Our first night in our tents on the Kalahari was FRIGID and WINDY!  Remember, although very nice, we were still sleeping in tents and the outside temp was in the low 40’s with winds gusting 20 – 30 mph.  But comfort was our hosts’ primary concern so every bed had 4 “bush babies” under the covers (that’s what the locals call their fabric covered hot water bottles).

Every morning we started with a bush baby tucked on each seat of our Land Cruisers. This morning we were up before dawn to catch the meerkats, the highlight of the trip for our friend Ellen.  Only this morning the winds were blowing and the temperature was hovering around 40.  The goal is to find the meerkats and be in place when they first wake up to catch the morning sun, because soon after they start foraging for food.

On the way we still managed to spot an elephant and ostrich “proud.”

The camp pays a guide to stay with the meerkats each and every night so they can be located in the morning.  If they didn’t the meerkats could up and leave their current burrows at anytime and relocate for new foraging grounds which would be difficult to relocate.  So…we arrived as dawn was breaking and after a while the first meerkat sentry popped up his head…

Soon after, a 2nd joined to consult

Meerkats, being smarter than we were, quickly determined it was too friggin’ cold to come out and promptly disappeared back into their burrows to wait for the sun to warm things up.  Unknown to us, meerkats do not dig their own burrows, they use burrows dug by ground squirrels or mongoose in the area.  Meerkats only eat bugs & grubs while the squirrels eat tubers & plants and the mongoose famously eat snakes so they don’t compete for food and have a symbiotic relation as they are all on the lookout for eagles and other predators.

Our guides determined they were not coming out any time soon so they were off to prepare our breakfast while we waited.

After breakfast it was back to the meerkats to see if they would come out, and they did!  We could post about 100 photo of meerkats but below are some of our favorites.  Once the meerkats wake up they all leave the borrows and begin foraging for food, digging as they go.  Meerkats can range over several kilometers a day in their search for ants, bugs, scorpions and grubs.  We followed along for 100 yards as they started their search, eating as they went and at least one sentry always on the lookout.  They constantly chirped to each other in a very low tone as if to say, “here’s some lovely bugs.”

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The hornbills were very active

Then it was back to camp for a HOT shower (thank goodness) !

That evening we were off again to the salt pans. Along the way we spotted wildebeest and springbok

Then we arrived at the salt pan, a vast area covering over 6,200 square killometers.  We boarded ATVs and headed out to explore this alien landscape.

We drove for about 10 miles and stopped for some fun photos…

Tim jumped for joy as the sun was setting (actually I think I cleared 10”)

Then it was back on the ATVs for a chilly ride in the dark  back to our starting point to meet our Land Cruisers for the final ride back to camp.  On the walk back, Tim stopped for a photo of the stars, amazing what the iPhone can do.  That fuzzy cloud you see is the Milky Way

A beautiful way to end a beautiful (but cold) day.  Back to our beds and our warm bush babies.

Now, where was I…

For our intrepid readers wondering what happened to days 7, 8 & 9, fear not – you didn’t miss them yet.  Internet service at our last two camps was either limited or non-existent so  we have not posted those days yet.

Today we took a bush plane from our tents at Camp Kalahari to Muan, Botswana, about a 1:10 minute flight in a Cessna.  More on our adventures in the Kalahari in an upcoming post.  There we caught a jet to Cape Town, South Africa where we checked into the beautiful “One and Only” hotel, a 5 star international chain.  We’ll post some pics in our Day 11 post.

We settled in to our HEATED room, a big deal for us after the last 6 days in the bush.  Now we’ll have some luxurious showers and enjoy a good night’s sleep.

More to come.

Cape Town is a beautiful city reminiscent of Adelaide in Australia with a climate very similar to Vancouver.  Not too hot in summer and rainy winters.  We have been very fortunate on this trip with no rain as of yet but we understand the rains will start any day now, possibly tonight!  

Our morning dawned with brilliant sunshine and a view of Table Mountain from the lobby of the hotel.

We are told we are very fortunate as 40+% of the time the mountain is obscured in clouds or haze, so once again the travel gods have smiled on us. Table Mountain is a huge flat-top mountain that abuts Cape Town to the east.  The main city is between Table Mountain and the Atlantic.  The coastline  is very rocky with the occasional beach and very cold waters, again similar to Vancouver.

We boarded our bus for an early trip to the mountain which can get very busy on a beautiful day like today.  The top of the mountain is 3,500 feet high with a cable car that takes you to the top.

The cars are barely visible in the middle of this photo.  Here’s a closer look…

These cars are huge, easily holding 100 people and the floor slowly rotates to give everyone in the car a 360 degree view going up and down.  Here is another view from the top.

Table mountain offers breathtaking views of Cape Town and all of the surrounding area for miles

The top of the mountain is covered with hundreds) of varieties of protea, a type of flowering plant we had never heard of which resembles a combination of succulent, evergreen.  Protea are native to South Africa and grow all over the area in an endless variety, much like orchids.  Their flowering season was just beginning so we only caught a couple in bloom.  They come in every color, shape and size under the sun.

Basically all of the plants you see in the photo below are different varieties of protea while the shrubland is called fynbos.

We took in the views from the mountain and the many towns that surround Table Mountain in addition to Cape Town

Then we discovered these fellows clinging to the rocks surrounding the top of the mountain.

These are Rock Hyrax or “Dassies”.  Although they look somewhat like groundhogs, believe it or not, they are most closely related to elephants or manatees (mini land manatees!).

Then it was back down the mountain for a visit to the remains of District Six.  As I have many history nerds viewing this blog I’ll save you the trouble and link to the wiki page here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_Six

We met a docent Joseph Schaffers at the District Six museum, housed in a former Methodist church in the area.  Joseph lived in the district until he was 28 when he and 60,000 other residents of this thriving multi-cultural area were forced out during apartheid and all of their homes buldozed to make a whites-only area in 1966.  The story is both tragic and compelling.  

Apartheid in South Africa did not really begin in full force until 1948 when the National Party came into power.  This was a racist regime on a scale even worse than our own civil rights atrocities during the last century.  It continued until 1991 after Nelson Mandela was released from his nearly 30 years of imprisonment.  It is a chapter in Cape Town history that still lingers in the “townships” where blacks and colored persons were relocated during apartheid and its effects are still lingering today as Joseph explained.  

After this informative presentation we stopped by the area where the Arab and Indian peoples were relocated.  They fared better then the blacks and other colored people.  One characteristic was that the tended to live in multi family, multi generational units and combined what monies they had so they could afford to build better housing.  This area has become a colorful and popular area of the city.

We were returned to the beautiful One and Only for lunch on our own and shopping if desired.  Tim took to the bar to do some blogging 😉

That evening we set off for a beautiful “braai” (South African for a “barbi” or barbecue) at a local chef’s estate in the beautiful hills overlooking Hout Bay.

We were treated to a delicious meal hosted by the chef and his lovely wife along with a couple of assistants.

A wonderful meal to end another beautiful day in Cape Town.

This is our last full day in Africa.  We have seen some amazing sights during these past weeks and this morning we are being treated to a ride down the cape to the Cape of Good Hope – the southwestern most point in Africa.  For my map readers (I’m thinking of you Becca) here’s a reference…

This was our first cloudy day since arriving in Africa and we felt fortunate to have seen Table Mountain the day before as it was no longer visible from our hotel.  We boarded our bus for a ride down the coastal road into the Table Mountain National Forest.  This road hugs the coast passing several coastal town.  The road took the British 20 years to construct as much it is cut into the rock and your are hugging the side of the mountain

Along the way we passed the occasional baboon, ostrich  and even a wildebeest, although we were less than an hour outside the city.  The views were breathtaking, reminiscent of the coast highway in California or the roads into and surrounding Sydney.  This was the area Vasco da gama ”discovered” in 1488, although the indigenous people may beg to differ.   

There were thousands of birds present and even a ostrich who wandered into the scene.From there we headed out to the Cape of Good Hope lighthouse with spectacular views of the cape, and low and behold the sun started to come out.  There a funicular to take you up to the base of the lighthouse

From there it was a climb up rocky stairs to the light house itself, but the views were worth it.Eland, the largest antelope in South Africa

From there we headed up the other side of the cape to the village of Simon’s Town for lunch and a visit to the beach where the African Penguins hang out.The babies that have hatched are already as big as the parents in less than 30 days

Most of us could have spent hours watching them but, it was time to return to the city and civilization. On our way back we could see the storm clouds already falling over the back side of Table Mountain

The clouds were a harbinger of the winter rains to come so our timing was perfect, time to leave the cape, Africa and the trip of a lifetime.

As we write this we are waiting in the lounge of Qatar Airlines in Doha, Qatar to catch our flight back to Miami in the morning.  We hope you have enjoyed our postings and we look forward to seeing everyone soon.  It has been a wonderful trip.