per square kilometer, and New York with 10,000 people per square kilometer. We also don't have dense city centres where you can buy anything or do any business. The city is spread out and growth is very organic ("oh, here's a new living area, let's build some shops here"). Because of this, it's very difficult to construct an effective form of public transport. What we are doing though is building a high speed train (called the GauTrain) that will connect all the major cities in Gauteng (like Johannesburg and Pretoria), because as you may have noticed, traffic between these cities is deadly.
Out taxis are somewhat notorious to South Africans. They evolved as a cheap form of transport for black people during the apartheid era, and are still very cheap. You pay about R1 per kilometre of travel in a taxi, so that's 8 miles per GBP. To make up for this cheap cost they drive notoriously quickly and dangerously (often driving down the yellow lines as you mentioned) and they load those vans up. It is not uncommon to hear of a taxi accident in which 15 people die. Also, you should avoid using them if you're not from South Afirca, or even if you're from here but not that street smart. I once made the mistake of paying for a R9 fare with a R50 note, and after my money was taken they told me there's no change available!
About the Kruger National Park, it's wonderful there if you like animals. I've only been to a zoo once, and found it very disappointing compared with a national park. Like you say, the animals in a zoo seem lifeless. I can't believe you saw a cheetah! The cheetah is one of the rarest animals in our national parks. The leopard is much more commonly seen. You say you've also seen elephants and rhinos, so that makes it three out of five of the big five animals that you've seen (lion, leopard [cheetah might count], rhino, elephant, and buffalo).
Impalas, called Rooibok commonly (red buck/antelope) are the most common antelopes in SA. They're everywhere, so you tire of seeing them fairly quickly. Monkies... I'm surprised you weren't warned. Whenever you go to the national parks they warn you not to leave any food lying about, or have any food in open sight of a monkey. They're incredibly quick and destructive.
Finally, my grandmother stays in Sabie, it's quite a quaint little town. It's surrounded by massive massive forests (although they had a dreadful forest fire there recently) planted by SAPPI, the South African Pulp and Paper Insitute. It's a nice scenic area.
If you are still in the country, and passing through Pretoria (or alternatively Midrand or Kyalami), let me know and I'll take you out somewhere nice! Also, continue making these threads if you're still here, I'd love to know what you think about the country :D
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Hmmm. Edward Said would have a field day with this. Actually somewhat disturbing to see.
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btw, the elephant in pic four is VERY agitated. If you ever see that, it is wise to back up.
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South Africa4316 Posts
After making sure with a friend, we've decided it's definitely a keopard and not a cheetah. Leopard's are much bulkier than cheetahs, while cheetahs are very lanky, and slightly bigger. Here's an image of a cheetah:
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lol. so many animals just on the road. all potential road kill. except maybe the cheetah who can run.. and maybe the elephant which can squash you.. and maybe the rhino which will send your vehicle flying.. and maybe the giraffe too cz its so big..... nevermind.
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On August 16 2008 03:10 Daigomi wrote:After making sure with a friend, we've decided it's definitely a keopard and not a cheetah. Leopard's are much bulkier than cheetahs, while cheetahs are very lanky, and slightly bigger. Here's an image of a cheetah:
You're absolutely right... I guess we really wanted it to be a cheetah when we first saw it and ignored the evidence in front of our eyes. We were completely convinced because it was consistent with their hunting patterns (leopards don't really move doring the light time, and usually not alone) and there're supposed to be lone cheetahs prowling around by themselves during the day, but after checking a few pictures the mistake is obvious. Good catch.
I've already gone back to Spain though, we spent there 16 days, 5 in the Kruger area, 6 in the cape town area and 5 in the Durban area. I have to say seeing the whales in Ermanus was really impressive, and obviously being in the cape of good hope was an amazing experience as well, you can really tell it's a dangerous place to sail around.
The only assholes we came across in SA were white guys, so I have to say I was really impressed with how we were treated there, you've got to tell us what the secret is  , I don't think I've ever been greeted with such big smiles and happy faces in any restaurant in Europe.
I know a bit about Madiba, we went to Robben Island and had an ex-political prisoner there (the poor guy stayed inside for over 10 years) show us around while he related the story, but I don't really know much about the man besides the easy to find stuff in wikipedia, I know he's written a few books and I'd like to get a hold of them, the man is definitely a great leader.
One thing that bothered me about crossing the street is that absolutely noone cares what the street lights say, and you're supposed to walk when the red icon for not crossing is flashing. I never understood that .
What's up with people pissing in the highways? I'm seriously not joking, we've even seen a bus full of people stop by some bushes and like 20 people getting off to take a leak (this was in the Johanesburg area, while we were trying to catch our flight).
About the Kruger National Park, it's wonderful there if you like animals. I've only been to a zoo once, and found it very disappointing compared with a national park. Like you say, the animals in a zoo seem lifeless. I can't believe you saw a cheetah! The cheetah is one of the rarest animals in our national parks. The leopard is much more commonly seen. You say you've also seen elephants and rhinos, so that makes it three out of five of the big five animals that you've seen (lion, leopard [cheetah might count], rhino, elephant, and buffalo).
We saw all of them except the lion . I've got a pictures of some buffaloes somewhere in the other PC. We were really disappointed about the lions though, even took a night saffari to try and see them moving around, but no luck.
Impalas, called Rooibok commonly (red buck/antelope) are the most common antelopes in SA. They're everywhere, so you tire of seeing them fairly quickly. Monkies... I'm surprised you weren't warned. Whenever you go to the national parks they warn you not to leave any food lying about, or have any food in open sight of a monkey. They're incredibly quick and destructive.
I know what you mean about the impalas, 30 minutes into the saffari trip we weren't even slowing down to look at them, they're everywhere >_<. We were warned about the monkeys, but they came so fast it was scary, it literally took less than 10 seconds, we were about to eat something on the tables outside the shack and we just weren't looking out for them.
Finally, my grandmother stays in Sabie, it's quite a quaint little town. It's surrounded by massive massive forests (although they had a dreadful forest fire there recently) planted by SAPPI, the South African Pulp and Paper Insitute. It's a nice scenic area.
We stayed in Sabie for 2 nights, in Villa Ticino (you might know the place), so yeah, we went to God's Window and all the other scenic views of the area. Really beautiful to be honest, I loved the place.
If you are still in the country, and passing through Pretoria (or alternatively Midrand or Kyalami), let me know and I'll take you out somewhere nice! Also, continue making these threads if you're still here, I'd love to know what you think about the country :D
Thanks for the invitation! It's really a pity that it's 2 weeks late , would've loved to check out the city with somebody who actually knows places .
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On August 16 2008 02:26 Oak wrote:
Hmmm. Edward Said would have a field day with this. Actually somewhat disturbing to see.
How is it disturbing?
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South Africa4316 Posts
Haha, everyone is generally friendly, although you do get assholes of all races and kinds there. I don't really know why though, maybe it's just more ingrained in our culture that friendliness is important? Who knows
About walking across the street, the idea is that the moment the main lights go red, the walking light goes green to allow people to start walking across the street. After about 5 seconds of green walking lights, it goes red again so that no new people start walking, and so that the cars start turning, but generally (me included) people will gauge whether they still have enough time to walk across, and go, regardless of the red man. So unless you are waiting for the green man, you'll almost never catch him.
If you're looking for a madiba book to read, his most famous book (and his autobiography) is A Long Walk to Freedom. It should be good, although I haven't read it myself.
Haha, about people pissing on the side of the road, it's not THAT common, although you do see one or two if you drive for long distances. Mainly it's just that South Africa is so spread out that there aren't that many fill stations. Often you need to take a quick leak and you're still 50kms away from the nearest station. Also, as you mentioned, there are lots of people walking next to the road, so they can't really aim for stations.
And yeah, Sabie is a stunning place. It's quite far from Pretoria, so I don't visit there that often, but I always enjoy the scenery when we are there. Actually, most of SA is very scenic in its own way. Did you travel cross country by car or did you fly? Cause if you drove from Johannesburg to Cape Town (which is a good 20 hour drive) you probably saw lots of different parts of SA already. You'd have gone through the Free State, which is completely flat and just filled with farms, Kwazulu Natal which is filled with mountains, and down the coast, which I love. On the other hand, if you flew (which you probably did, since the drive is so long), you missed out on the landscape, but you still get to see the nice (and very different) cities.
I honestly think SA is the world's most wonderful country, except for the crime (which luckily you don't mention), and slow internet. Other than that I absolutely love it here
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On August 16 2008 05:42 Daigomi wrote:Haha, everyone is generally friendly, although you do get assholes of all races and kinds there. I don't really know why though, maybe it's just more ingrained in our culture that friendliness is important? Who knows About walking across the street, the idea is that the moment the main lights go red, the walking light goes green to allow people to start walking across the street. After about 5 seconds of green walking lights, it goes red again so that no new people start walking, and so that the cars start turning, but generally (me included) people will gauge whether they still have enough time to walk across, and go, regardless of the red man. So unless you are waiting for the green man, you'll almost never catch him. If you're looking for a madiba book to read, his most famous book (and his autobiography) is A Long Walk to Freedom. It should be good, although I haven't read it myself. Haha, about people pissing on the side of the road, it's not THAT common, although you do see one or two if you drive for long distances. Mainly it's just that South Africa is so spread out that there aren't that many fill stations. Often you need to take a quick leak and you're still 50kms away from the nearest station. Also, as you mentioned, there are lots of people walking next to the road, so they can't really aim for stations. And yeah, Sabie is a stunning place. It's quite far from Pretoria, so I don't visit there that often, but I always enjoy the scenery when we are there. Actually, most of SA is very scenic in its own way. Did you travel cross country by car or did you fly? Cause if you drove from Johannesburg to Cape Town (which is a good 20 hour drive) you probably saw lots of different parts of SA already. You'd have gone through the Free State, which is completely flat and just filled with farms, Kwazulu Natal which is filled with mountains, and down the coast, which I love. On the other hand, if you flew (which you probably did, since the drive is so long), you missed out on the landscape, but you still get to see the nice (and very different) cities. I honestly think SA is the world's most wonderful country, except for the crime (which luckily you don't mention), and slow internet. Other than that I absolutely love it here
I hear you about the slow internet... or the absence of it, haha. We only had stable wifi in Cape Town, anywhere else was plain impossible.
We did fly around, it takes way too much time to drive and it's just safer, i think, we're not really used to driving on the left side of the road and when you're tired you generally rely more on your instincts, and sadly that means going to the wrong side of the road .
We were going to go somewhere in the coast, 400 or 500 km away from Cape Town, some gardens which are supposed to be beautiful, but the owner of the place in Sabie adviced us against it, since it's not really representative of Africa or even SA in general, so we ended up going to Swaziland (and bought some pretty hand-made candles :D).
I can't comment on the crime thing because we didn't experience any at all, so I guess we were lucky. We had a moment of a lot of stress though one night in Johanesburg when we couldn't find a place to stay. Everything was full, all the hotels completely booked and we ended up in some guest house in the middle of nowhere. It was a bit scary, some big dude was driving us in this big audi, it really looked like a mob boss or something, but then we actually saw the place and it turned out to be great, great people too.
We didn't go into Pretoria though, not enough time I guess. Is it very different from the other cities I've mentioned?
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South Africa4316 Posts
The thing with the crime is, it's not really as high as people tend to make it out to be. It's not like you run the risk of dying there every day or anything. It's just too high to be comfortable. You probably noticed that every house in SA has a large wall around the yard, and a load of them have electric fences on top of the wall as well. But honestly, there's only been one attempt at a break in at our house in my whole life (stoned gunman tried to break in, we locked the door and called the armed security services, and he got sent to jail. After that we got electric fencing too :D), so it's really not that big a deal. Like I say, it's just too big to be comfortable.
I've never actually been to Swaziland, although I know exactly where it is. It's unfortunate you didn't go to Lesotho (the other tiny landlocked country), as that is right in the heart of the Drakensberge (Dragon's mountains) which is really nice.
The center of Johannesburg is very scary, especially the center center (Hillbrow). However, as you go into the rest of the city it's generally a bit friendlier. You were probably in Sandton, which is the safer inner-city area of Johannesburg.
Map of Gauteng
On that map, Johannesburg is red, and Pretoria is blue. As you can see they are very close together on the map (in fact, neither city really ends, they go into each other). However, the cultures of the two cities are quite different. Johannesburg is a very metropolitan city. It's the business center of South Africa, Pretoria on the other hand is a much "friendlier" city than Johannesburg - it's more like a really big town. But it's nice, it has everything you need in a city, lots of big malls, lots of places to hang out (more so than Johannesburg, because it's more student centered and less business centered). It's also the administrative center of SA, so there are some landmarks to see (most notable the union buildings).
Anyway, it's just a very nice laid back place There's not that much to see, but if you ever visit here again you must tell me then I'll take you on a tour. Awesome city!
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