Travel

Itinerary Day 0. June 10. Saturday. Flight to Cape Town Day 1. June 11. Sunday. Arrived at Cape Town. Checked in at the President Hotel (4 nights) Day 2. June 12. Monday. Cape Town Orientation Tour .  Day 3. June 13. Tuesday.  Cape peninsula tour Day 4. June 14. Wednesday.  Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens Day  5.  June 15. Thursday. Flight to Hoedspruit via Airlink. Checked in at Sausage Tree Safari Lodge (3 nights) Day  6.  June 16. Friday. Safari day Day  7.  June 17. Saturday. Safari day Day  8.  June 18. Sunday. Checked out after morning game drive. Checked in at Loerie Guest House (2 nights). Went to Blue Mountain Restaurant. Day  9.  June 19. Monday. Panoramic Route tour. Day  10.  June 20. Flew to Johannesburg via Airlink. Then flew home. What could be changed in the itinerary In hindsight, I could have arranged Day 8 to land on a weekday, so that I could visit Moholoholo Wildlife Reha...

We ate leftover breakfast food from yesterday. Then we checked out of the hotel. I had previously booked an airport transfer with Sable Tours. The driver dropped us off at Hoedspruit airport. Our flight was 12:05 to Johannesburg with Airlink airlines. For such a short flight, they again served complimentary drinks including wine and lunch (beef sandwich).  We spent the rest of the day at Johannesburg airport. We had dinner at an airport restaurant before our 8pm flight to New York. It was a long 16 hour flight to New York. We arrived at around 5am. Then we departed at 8:20am and flew another 6 hours to San Francisco. Ethan picked us up. 

I ordered box breakfast from Loerie Guest House the night before. In the morning, we got the food. It was so much food that Claire and I only ate less than half of it, and we put the rest in the fridge.   Sausage Tree Safari had a promotion of staying three nights to get a free Panoramic Route tour. I saw the promotion a few months after I booked the trip, but they were kind enough to give us the promotion. The tour started at 8am. It was with Buya Buya Tour and our driver turned out to be Patrick again. When we went outside of the hotel at 8, he was already waiting for us. He said that he hitchhiked to work at 5am in order to be there on time. Our first stop was Three Rondavels. The three peaks were named after the three wives of a chief who won a war. There were lots of gift stands at the view points. This was true for all later places. Prices were very negotiable.   The same spot also has a view of the Blyde River Canyon. Patrick said that this is the world's larg...

Claire decided to sleep instead of going for the morning game drive, so we went without her. Jimmy and Themba tried to track a leopard, but we did not see it. A car ahead of us said that they saw it jumped into a private land where we could not enter. We saw lions, rhinos, elephants, zebras. After breakfast, we checked out of the lodge. The lodge had arranged Buya Buya Travel & Tours to take us to our next hotel, Loerie Guest House. Loerie Guest House was an ok place to stay. We originally planned to spend the afternoon visiting Hoedspruit town. The town is really small and not much to see. T he lodge owners and others suggested Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre as a good place to visit. However, they are closed on weekends so we could not visit today.  T he safari lodge owners connected us with Andre, the owner of the Blue Mountain  Restaurant. He and his wife Cheryl took us to the restaurant. It was a very scenic place with delicious food. I took a photo fro...

In the morning game drive, we saw the lion pride again.  It looked like they did not have any success hunting last night because they did not have any blood stain on them.  We saw three black rhinos very closely: Dina, her baby son, and her adult daughter.  Dina's daughter already lives independently and only meets with Dina occasionally.   Themba and Jimmy showed us that the rangers clip the ears of each rhino so that they can recognize them. Dina's son is still a baby, so later he will have his ears clipped and his horn shaved. We drove to  Olifants River and saw hippos. They were shy, so by the time I got my cell phone camera ready, they were already hiding in the water, and I was only able to catch a picture of the top of their heads. In one minute, they disappeared completely in the water. On the way back, we saw an elephant, busy eating as always. We also saw giraffes and zebras and some antelope that I forgot the names.    Afternoon game drive w...

I had the best sleep at night. Around 6am while it was still dark, we got up for our morning game drive. We put on our winter jackets, had some coffee, and started our game drive.  Birds Themba and Jimmy showed us several birds. There was a grey go-away bird that was making the sound "away, away".  There was a red-crested Korhaan, also known as suicide bird. In an attempt to attract female, a male suicide bird will fly high up to the sky, fold his wings to free fall, and open up its wings to break the fall and land right before it hits the ground. That's why it is called suicide bird. If the stunt gets the attention of a female, then the male bird will dance around her to keep wooing her. I asked Themba whether he had ever seen a suicide bird miscalculated in the free fall, he said once he saw a bird hit a tree branch.   Lions We saw four female lions resting. Themba and Jimmy said that they were the same pride we saw yesterday. There was some blood on their paws, so...

After we had our breakfast buffet in the morning, Hank picked us up from the hotel and took us to the airport. We flew from Cape Town to Hoedspruit on an AirLink flight. During the short 2.5-hour flight, we were offered free wine and free lunch (a very good beef sandwich) - what a pleasant surprise!   Hoedspruit airport is so small that instead of a conveyer belt, there were employees bringing baggage to the baggage claim area. I had arranged with Sausage Tree Safari Camp for the airport transfer. Our driver, Patrick, was holding a sign waiting for us when we arrived.   On the way to Sausage Tree Safari Camp, Patrick told us that he used to be a wildlife ranger. We saw several groups of impalas and Patrick told us some fun facts about these animals. Male impalas have antlers while females do not. Females live together. Male impalas will fight each other. Only one winner will get to live with the group of female impalas. The other male impalas will live toge...

Claire and I slept through the night. After breakfast, we took a Uber ride and went to Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens today. One tip: there was no free map of the gardens. I asked around and got the map which cost 10 rand at the ticket office.  The garden is huge so we visited only a small part of it. The landscape was very beautiful even though it was winter. There were places where it was very fragrant with some nice herbal smell in the air.  New things I learned The water was tea colored because it was stained by tree tannin. The water is PH 4! There was a place called Colonel Bird's Bath, which was a pool built by Colonel Bird in 1811 to collect spring water for his house. I had mistakenly thought that it was bird bath. Plants that dinosaurs saw Lunch Claire had a chicken wrap and strawberry milkshake at the Moyo restaurant. I got cappuccino. Everything was great. Canopy Walkway Dinner Claire got mojito mocktail, spinach ravioli, crepes. I got hazelnut espresso cockta...