Back to PE, Playing tourist and then home. July 21, 22, 23, 24
July 21: Up and at it early. Marion is taking us back to Port Elizabeth and has some stops and shopping she has to do. She wants to leave by 6:00am so we are on the road early after a good breakfast and good byes are said. The 4 hour drive is uneventful with the usual monkeys and game spotted as we drive in. Marion's mother joins us as she is going back home. The are both delightful company. We get to PE and Marion takes us to their version of a farmers market. It is crowded and noisy but apparently the safest place because all the vendors are sitting on a box of cash and they are all armed. They say the vendors look out for the customers since they don't want the customers messed with. It is a culture shock for this mountain boy from NC. There are all types of produce everywhere but what I notice is all the citrus and pears. We get done with what we need to do and then move on.
After I retired from education and law enforcement, I became a real estate agent. I am currently associated with Keller Williams. I ask Marion to run us by the KW office in PE. She graciously accepts our request. We spend about 20 minutes in the office with the local agents. It is really interesting to compare notes with agents from other countries and see what is similar and what is different about their jobs versus mine. We exchange business cards, emails and Facebook profiles and then we are off. We are staying the next 2 nights at the Beach Hotel in PE. Marion drops us off about 12:30pm at the beach hotel and we say our final goodbyes. Our room is not ready so the staff store our luggage and we head to one of the restaurants at the hotel "The Verandah" for a bite of lunch and some libations. Lunch was a Springbok carpaccio as a starter followed by cheese burgers. It was quite good and the gin and tonics were as well.
Eventually our room is ready and we get settled in. The Beach Hotel is an old colonial hotel with not elevators, AC or heat, but none is needed. The rooms are very nice and spacious. We had a balcony that overlooked the Indian Ocean. I would stay there again. We took naps and basically hung out at the hotel the rest of the evening. Dinner was back at the Veranda. We ordered a couple of their pizzas. They were good and provided leftovers for breakfast the next morning. Off to bed.
July 22: We are up early for a day trip with Raggy Charters. We are going out on Algoa Bay in the morning for whales, dolphins and sharks. The afternoon will be spent in Addo elephant park. We are picked up at the hotel by Alan, the owner. He is in a newer 4 door land cruiser. He was born in South Africa but has spent some time working in and around New Orleans. He is a very nice guy.
We end up at the Nelson Mandela Yacht club and board the boat to take us on our tour. There are numerous countries represented on the boat. We are the only Americans. There are people from SA, Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Great Britain. Apparently they saw a rare bird, Snowy Sheathbill, yesterday. This bird came up from the Antarctica. Word got out and the boat is full with lots of bird watching enthusiasts. We spend some time on the bay and see humpback whales, bottle nose dolphins and the endangered Indian Ocean hump back dolphin. No sharks were seen. We eventually head out to St Croix Island to look for the Snowy Sheathbill and other birds. We see gulls, gannets, African penguins (they are tiny) but no Snowy Sheathbill. Apparently it was seen again on the 24th of July. We met a nice young lady who owns "Pro Dive", a scuba diving shop and tour company in PE. She is originally from Great Britain. She is very interesting to talk to and a world of information about the local area. She is also the only other person on the boat, besides us, that is not worried about getting splashed by the waves from the boat. Everybody else is huddled up in the cabin worried about getting wet and complaining about being cold. Not us, it is refreshing to us. Eventually we get really soaked and it is a bit much but we are dressed appropriately. The water part of the tour runs late and we eventually head back in. We eat lunch at one of the local restaurants. I don't think it is the one at the yacht club. I have the Hake and chips. It is tasty. We eat quick because we are running late for the land part of the trip.
After lunch, Alan takes us to Addo Elephant Park. He is working really hard to try to get as much in since we are short on time. We end up seeing elephants, lots of elephants, bulls, cows calves and they are close. We also see several species of plains game to include zebra, kudu and warthog. My favorite was the Cape buffalo. we saw several big bulls. They were most impressive. We end up staying in the park as late as possible. Alan worked really hard to try to get us to see as much as possible. Unfortunately no rhino, lion, leopard, hyena or cheetah were seen. The big predators stay hidden really well. We head back to the hotel after dark. Alan, along with Marion makes note that a large section of the streetlights on the highway are not working because the copper has been stolen out of them. Crime is really becoming an issue in SA. Corruption is rampant.
We get back to the hotel and decide to eat dinner at one of the other restaurants on the premises, "Ginger The Restaurant" It is quite nice. We have a trio of raw, carpaccio, crocodile, springbok and kudu as an appetizer. The crocodile has an earthly taste to it. I imagine what raw frog legs would taste like. The raw kudu and springbok are very good. Dinner is SA venison and tonight it is kudu. Wine and dessert are also consumed. ut, the highlight of the evening is the company. Remember Keller Williams? I was contacted shortly after visiting by an agent. She was not at the office but wanted to know if she could meet for a cup of coffee. Our schedule being tight, the only time we had was this dinner. We called her as soon as we got back from Addo and she was able to join us. It was an absolute delight to meet her. We all compared notes on life. She has a daughter the same age as ours. They are both in college. Hers is as a college in St. Louis, Missouri. The 5 year plan for the family is to leave SA and move to the US. She was a delightful person and I bet we talked for 3 hours. It was another highlight and we are now friends on Facebook. eventually we are off to bed because tomorrow is a long day.
July 23: Up and at it. Travel time. The next bed I sleep in will be my own but it is a long ways away. We take a shuttle from the hotel and get to the PE airport around 10:00am. It is a small airport and we get checked in. I am sent to pay for the extra handling fees for the guns. The lady that is taking my money for the guns tries to say I owe for extra weight for the baggage. This has already been paid for. We go back and forth until I pull up an email from SA Airlink and mention the person's name that said it was already done. Whomever that person was must be of some importance because the shakedown immediately stopped and everything was solved. Did I mention corruption was bad? We eventually load the plane. This one is a 737 and off we go. This ride is a bit rougher but we eventually arrive in Johannesburg around 2:30pm. Our Delta flight is not until 10:00pm that night.
The original plan was to go back to the Afton house for our layover but in looking at time and check in procedures, Mr X, remember him, decides we should just hang out at the airport. That sounds fine by us. We get all our luggage and they park us at a restaurant with our luggage carts. We order a couple of burgers, drinks, etc. and just hang out and people watch. I notice one of our bags is unlocked. I am certain it was locked when we checked it at PE. More on that later. The Delta gate opens at 5:00pm and we get our luggage checked in and then off to find a lounge. We hang out in the lounge, eat, nap and generally goof off. We are told to be at our gate at 8:30pm due to TSA check in searches. We arrive and they have a bunch of airport workers doing searches of us and our carry on bags. They are not very through but they do take the half consumed Coke from my wife. Their search techniques did not instill confidence. We eventually board and we are on our way.
We are both exhausted in the best possible way from running so hard on vacation. We fight to stay awake for dinner. Dinner is a steak and side items. It is good. I rack out after dinner. When I wake up and check the flight path on my monitor, we are about halfway over the Atlantic. I must have really racked out. I watch the movie 1917. The snack was a charcuterie board. Breakfast is a quiche and sausage. We make good time and land around 8:00 am Atlanta time on Sunday July 24, 2022. Back on American soil.
July 24: Unload in Atlanta. It is warm and muggy, swampy is the best description. There are people at the gate randomly checking people for their Covid vaccine. We don't even slow down or make eye contact. We go to baggage claim and I take my wife's carry on luggage. She goes to get a couple of carts. As I am putting the baggage down, a Home Land Security agent and a beagle sneak up on me. The dog is sniffing around the carry on baggage. I have been around drug dogs a fair bet so I am seeing if he alerts. I am not carrying anything but the dog will not move on. No alerts such as barking, pawing or sitting down but he continues sniffing. Eventually the agent asks if we have any food in the bag. My wife gets back and tells him yes. He asks if it is biltong. Yep, she bought a bunch at the airport to bring home. Apparently that is a NO NO. He takes her passport and says we will have to come see him when we claim our luggage. I tell him I have to get guns as well. He decides to just take the biltong and returns her passport to her. So much for our crime spree.......Guns get claimed. They want your hunting boots as well to decontaminate them. Make sure they are handy to dig out of your luggage or better yet, wear them as I did. They had no answer when I asked about all the other shoes on the tourists feet that were not being decontaminated, just the hunters............. Anyway, shuttle back to parking and then head towards home. Atlanta traffic was easy on this Sunday morning. We ate lunch at a Fuddruckers in SC. We get home about 2:00pm. We get the car unloaded and wife orders a pizza to be delivered to the house. In 26 years of living here we have never had any delivery food to the house. Hell, i did not know they would come out here. We eat and lay down for a nap at 5:00pm. Daughter gets home from work around 7:00pm..............I think. We slept right through it until 6:00am the next morning. Our daughter brought in the rest of the luggage which I had accidentally left on the porch. I never do that. She realized we must be exhausted so she let us sleep. We had our reunion the next morning.
Conclusion: This was a fabulous trip. Everyone has been calling it a trip of a lifetime, but I hope to have many other trips to various places so I am not calling it that. Richard, Marion and their staff were a delight and a pleasure to work with. They helped us navigate getting to and from SA and everything in between. The game was plentiful and wary. I am pleased with the quality of the game as well. I could not recommend them highly enough for a safari. They also made my wife's part of the trip pleasurable as well. She stayed in camp when I was hunting. She and Marion became friends. Marion explained the Karoo Cats Conservation Trust that they have and took her up at feeding time most days. She also let her be around when they gave the monkeys their morning snack. My wife really enjoyed just hanging out and watching the monkeys. Richard and Marion were wonderful hosts and were kind enough to answer all our numerous questions. Again, I could not recommend them any higher.
Couple of notes: If you are going to go as far as Africa, take the time to do and see everything you want to see. It takes so long to get there, do it all. This is the first vacation I have ever returned from that I said, "I did it all." I got the full Africa experience that I wanted. I have no desire to shoot a lion, leopard or Cape Buffalo. I shot all the plains game I wanted. I saw what I wanted to see. I left Africa feeling like I accomplished everything i wanted. For me, that is extremely rare. I could not do it better if I had to do it again.
If you can, use an American Express to buy your airline tickets. We did. Remember the unlocked bag we found in Johannesburg…… Well, my wife had put some of her camera accessories in that bag. When we were finally able to check the contents when we got home, all those accessories were gone. This was not bases, batteries or memory cards but a bunch of other things that I don’t know about. That is her hobby. We reported the loss to AMEX and they have already paid for the loss. Excellent service. I will use them again.
Make sure you know what you paid for. This was not an issue with anyone associated with Richard Holmes safaris. But, other people ie: airlines and SAPS will try to get you to pay for services you have already paid for. Corruption is bad. Document what you paid for and be prepared to stand up for yourself. They are looking at you as a dollar sign and an easy target. Don't be either.
Lastly, have fun, roll with it. You are in Africa hunting. Obviously, Life is good.
If you got this far, thanks for taking the time to read about my adventure. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
Thanks,
DR
