looooooooooooooool



No need to worry, I'm still in South Africa, just south of Cape Town, gorging myself on calamari. Leaving in a few days for Namibia, then Botswana. Won't be heading into Zimbabwe for probably about six more weeks.

It sounds a remarkably quiet coup from reports here, with many Zimbabweans apparently thinking his time he'd outstayed his welcome anyway.

If the same military are still in power in six weeks with no trouble, I think you're good to go.

Be safe.

Been doing my Namibia research and here's what I'm thinking as far as post-Cape Town goes. Conceptualizing Cape Town to Victoria Falls as being broken into two segments:

1. 2WD. One Way. Capetown up the west side for Ais Ais, Fish River Canyon, Sossusvlei, Swakopmund, Skeleton Coast, Etosha, drop off car in Windhoek.

Place -> Place: (est segment drive time) (est cumulative drive time) (est days to transit)

Cape Town -> Ais-Ais, Namibia: 800km (2-3 days)
Ais Ais -> Aus: 333km (1133km) (2 days)
Aus -> Sossusvlei: 378km (1511km) (2 days)
Sossusvlei -> Swakopmund: 403km (1914km) (2 days)
Swakopmund -> Palmwag: 435km (2349km) (2 days)
Palmwag -> Okakuejo: 307km (2656km) (1 day)
Okakuejo -> Tsumeb: 247km (2903km) (3 days)
Tsumeb -> Windhoek: 432km (3335km) (1 day)



16 days driving, not counting additional days stopped. Not sure if those estimates are conservative enough, or if I should be padding them with more days? Outside of the major highways, I'm using 60km/hour and ballparking 200km/day (80km/hour & 400km/day for major highways).

Based on those estimates, 30 days seems like overkill and perhaps 21-22 days is a more reasonable estimate. Definitely want at least 21 days as that is where the car hire average daily rates drop significantly.




2a. 4WD. Loop. Windhoek thru Caprivi Strip, down into Chobe/Okavango/Maun, return vehicle in Windhoek. Fly to Vic Falls.

Windhoek -> Divundu 914km (3 days)
Divundu -> Kongola 201km (1115km) (2 days)
Kongola -> Ngoma 174km (1289km) (1 day)
Ngoma -> Mababe 205km (1494km) (1 day)
Mababe -> Maun 118km (1612km) (1 day)
Maun -> Windhoek 810km (2422km) (2-3 days)
(10-11 days not counting stop days)




2b. 4WD. One Way. Windhoek thru Caprivi Strip, down into Chobe/Okavango/Maun, loop back up thru Chobe, return vehicle at Kasane. Bus to Vic Falls.

Windhoek -> Maun 810km (2-3 days)
Maun -> Divundu 425km (1235km) (2 days)
Divundu -> Kongola 202km (1437km) (2 days)
Kongola -> Kasane 121km (1558km) (1 day)
Kasane -> Mababe 367km (1925km) (2 days)
Mababe -> Kasane 367km (2182km) (2 days)
(11-12 days not counting stop days)



Guessing those estimates are probably a little too aggressive and need to have a couple of days of padding added in. Even with adding 2-3 more days to bump the ranges up to 12-15, that still seems like it can comfortably accommodate an 18-21 day car hire after adding in another 6 days for stops.

Was leaning toward the 2a option over 2b, but not strongly. Now leaning toward the one way, as those into/out of Windhoek segments look brutal.

Chop,

What kind of pants do you wear? Doing something like this next year and am trying to narrow down my pants selection.

fu - I use Columbia Men's Silver Ridge Convertible Pant. You'll find them easily on Amazon. They are the ones with 3200 reviews and an average 4.5/5 star rating. Go read the reviews for more details, but they are an elite level pant for any kind of extended travel. Worth every penny. They are made of nylon instead of polyester, which is really nice for non-stinkiness.

Many sporting goods stores will have them if you want to go try them on first. Ask for an Amazon price match.

From Oribi Gorge which is just outside of Port Shepstone, it was time to hit the coast in earnest. The plan was to head down to Port St Johns, which was supposed to be some bonkers scenery. And indeed it was fairly bonkers. Lots of cliffs right up to the ocean, and a little village at the base. Was planning on staying there a couple of nights until I noticed that the place was pretty trashed, literally:





all of the streets were like this, some much worse. Not sure what was going on, but decided that the lolgarbage everywhere along with this:



meant I was probably better off heading to a larger town elsewhere. The bubble almost certainly came from hitting one of a zillion potholes that covered most of the Wild Coast area. Did a great job dodging them overall but it only takes one. The bubble wasn't too horrible so I headed to the nearest decent sized town, Mthatha, and overpaid for a janky hotel just outside of the CBD.

The dude running the place lectured me pretty extensively about the evils of USA#1 imperialism and it's not like I could really disagree with anything he said so I just nodded for most of the conversation. He decided I wasn't so evil even for being an American and gave me a recommendation for where to get a new tire the next day. Never found the place and went to some random chain instead but appreciated the effort.

Not for any related reason to the above, but entirely due to the order that imgur has my photos, here's an outlet in South Africa:



they do the thing where you switch the outlets on/off like some other countries do. That visible red dot means it's turned on.

So yeah, segue over. It was back to the coastline after Mthatha, stopping at farm stalls along the way to pick up some sweet finds like this fresh ginger beer:



and yes, I'm hoping that dark blob in the bottom was a piece of ginger. Granny better not have done me wrong. Then on to a little east of Port Elizabeth to check out Addo Elephant Park. Stayed just outside of the southern entrance at a little B&B run by some old school boeres. They had lots of animal hides everywhere which they had tanned themselves after killing the animal. I felt a little bad when I accidentally stepped on this one's tail:



that's a springbok, btw. Or was, I guess.

So yeah, on to Addo:



my favorite thing about Addo, as dumb as this is going to sound, is that there were lots of kill remains everywhere. Saw very little of that in Kruger, perhaps because of greater hyena presence? No clue. Regardless, there was a lot of this kind of thing:



sent thoughts and prayers, obviously.

and given the name of the park, wasn't surprised when there were lolelephants literally everywhere, and none of them cared about any of the cars:



that one just sat there eating and blocking the road for a good ten minutes.

You had to drive slow because you'd be driving along and then just out of nowhere here come some elephants to cross the road:



and obv you need to give them right-of-way because this sign is not for jokes:



they are srs.

Very good TRs.

Now I know you're probably thinking "lolchop what a coward those elephants aren't even close why you crying son" but that was only the appetizer. Here's the main course:



That's right. He was just moving at a casual elephant stroll but it felt much, much faster. I guess he takes pretty big steps.

I parked the car a good 30 meters away from this dude. I guess that made him curious because he came right on over to see wtf I was doing in his house. His trunk was so close I could have easily reached out and touched the tip. Yeah, I'm dumb enough to have left the window down. Instead of making contact I decided I'd rather still be alive to write this up later and I just froze like an ice cube. He gave me a couple of sniffs, then looked like he was making a decision whether or not to stomp tiny car into the dust. Good news for me, he decided to live and let live, and a few moments later ignored me and continued on his way:



neither of those photos are zoomed in any way. They are actually stills from a video I took which is pretty sweet, not gonna lie.

So yeah. I decided to celebrate still being alive in Jeffrey's Bay along the coastline. Went with the most expensive item on the menu, something something African Meats Plate:



O = ostrich
K = kudu
? = beef

I kept the kudu flag, it's still in my wallet as I type this.

Jeffrey's Bay was pretty sweet, I was the only one who had booked when I arrived, so they bumped my $34USD room up to a much nicer one with this sick view:



and yeah, breakfast was included, which I ate here:



these were my keys:



which are surprisingly common here. At first I loled when someone handed me one of those but they do in fact use them, pretty much everywhere. I felt like I was in some old disney cartoon with my huge 2 tooth key but ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

<3 for the pictures. really, a great adventure all around.

Thank you.

Continued on along the coast from Jeffrey's, entering the famous Garden Route area. I tried to mostly stay off the major N2 highway and instead on little byways next to it. That didn't save me from the endless:



but it was certainly more scenic.

Decided to stop off at Storm River and camp there for the night. There are worse views than the one from this bench:



if you feel like taking a moment to stop and relax.

Checked out the local wildlife:



which is a little smaller as you get closer to Cape Town.

As well as giving the suspension bridges a stroll:



but they ain't got **** on Oribi I tell you what.

Set up camp pretty much right on the breakwater:



and was pleased to only have one other tent nearby and most of the campground to myself:



despite the park being super crowded during the day, it emptied out at closing and it was nice to be put to sleep with the sounds of the waves crashing on the breakwater a few meters away.

Continued on the next day to a place named Nature's Valley, which has nothing to do with the granola bars as near as I can tell. Saw this big blob of what I assume was a monster jellyfish of some kind:



it was getting eaten by all those little snails. I felt bad for them because they were having a tough time chowing down, so I got a stick and like any standard 4-year-old would do, poked at the blob a bunch of times until it started coming apart. Those snails moved a LOT faster than you'd think a snail could move when the feast started coming to them.

The beach there was pretty sweet as well:



I think I saw 2 other people total in the 90 minutes or so I spent jabbing the dead jellyfish.

jab jab.

that bench is the kind of spot that I’d love to have some crazy african weed for, but even sober I eventually would get lost in thought thinking about who else has sat in/around this same spot over the last 50,000 years thinking the same things that I’m thinking...just beautiful.

also, the view behind the first pic of “thanks for not stomping my mini car” elephant is mind blowing. just how big the sky is and how far the horizon looks...basically exactly how I assume africa looks.

Next up was Knysna, where there is an elephant orphanage. They take elephants who can't survive in the wild (usually calves who were abandoned) and raise them there. They call it a park, but really it's more of a sanctuary. The elephants are allowed to walk around doing whatever they want, and they are very used to people. You can buy little baskets of fruit to feed them by hand:



which is pretty fun. As soon as your basket is empty they just ignore you. They tolerate being petted and seem to like having their ears scratched. Pretty funny when an elephant starts leaning into you to get a better scratch until you are like wait that's an elephant don't squash me bro. But mostly they just ignore you, no matter how close you get:



Kept on along the coast after that to George, then inland a bit to Oudtshoorn, which is the ostrich capital of South Africa. Pretty much the entire town's economy is based on ostriches, and farms are everywhere. The ostriches mostly just kind of sit there with their mouths hanging open:



but occasionally they will do this little walk of pure evil with their heads stooped over. Not sure how to describe it other than ****ing spooky as ****. They just look flat out nefarious when they do that ****. It's like a horror movie.

So yeah I didn't feel guilty in the slightest when I found this place:



and smashed some ostrich babootie, which is kind of like a meatloaf with an egg crust cooked on top. fu ostriches!

The ostrich meal place also had peacocks just kind of wandering around:



and they had no problem just jumping up on the tables and seeing what you were up to:



I gave this one:



a few grains of rice and a couple of carrot slices.



OK, maybe some beans, too.

The reason I was up there wasn't for ostriches, tho. The plan was to drive the Swartberg Pass, which ended up being partially closed, but I made it up to the top after taking tiny car off the asphalt:



and up the twisties:



to the summit, which I don't seem to have my panorama photo for some reason.

Wait! Just found it! The things I do for you guys. A quick resizing and..



yeah that was a pretty sick view

Hiked around a bit and climbed to the top of the second highest peak to take that one. I think it was the second highest. OK, I know it wasn't. Probably more like 4th.

The drive back down to the coast ended up being not such a sick view:



you'd think people would drive slower in that, but lolno welcome to Africa. Saw so many near misses with people almost knocking each other off the mountain.

After another night in George, it was on to Mossel Bay. I had planned to shark dive in Gansbaai, but had read that the orcas were killing the great whites there and that the sharks had ran away. Next best option was Mossel, so that's where I headed.

The experience was a lot less expensive than I was expecting. Only about $125USD. You get on a little catamaran with about a dozen people and a few staff, and they take you out to Seal Island:



which as you can see is very close to the town itself. It's like 1km from the nearest beach. It's also where the great whites hang out and chow down on the seal buffet.

The cage itself is attached to the side of the boat:



and the way things work is that you put on a wetsuit, hop in the cage, then wait for the sharks to show up while the staff chum the water with fish mush. The staff take large tuna heads, tie them to rope, and toss them out into the water, then drag them past the cage. They do a pretty good job at this, and it results in the sharks swimming right past the cage, close enough to touch (which you are not allowed to do, obv) if you are a moron.

Six people fit in the cage, and here's what it looks like when you are inside:



You wear a wetsuit and a mask, but no snorkel or anything else. When the sharks come by, you are supposed to drop down and look at them under the water, but the views are much better if you keep your head above the water, because the sharks are usually half out of water trying to eat the tuna head which is floating on by:




That's not to say you can't get some sweet underwater views:



but you sure ain't seeing this when you're under:



nor this:



though you could get a good look that that one's tail when he did that. I had one do that when I was positioned all the way to the right edge of the cage, and the shark's body was banging against the cage next to me. Took all my willpower not to reach out and touch it, but man oh man did I want to.

There were only 12 of us that wanted to go in the cage (16 total tourists were on board but two changed their minds when they saw the sharks and the other two were just there for above water photos), so that meant that with a six person capacity in the cage, we were all able to spend a lot of time in the water. I think we saw 5-6 different sharks total. A couple were small, about 2 meters, and a couple were about 3 meters. One was 4 meters, which is pretty big for a great white. That's the one that was banging into the cage when I was on the edge and that I barely stopped myself from touching. Probably for the best as I'm pretty sure I would have been a single bite meal for him.

OK I've spent way too much time doing these updates today when I should be doing Namibia prep stuff. I set up the car hire to start on Wednesday afternoon and have a ton to do before then so I'm going to cut it off here for now.

Ended up doing a 24 day car hire Cape Town -> Cape Town instead of CT -> Windhoek because it's actually a fair amount cheaper to just come back to CT and then fly back to W from here and get a 4x4 do to the loop around the Caprivi Strip / Chobe / ODelta than it is to do a one way car hire from CT -> W. Also get to see more of the Kalahari this way.


glad to see you guys are still enjoying the updates, I'll keep at it as long as there is interest.

Link to yootube video?

With sharks thing would give me so nightmares. No way I would do it voluntarily.

I wonder how do you manage all formal stuff? I mean you need visa and so for every country you enter. And I am pretty sure authorities are not inclined to make it easy for USA citizens. For example now with Namibia... Have you applied for a visa long beforehand from USA? I mean you need then also to adjust your schedule if you have a visa for certain period of time.

Updates are great, Chopstick.

Enjoying this adult story time as everything unfolds.

There's an ostrich "ranch" in AZ next to the freeway. Never stopped there and now I don't want to ever.

Heh, we had friends of the family that used to keep peacocks in their backyard. They were big effers too, like turkey sized. Did any of those do their NBC network thing and show you some tail?

I don't know if you've ever touched a shark's skin, but it's not normal scales. Going front to back it seems very slick and streamlined, I guess to make them fast in the water. Going "against the grain" it's nasty sharp. If one flips it's tail the right way, and they are all cartilage, no bone, and super flexible, it can lay you open easy as a Bowie knife could.

If their skin is anything like that of a sand shark I want nothing to do with them. Those damn things trash my nets when I accidentally catch them.

chop,

Insane!

Amazing updates!

This picture:

Made me think of this:



I would have been absolutely terrified in that guy's place.

chopstick,

Thanks again for the stories and pictures. Awesome photos, great, interesting and concise writing.

Like 27offsuit, the whole time I'm thinking of the great scenes from Jaws.

Once you're up to Namibia, Chobe is really nice. Lots of animals both in and out of the water.

Also Victoria Falls is very impressive. Worth seeing, though I'm not sure with the current political situation in Zimbabwe if it's safe to go.

I think I remember there being a crossover from Botswana to Zambia just before the border (Kasane?), so maybe that end-run up to Livingstone is an option if you're interested.