Zanzibar and White River

Our alarm went off at 3:30am. A truly ungodly hour, yet we had to get up. We had a driver coming to pick us up at 4:15am to take us to the airport, yet again. This time we were off to Zanzibar! Although we were both exhausted, thanks to the unhuman wake up hour, we were also extremely excited. This was something totally new for both of us. Both Harrison and I have never been out of South Africa, and gone into the northern parts of Africa. It was going to be a culture shock for both of us! After (about) a four hour flight we touched down at Zanzibar international airport. We stepped off the plane, and slammed into a wall of heat and humidity. By the time we made it into the airport I was drenched in sweat! The airport was really tiny. We all filed in to get our passports stamped and collect our bags. The airport is so small that they don’t even have baggage carousels, the staff just unloaded your bags by hand and put them in a room for you to come and collect. When we left the airport go meet the shuttle that would take us to our hotel, about 20 different airport staff pounced on us asking to carry our bags and help us. They basically insist, so we reluctantly accepted and walked very close to the guy carrying the bag, keeping a close eye on our bag. Luckily he actually did just want to take the bag to the shuttle, but then promptly asked for a tip. That was the first experience with very pushy people trying to make money. Fortunately our shuttle had air con, as it was quite a long trip to our hotel. We stayed at the Paradise Beach Resort. It was really beautiful! We were greeted with a cold glass of hibiscus juice, which we had never tried before. It was good! We checked in and took our bags to our room. The room was so cute. We had a four poster bed, which had mosquito nets draping off it. 

There were flowers and flowers petals on the bed, it was adorable. And the best thing, it had air conditioning! We left our bags in the room and made our way to lunch. For meals at the hotel, there was a big buffet. They had food for you to dish up yourself, and then food that they could cook for you how you wanted it. For lunch they had pasta, fried rice, and fish on the grill, salads, soups, fruit, vegies and dessert. The food was always delicious. We were both totally exhausted from the early start and the day of travel, so we had a nap in the air con. Once refreshed we got up and made use of the pool bar! We got a drink and sat by the pool, and then wandered around exploring for a bit. 

That night for dinner they had a traditional Swahili dinner. I think it was my favourite dinner that we had! There were all sorts of traditional food to try.     

The next day was spent relaxing. We had breakfast, and sat by the pool, went swimming, had lunch, went to the bar, sat by the pool, sat by the beach, had dinner. There was a lot of eating during those 4 days. One of my favourite parts of the hotel was the bar that was out on the water. There was a pier out to a little open thatch roofed building, where there was a bar and comfy chairs.

It was a great spot to watch the sunset. 

After dinner some of the staff put on a traditional dance show which was really cool to watch! Zanzibar is a malaria area, which was a bit scary for me. But we put on mosquito repellent religiously, and didn’t seem to get bitten at all. The next day, we booked to go on a walking tour of the old town, called Stone Town. I was particularly excited to see the town. We were the only ones going on the tour that day, and it was a bit scary getting into a taxi with a man that doesn’t speak good English, you don’t know where you are going and the roads are totally chaotic. We just had to hope that he was actually taking us into the town, and not off into the forest somewhere to murder us, or that we didn’t die on the roads. Our worries were unnecessary, and we arrived unharmed in Stone Town. Our guide first took us to the place were salves were bought and sold in Zanzibar. He took us into the basement of the building and showed us where they were made to live. It was horrific to see. The rooms they lived in were tiny and smelly. The next stop on the tour was my favourite. We stopped at the local markets. First we saw the fish market. 

I didn’t really enjoy this one. It was gross! It smelt of death. They had the fish on these concrete slabs in a medium sized room. There was no ice to keep them cool, and most of them were covered in flies. It was yuck, but it was an experience! I have never seen anything like it! Next we moved onto the fruit market. There were rows upon rows of stalls of all sorts of different fruit! Fruit I had never even heard of! It was incredible! 

Next was the spice market. The spice and fruit markets were set up together under a series of tarps. The stalls were made of cardboard and tin. Our guide took us to one spice stall and we were able to smell all the spices local to the area. 

They smelled so amazing, I just wanted to buy them all. It was very dark and dirty in this part of the market, and it was packed with people. But I just loved it. It was something I had never experienced in my life, but to these people it was an everyday thing. I felt that there was so much energy in the little space of market. There were so many new smells and sounds. It was incredible. 

After the markets the guide took us through the streets of Stone Town. They were absolutely tiny and filthy, but they had such character. He showed us the elaborately decorated doors that Zanzibar is so well known for. We learnt that the doors with circular tops were Indian doors, and the square ones were Arabic. 

We spent a long time just wandering around the streets. Thank goodness we had a guide with us, otherwise we would have gotten totally lost! We walked down to the waterfront, which had incredible blue waters.

We also got to see the house that Freddie Mercury from Queen, grew up in! 

We had walked for a few hours and it was extremely hot, so although I wanted to see more of the town, the end of the tour came as a relief. I also loved driving through Zanzibar to get to the hotel. It was so fascinating to watch the local people get on with their everyday lives, and see the mud houses and children playing in the streets. It is just so vastly different to anything I am used to, or have experienced before. I loved it.

The beach at our hotel was a little disappointing. It was a tidal beach, which meant that every day it went out in the morning and didn’t come back until late afternoon. And when there was no water it was just thick, smelly mud. So we had hoped to lounge by the beach, but during the day you really couldn’t do that because it was too smelly, and there was no water. Even when the water was there, it wasn’t very appealing. However, that didn’t really matter! There was an awesome pool, and we still had an amazing time! The next day was once again just spent relaxing. There were two adorable little monkeys living at the hotel, that were tame and people were allowed to touch! They were so cheeky!

Zanzibar is definitely somewhere I would love to go back to when we have some more money. There is just so much we didn’t get the opportunity to see because we couldn’t afford it, or we couldn’t get to it. It is such an interesting and beautiful country. Too quickly, the time came for us to leave. We made our way back to the airport, and were very impressed with how quick we got through check in and security. For such a small airport, they are very well organised with check ins and whatnot. The flight back was slightly shorter than the flight there, and we made it back to Joburg safe and sound. We went out for drinks that night with Lyndsay at a place called Hell’s Kitchen. It was a really cool place! There were lots of people and it had a buzzing vibe.

Harrison, Lyndsay and I have seem to come down with a stomach bug! The two days after getting back from Zanzibar we were all quite ill. It was not fun! Luckily we are on the mend, but not quite 100%.

On Tuesday, Harrison and I were woken up to be told that Alyson’s dog Rosie, had had what they thought was a stroke. We had to get up and say our goodbyes, because they thought they were going to have to put her down. It was so sad. Rosie was such a sweet, old dog. But she was very old, and so being put to sleep was probably the best thing for her. She was in a lot of pain with arthritis, and it looked like she had indeed had a stroke. It was her time to go. We had only known her for a few months, and it was still so sad to see her go, so I can’t imagine how sad it would have been for my family. But she is in a better place now, and not hurting anymore.

Later that day, Harrison and I got on a shuttle to a place called White River, which is where my grandpa lives! I was so excited to see him! We got there during the evening and had dinner with my papa. My papa loves the guitar, and has an electric guitar at his house. Harrison was super happy about this, as he also loves guitar and hasn’t had the opportunity to play since we left! So within the first hour of being there, the guitar had been pulled out and he was strumming away happily. 

It was very cute. Our first proper day with him was yesterday, and we went on a drive called the panorama route. It is a beautiful drive through the mountains with lots of things to stop and see along the way. First we stopped at Mac Mac pools, where natural pools have formed in the rocks. It was beautiful! I just wanted to jump into the pools, they looked so inviting! And we would have, but we hadn’t thought to bring costumes, and it was quite cold. The next stop was just up the road, Mac Mac Falls. As the name suggests, it is a very large waterfall. On the walk to the waterfall we found a little kitten in the bushes! It was so cute, and just wanted to be patted. We think it must have belong to one of the ladies running stalls at the start of the walk. We finally made it to the waterfall, and it was incredible! It was huge and very powerful. The stream of water coming off the falls and hitting the water below created a rainbow of colours in the mist coming off. It was so beautiful. We jumped back into the car and had a bit of a further drive, to a place called God’s Window. It is a viewpoint on top of a mountain with absolutely incredible views of the valleys. Everything in this area is so green, it is so beautiful. We looked around at some of the art and kitschy stalls around there and then headed off again.

The next stop was lunch! We stopped at a place called Harrie’s Pancakes, which is a famous pancake restaurant. They had all sorts of different pancake flavours, it was amazing! Harrison ordered a pancake filled with milktart, my papa had one filled with bacon and cheese, and I had one filled with chocolate chips, banana and peanut butter! They were so delicious. 

Possibly the best pancakes I’ve eaten. Papa also ordered a pancake filled with lemon meringue which was delicious as well. After lunch we looked at the shops around the restaurant and then headed home. Today we went to a place called Nelspruit. We went to a shopping centre there to look around, and papa needed a haircut. We had been in there all of 20 minutes, when they started evacuating everyone for a security drill! Poor papa had to stop halfway through a haircut! It was very annoying. They said that the drill would go on for up to an hour, so we just left the centre. We also went to visit one of my dad’s cousins. He wasn’t actually there but we got to meet his wife who is a very good artist. We chatted and got to see some of her art and her studio. It was nice! We had lunch at a pub and grill at Nelspruit. I had calamari and chips. It wasn’t very nice. We spent the rest of the day at home, me personally writing my blog posts. Tomorrow we are going into the Kruger National Park! Both Harrison and I are very excited! Hopefully we see lots of animals!     

Cape Town

The last time I wrote Harrison and I were about to go on a horse ride in Saldanha Bay, through the nature reserve and along the beach. Again, I have been really bad with writing and that was about a month ago. But I will start from there and let you know what we have been up to! We set out in the morning to the equestrian centre at the Saldanha Bay military base. The lady who was to take us out on our ride was named Zelda (much to Harrison’s amusement) and she was a lovely lady. We were shown our horses, mine was named Joy and I don’t remember what Harrison’s horses name was. As I am quite a short person, I needed a boost up onto my horse; which proved to be horrifically embarrassing for me and hilarious for everyone else, as I had real issues getting onto the back of this horse. But once I finally managed to get a top of the horse and Harrison had easily mounted his, we set off. First off we rode out to the nature reserve that is on the military base. It was very beautiful, riding through the wilderness. We saw loads of different birds, a snake, loads of caterpillars and even a small buck. It was beautiful to ride amongst the mountains and grasses, and feel the sunshine warm our faces. We rode about half an hour into the park before turning back. Once exiting the reserve we made our way onto an idyllic beach. The waters were crystal clear, and bright blue and the sand was a beautiful white. 

We were the only ones on the beach, and it was incredibly peaceful. We rode our horses through the water, waves splashing up their legs. My horse loved the water, but Harrison’s was a bit scared. We saw a seal playing in the shallows, and many more birds flying around and landing on the water. We rode along the beach, and then up along a pathway that followed the beach for some time. Eventually we made our way back to the stables. In total it was a two hour ride, and it was absolutely beautiful. I loved every second of it, and wished we could have gone for longer (although my butt was grateful to get off the horse). After the ride we had a light lunch at a small café, and then headed back to our holiday home for the rest of the afternoon. The next day we left Saldanha Bay and headed back to Geoff and Wendy’s house. We were there for two more days. On the 3^rd Wendy took Harrison and I to Kalk Bay, which is a little harbour close to their house. We were lucky enough to see three seals out of the water and playing on the docks!

One was the biggest seal I had ever seen, and he had gotten into the place where the fishermen gut their fish. He had found a disregarded fish and was going to town on the thing. I never knew that seals were so violent when they ate! He would get the fish in his mouth and whip his head viciously from side to side, until a chunk of fish flew off. It was very fascinating to watch. 

On the other side of the docks we saw more seals playing and swimming around in the water. It was really cool! After Kalk Bay we had a quick stop at Muizenburg Beach to look around and take some photos, and then we headed home.

On the 5^th it was time for us to leave Geoff and Wendy to stay with my uncle and aunty, Robin and Jenni. They live closer to the centre of Cape Town, in a suburb called Woodstock. On our first day with them, Harrison and I wandered around the city centre. We walked down a street called Long St, which is apparently the most popular street in Cape Town. It is filled with little cafes and bars, and quirky shops and vendors. We meandered in and out of shops, and stopped for lunch at a Cuban restaurant, which was really good. We also visited the Company’s Gardens, which is a beautiful large garden in the middle of Cape Town. There are lots of fountains and it is a lovely place to go and relax in the sun. 

We stopped in at the café in the gardens and had a milkshake and a slice of delicious cheesecake. That night Jenni took us for a walk along the promenade which is a walkway along the water. It was very beautiful, and so full of life.

For dinner that night we went to an Indian restaurant which was really yum! The next day, we booked tickets on the Red Bus. This is the same bus that we took through Johannesburg that shows you all the major sights. The first stop that we got off at was Table Mountain! We arrived at the foot of the mountain, and were greeted with such a long queue! Luckily we had already purchased tickets online, so our line moved a bit quicker. However we still waited in line for about an hour before we got into the cable car. I wouldn’t want to think about how long we would have had to wait if we hadn’t pre booked tickets! The cable car ride up Table Mountain is really cool. You get into this huge cable car, and the floor rotates so you get the opportunity to see every angle whilst going up. It was great for photos, but it made me feel a bit motion sick! Once you get to the top of the mountain, you wonder where all the people from the line have gone! Everyone is so spread out, that you really don’t feel like there are that many people up there. We were very lucky, and had a brilliant day for going up the mountain. There was hardly any wind, so it was actually pretty warm up the top, and the skies were a beautiful blue and clear enough for us to see for miles.

We had packed a small picnic breakfast, so we found a spot and ate our breakfast with the most incredible view. We spent quite a while up the mountain just wandering around and taking in the beauty of our surroundings. 

When we came down from the mountain the queue was even longer!

The next stop we got off at was Camps Bay. Camps Bay is a beautiful beach, with lots of trendy restaurants and shops. It was about lunch time so we picked a nice looking seafood restaurant and had lunch looking over the beach. I had prawns and calamari, and Harrison had fish and chips. It was really delicious! 

After lunch we wandered down the beach for a bit, then hopped back onto the bus. 

The drive out of Camps Bay was absolutely stunning! We got a beautiful view of the Camps Bay beach and all the others beaches around it. 

We passed through the most expensive place in Cape Town, and the houses were amazing. We stopped next at the V&A Waterfront. Our bus ticket entitled us to a 30 minute harbour cruise, which we decided to hop on while we were there. The cruise was quite nice, it just stayed in the harbour and we learnt some more about the history of Cape Town. We also saw more seals! Whilst on the cruise Harrison realised that he had left his jacket at the restaurant we had lunch in! He was so upset. It had been two hours since we had eaten lunch, so we doubted the jacket would still be there. However we decided to give it a go anyway, and rushed back to Camps Bay. We spoke to one of the waiters with little hope in our hearts, and to our amazement he said to wait there; and he went into the back of the restaurant and came out carrying Harrison’s jacket! He was ecstatic to have it back. That night for dinner we got some pizzas takeaway, and went and sat on Clifton Beach with Jenni. We ate pizza and watched the sunset over the water. It was such a beautiful night. 

Once finished with dinner we drove to the airport to pick up my uncle who had been in Joburg for work.

We had purchased a two day bus ticket, so the next day we were back on the bus. As we hadn’t really had the opportunity to see the waterfront the previous day, we stopped there first. I love the V&A waterfront. It has such a vibrant, buzzing vibe. There are so many people wandering around and so many different types of shops and restaurants. It was really awesome. 

We wandered around the waterfront for a while, and then had some lunch at the food court in the mall that is there. Once we had finished exploring, we got back on the bus and made for Long St. We hopped off and went to a place called Greenmarket Square. It is where people used to sell food in the old days, but is now used as a place where people can sell their art and other gimmicky tourist things. There were so many stalls set up! You had to squeeze through the tiny makeshift alleyways to get to each stall. It was pretty cool, and the stuff that they sell there is awesome. Once we had looked around, we got on a different bus route. This one took us around downtown Cape Town. We didn’t get off at any of the stops, but listened into the headsets about the history of the downtown area, which was very interesting. After the tour we made our way back to the Gardens and sat in the sun until Jenni was finished work. For dinner we went to a place called the Royale Eatery, which is well known for their burgers. We all ordered burgers, and they were pretty delicious! Harrison also ordered a peanut butter and Jack Daniels milkshake, which was surprisingly yum! 

We had to get to Jenni’s work the next day by ourselves from home, so we decided to take an Uber. We have had really good experiences with Uber, so we didn’t think it would be an issue. I entered the address that I had been given, and off we went. We started to get further and further out of town and away from the mountain, which wasn’t right. I checked the address on google maps, and it showed we were going in the wrong direction! It turns out there is the exact same address, in a place called Bellville which is about 40 minutes out of Cape Town! It was so lucky that I noticed before we got all the way there! The Uber driver turned us around, and we made it to Jenni’s work safely. We made our way to the waterfront. Jenni had given us tickets to go on the Cape Wheel, which is a Ferris wheel at the waterfront. It was really cool! 

We got to see some beautiful views of Cape Town. After the ride we went to the Two Oceans Aquarium. We had been told that it was very good, so we were excited! We spent a really long time wandering around the aquarium. It was pretty great! 

They had lots of different types of fish, and even a few sharks. 

They also had penguins which I liked. 

It was quite small, but there was a lot to see. As well as the harbour cruise, we also got a sunset bus ride included in our bus tickets. We had to use it within three days of purchasing it, and that was our last night to use it so we thought we may as well. The bus took us up Signal Hill, which as its name suggests is a large hill, located next to Table Mountain. The bus drove up to the top, just as the sun was starting to set. We found a spot on the hill and watched the incredible sunset over the Pacific Ocean. 

It was truly amazing, and stunningly beautiful. Once the sun had sunk away we rode the bus back to the Waterfront where we met Robin and Jenni for dinner. 

We went to a pub first and Harrison and Robin had a beer taste testing platter. We moved onto a Belgium restaurant where they had another beer tasting platter. After all the beer had been tasted, we set off to find a place to eat dinner. We picked Ocean Basket which is a seafood restaurant. I had some sushi and prawns. Both were so delicious! The next day was a Friday, and both Robin and Jenni took the day off to take us into the wine regions of Cape Town. We stopped first at a place called Spier Wine Estate. There was bird of prey section of the estate, which we went into. At the bird sanctuary you could hold an eagle! We looked at all the birds that they had first and patted a few adorable owls,

and then both Harrison and I decided we wanted to hold an eagle. Harrison went first, and he held a massive black Verreaux's eagle that weighed 5kg!

She was huge! He had to wear a glove to protect his arm from being crushed and scratched to pieces. It was really amazing. I held a much smaller eagle called a Wahlberg’s eagle. Her name was Wally and she was very cute. She just wanted to nip at my hands and chin. The cheeky thing even bit my lip! 

She only weighed 1kg, and I didn’t have to wear a glove to protect my arms. It was an incredible experience, and I am so happy we got the opportunity to do it! We left the estate after that, and made our way into Stellenbosch and surroundings. We looked around and stopped at some viewpoints. It is such an incredibly beautiful part of the world!

We had lunch at a restaurant that used to be a train station. It was really cool, and the food was yum! Robin and Harrison also tried more beer!

We got up a bit earlier that morning and Robin and Jenni took us to a market in an old biscuit mill. It was awesome! There was a food section and a market section with shops and craft stores etc. We wandered around for a while, and got some food from the food market for breakfast. It was really great. Very busy though! But I think that just made the vibe even better. There was so much positive energy in there! I loved it! Robin and Jenni had never been to Robben Island, which is an island that has a prison on it, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for many years. So they decided they would accompany us to the island that day! We were due to leave at 3pm, so we made our way to the waterfront early so we could line up and all that. However when we went to cross the harbour to get to where the ferry leaves from, there was a boat show going on and they had raised the only bridge across! The time came ticking closer, and there was no sign of the bridge being put down again. Listening to other people around us, it seemed we were not the only ones facing this issue! There were so many people with us who needed to get across the bridge, and everyone was getting very frustrated. We called the museum entrance where the ferry leaves from and told them the issue. Luckily they understood and said they would wait until the bridge was back in use before leaving. As soon as that bridge came down, a whole mass of people surged forward, trying to get to the ferry station. The ferry people made good on their word, and the ferry was still there waiting for us. 

The ride across to Robben Island only took about 20 minutes, but the swells were quite high that day. Luckily neither Harrison nor I are scared of boats, because we really got tossed around! We arrived at Robben Island and were separated into groups, and given a tour guide. I thought the tour of the island was very interesting, but unfortunately it was very unorganised. It seemed they didn’t have enough guides for groups, and as we were the leftover group we didn’t get a proper guide, just a guy that worked on the island. This wasn’t too much of an issue, as he had actually been imprisoned on the island so it was really interesting to hear his point of view. Just, as he was not a tour guide, it seemed he didn’t really know how to connect or communicate with people and went off topic a lot. But nonetheless everything he told us was interesting. We got to see the cell where Nelson Mandela lived in,

and the common areas and other areas of the prison. Once the tour of the actual prison itself was done, we hopped on a bus that would take us around the rest of the island. We waited about 15 minutes on the bus before anyone showed up to take us! The guide we had on the bus was excellent though. He was very entertaining and knew a lot about the island. He actually lived on the island himself. We saw the old quarry and the village on the island.

I enjoyed learning more about the prison and what life was and is still like on the island. The boat ride back to the main land was fortunately not as bad as the trip coming to the island. A girl on the boat did end up puking though which was a bit yuck. We had dinner at a restaurant at the waterfront called Willoughby & Co. It’s a Japanese restaurant and was amazing! I had probably some of the best sushi of my life.

We went on a walking tour of the Cape Town city centre the next day. It was really fascinating! Our guide was absolutely brilliant, and I learnt a lot about Cape Town and South Africa. On the tour we passed some little girls wearing their traditional dress, and dancing. It was so cute! 

After the tour we went to the supermarket and got them some juice and snacks and took it back to them. They were really happy, and it was too adorable. We had lunch at a café with Robin and Jenni, and I think I had the best wrap ever! It was chicken, tomato and hummus. It was absolutely delicious! After lunch we all drove to Hout Bay. It was such a beautiful day, and the water was bright blue and crystal clear. 

We saw a man on the docks who had trained a wild seal to jump up and sit next to him, and let people pat her. It was pretty cool that he trained her, but I didn’t really agree with it. 

We wandered around for a bit and looked at some shops, then headed home. Robin had to fly back to Joburg that night, and we were leaving really early the next morning so we had a relaxed night at home. Robin and Jenni have the cutest, and fattest cat ever, named Frodo. He is so lovable and adorable! We didn’t want to leave him! We had to leave around 7:00 the next morning to get to the airport. We arrived back in Joburg during the early afternoon. Harrison went to see the physio as his back is troubling him again. We had all of a day to relax, before we were off again. This time to Zanzibar!

I will write a separate post for Zanzibar, and our current adventures as it would be too long if I added them to this post! x