Go chasin' waterfalls

After a short flight, a long wait in immigration and a temporary scare when I was told I was on the restricted list (it transpired it was another Jessica on the list and I was let in the country) we arrived in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. This was to be the start of our three week overland truck camping adventure!

Before that, there was time for a surprise, early Valentine's Day sunset cruise down the Zambezi river which provides a border between Zambia and Zimbabwe. We boarded a boat with a group of 4 and a group of 15 on a work outing (which provided entertainment for everyone) and headed to the top deck for gin & tonics (very refreshing in the strong African sun) and to wildlife spot. We saw hippos swimming in the river and a selection of birds. As we got further down the river we could see the mist rising from Victoria Falls - it looked like smoke from an enormous fire. After a beautiful sunset it gradually became darker and we moved downstairs for a delicious 4 course dinner. It was made all the more atmospheric by the electric storm as we watched fork lightening shoot through the sky (it was far enough away that Nick was not concerned about the chance of a lightening strike, I was a little concerned!). 

preparing to cruise down the Zambezi 

the mist and clouds created by the falls

 sunset and the storm clouds were starting to roll in 

We were up bright and early the next morning to meet our tour group, but we were disappointed to find that only half the group was there as the others had made their own arrangements for the day. The plan for the day was visit Victoria Falls by ourselves and then optional activities.

The trip to the falls was amazing! They were at their fullest with water thundering down everywhere! There was so much water it was pushing spray in the air (the smoke we had seen the night before) and then it fell down like rain. Some people brought their waterproofs and others hired ponchos, we decided it was only water and we would tough it out! After Nick had wrung his t-shirt out twice along the way and our cameras started to suffer we started to wonder whether we had made a wise choice! However, even those with protective clothing looked fairly wet so it didn't make much difference! Visitors walk along a path with a number of viewing points along the way each viewing point manages to provide a totally different view of the falls. The final viewing point overlooks the old bridge that goes into Zambia and provides free movement between the countries for the many monkeys running along the underside! It was also an opportunity to watch people bungee jump off the top. The worst part was watching people being slowly dragged up once they had completed the jump! We had lunch at a cafe overlooking the gorge further down from the falls with live entertainment in the form of people on a giant swing and a zip wire over the river. Someone had the job of going down a wire to retrieve each zip wire rider.

a shot from every angle!

an overview of the falls 

the Victorian bridge to Zambia

our view from lunch

After an unexpectedly relaxing evening at a local bar/restaurant with food and live music we were up early again the next day and the tour really did commence! 

Our tour team for the next 19 days was Norman (group leader, Zimbabwean), Fadzai (driver, Zimbabwean), Riccardo (catering technician, South African) and Whitney (a large white van named after Whitney Houston). Whitney seated up to 26 people and came with a freezer and luggage lockers luggage at the back of the bus. Underneath the truck were more lockers which held tents, gas rings, cooking equipment and everything else we would need! It also had a strip light down the side and an awning to provide a food preparation shelter. The truck was run by Nomad the largest overland truck tour in Africa, they have over 45 trucks and we met several others along the way. The guides spend most of their time travelling through Africa with just a few days off at the end of each trip and those days didn't always fall when they were close to home. 

Norman, Riccardo,  Fadzai  & Whitney - the dream team!

 the many storage compartments 

light and awning for food prep

the view from inside 

a typical roadside lunch served from restaurant Whitney

We also met the other 13 people in our tour group which was made up of a range of ages (20 to 62 years) and nationalities with representatives from Canada, Iceland, Australia, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Norway and Japan. We were the only UK and US representatives and the only couple, but there were a couple of pairs of friends travelling together. Everyone had their own itineraries, for most people, like us, the trip was part of a longer journey. A couple of people had already been travelling on similar trucks (all named after deceased singers) for 40 days with their journey starting in Uganda. 

We were assigned our lockers and fortunately we were given mid row lockers away from the stairwell which made for easier access (however we would soon learn that you had to time your locker access carefully to avoid blocking the whole truck) and we received three between the two of us as our bags are on the large side! We all had small padlocks to secure our lockers which rattles against the metal locker doors as the truck lurched along the African roads resulting in an irritating banging noise.

the luggage lockers

After some quick introductions we  all found seats and we were off to Botswana!

Jess

Game On!

We're back! After our 3 week overland trip, reliable internet has returned and we can start updating again! 

After a relaxing and refreshing week in Mozambique, it was time to get back to it! We had a free weekend between our return to South Africa and our flight to Victoria Falls so we decided to do some game driving (or Safari). The area we went to was called Pilanesberg. It's only a couple of hours from Johannesburg. We stayed at a small lodge just outside the park in a private game reserve that had access to the larger, public park. The lodge only had 5 guest cabins and Friday night there were a total of 8 of us. Four people checked out on Saturday leaving only us and another couple the rest of the time.

What a start to the trip

We checked in and had a quick lunch, but before we could even depart, an elephant showed up at our lodge just outside the electric fence that surrounded our small property. What a way to start! We had knocked off one of the big 5 without even leaving the lodge! Seeing the big 5 is the goal of most safari-goers. It consists of leopard, lion, buffalo, elephant and rhino.  It was then time for our first of four game drives. Our game drive leader, Vincent was great. He was very passionate and knowledgeable about the animals.

The rental camera in action. It was quite heavy!

When we had decided to book this, I knew the camera i was currently carrying would be woefully insufficient for game drives. Lucky for me, there were a few places in Johannesburg that would rent you a camera for your game drives. I was able to get very nice Canon 7D and pair it with an amazing 100mm - 400mm zoom lens. It was like having binoculars that take pictures. There was certainly a bit of lens envy from the other participants!

Just a few zebras from the dazzle

The two headed giraffe

The second of our big 5 sightings

Our first drive was very plentiful in terms of variety. There were lots of wildebeests and impala to be had (they are the main source of food for the predators). We managed to see 1 male Kudu drinking from a stream but took off before I could get my camera in focus. We managed a brief hyena sighting as well as it was stalking a pack of impala. There were also nice groups of giraffes and zebras as well as a small pack of rhinos and a few random elephants.  It was a great way to start our weekend and we returned back to the lodge ready to go again!

A red billed hornbill just caught his lunch!

the lilac breasted roller. When it takes off, its wings are a beautiful shade of blue

Cheetahs!

Rhinos out in the plains

It was headed right towards us before walking along the side of our vehicle into the trees

The next morning we were ready to go at 5 am for our next drive. At this point, there was only myself, Jess, and another couple, Douglas and Verona in the lodge so it made for a nice small drive. Verona was an avid birdwatcher with a keen eye so in the moments between the larger animals, she was always pointing out the different birds of the park. This drive added to our animal count with a hippopotamus relaxing in a pond and the highlight of the morning drive, a group of cheetah roaming the plains. It’s a rare sighting as there were only 9 cheetah in the whole of the park! As we were watching the cheetah, the radio that the game drive leaders use to communicate with each other started blaring about a tao sighting. This meant a lion was spotted! The leaders all communicate with each other with the Twana terms for the animals (it’s the main language of Botswana, but as the park used to be part of Botswana, it’s what the majority of the locals around still spoke). By the time we got to the lion sighting, it had taken off into a bush and the only sign we could tell of it’s presence was a shaking section of the bush and the occasional tail. We waited around until we needed to start heading back but the lion didn’t quite want to make an appearance. We also caught three rhinos in the open plain with amazing light. On our way back though we were greeted by an elephant in the middle of the road. We stopped so as not to startle it and it ended up walking right past our vehicle!

After this great start to the morning, we settled into the typical game drive routine which was up early, drive, breakfast, nap, lunch, drive, dinner, sleep.

A happy eland

Baboons

The more wrinkles they have, the older the elephant

A herd of buffalo in the distance

A nursing impala

Our evening game was once again only the four of us, but the sightings continued to pile up. We picked up our 3rd of the big 5 with the sighting of a buffalo herd. We also saw baboons and some eland (a type of antelope similar to impala). We continued to see various giraffe, elephant and zebra as well.  The different lodges on this private reserve had a small hut out in the park so we had a nice stop there for a beer and snacks while being surrounded by impala and discussing our plan of attack for our last game drive. Everyone was in agreement that we were going to go for the cats! We headed back and had a nice dinner with Verona and Douglas. The conversation could have gone much further into the evening but we had to be ready to leave at 4:30 am the next morning for our cat hunt!

Sunrise and the hunt is on!

Jess on the lookout

Hippos at breakfast

They seemed oblivious to each other

Pumba!

Impala and Zebra sharing the space

Sunday morning and the cat hunt was on. We were headed to the main park toady and got in right as it opened up. We got to see a beautiful sunrise but almost ran into a giraffe on our way to the park as it was standing in the road and it was still dark out! No sightings early on so we stopped for tea at a pond. There was some nice hippo action  in the pond so we upgraded our hippo photos from our previous encounter. We got word of a leopard sighting and headed over to join the hunt. We joined up with some other vehicles to maximize our opportunity to see it again. We could see the tracks in the dirt but the leopard proved elusive and no group saw it. While we were waiting, it was a cool sight as we were at a watering hole that was currently home to a crocodile, rhino and giraffe. While the animals are fun to see in species groups, it’s also really cool to see multiple animals in the same environment.  It turned out to be a relatively quiet morning in the park for most all the groups that were on drives. A little deflated we hadn’t see lions (or that leopard), we headed back to the lodge. Only a few minutes in, we got word on the radio that there were two lions that walked right past the entrance to our lodge!! We felt reinvigorated and hurried back to join the search. We took the long way back to see if we could catch a sight but it was not to be. However our keen eyes were able to spot some warthogs and a mongoose while looking for the lion. We returned for a filling breakfast before parting ways with the animal and headed back to Johannesburg.

Our lodge

Vehicles used on the game drives

This was my first ever game drive and I’ve got to say I was hooked! It was absolutely beautiful to see these animals in a large natural habitat (The park was fenced in, but it was massive). It was absolutely thrilling to spot an animal as you constantly scanned  every tree and bush and blade of grass as you drove by looking for that one thing that looked out of place. I had many “lion” sightings of rocks. We have a few drives coming up on our overground tour and I can’t wait for those although I’ll miss having my giant lens and camera. I was amazed at the level of detail I could capture from a distance and the shots turned out amazing.  Not all our time was spent taking photos. Sometimes you just had to sit back and take it all in what you were seeing and experiencing rather than just view it through the eye of a lens. We found a great balance and left wanting more!

-nick

Time for a change of scenery

After nearly two months in Chile and Argentina we had become quite accustomed to the South American way of life, but now it was time to adapt to the African way of life! 

We started with a one night layover in Johannesburg before boarding a flight to Mozambique. Our flight had recently been changed from a direct flight to Inhambane to a flight via the country's capital Maputo. This was not a problem until we tried to check in an discovered that whilst we had been transferred in to the new flight no tickets had been issued. After going backwards and forwards for nearly an hour we managed to check in. We also formed a bond with the 7 other passengers who were having similar issues!

We were going to Mozambique to visit my wonderful friend Caty Batten who had been living in Tofo Beach since the previous October and volunteering for the  Marine Megafauna Foundation. Tofo has a unique selection of sea life, in particular lots of manta rays and whale sharks. The area is particularly popular with divers.

Caty, me and Nick in the Mozambique sunshine

We arrived at Inhambane airpor which dates back to the 1940s and not much has changed since then. The check in desk, departure gate, arrivals, luggage collection and airport bar were all within 10 metres of each other, so it was a speedy arrival process. We had been warned there was no cash machine/ATM at the airport.

Inhambane airport

We were met by Caty, her friend Charlotte and their favourite local driver JC. After a quick stop at the petrol station, which has an ATM, we dropped our luggage at Caty's accommodation in Tofo Beach and then headed off to the Barra, the next cove along where we would stay for the first two nights in a house on stilts right on the beach. 

Our home at Barra 

Barra is a beautiful beach with golden sands and a sweeping bay. The beaches were empty apart from the odd tourist and boys selling bracelets. 

The beautiful & empty beach

We were just a short walk from the sea and an even shorter walk from Chill Bar which provided delicious food, cocktails and beers. We were learnt about the Mozambique laid back approach to service and the best thing to do was order food, go for a swim in the sea, dry off and come back just in time for the food to arrive. This was the pattern of our stay in Barra. The temperature and humidity didn't make us want to be any more active than that. We did venture to the Green Turtle restaurant at the other end of the bay one night. It is a french restaurant with very French owners and a chef who had (allegedly) received a Michelin star. We had planned to walk to the restaurant but we had been distracted by watching the sunset so negotiations were started and a truck appeared from somewhere on the beachfront to drive us to the restaurant - five (we were being accompanied by three Danish tourists who Caty and her friends had got to know) of us in the open back and two  front. The food was delicious and served in a beachfront bungalow. A highlight was a beautiful moonlit beach walk, with crabs scuttling out of our way as we walked, back to our house. 

Sunset at Barra

Moonlit walk home

After two nights in Barra we headed to Tofo Beach in time to watch a live rock band called On the Way that was visiting from Maputo in one of the local bars. By the end of the night the dance floor was quite lively!

  On the Way just warming up

 Our home in Tofo

The view from the deck

The main row of bars and restaurants in the centre of Tofo

Over the next few days we maintained the chilled pace of life as we explored Tofo, which is not much bigger than a village. Having been so busy in Patagonia, I confess we were a bit lazy whilst Caty was an excellent hostess cooking for us and making plans. Highlights included a surf lesson, during which we both just about managed to stand up (after our lesson we watched our teacher ride the waves whilst doing a headstand on his surfboard); a film night in the communal kitchen with a projector and a sheet hanging from one of the rafters; a public talk on manta rays given by one of Caty's colleagues - did you know that manta rays are graceful and intelligent and can grown up to 7 metres?!; sampling the local restaurants including excellent pizza from Brancas; and a beautiful sunset dhow (sailboat) ride down the estuary with a walk on a tiny sandy island. 

All too soon it was time to head back to the airport and start the next part of our adventure. However, we left feeling refreshed and with a new found respect for ocean megafauna. Thank you Caty, and your friends and colleagues, for the wonderful hospitality! 

- Jess 

The End of the World

After our penguin experience in Punta Arenas, it was finally time for our last stop on our South American adventure:  Ushuaia. Located on the island of Tierra Del Fuego in Argentina, it's considered the end of the world city (only because the Chilean town across the beagle channel from it doesn't have enough residents to be a "city").  It took us a 12 hour bus ride to get there including a ferry crossing. The shocking thing was that this was the first bus that arrived on time!!!

The end of the world is not flat after all!

Upon arrival, we were met with all the sights you'd expect to see in a place called the end of the world: large cruise ships and a Hard Rock Cafe. We got into our Airbnb only to find out that our host was having water issues and that we had no hot water. We ended up having to shower in our host's place (it was just behind ours). That certainly made for an interesting experience!

Heading out with the cruise ships blocking a good view of Ushuaia

By the time we arrived in Ushuaia, both of us were nursing some small colds that we had picked up due to the ever changing Patagonian weather. This lead to a lighter schedule of activities than we might have otherwise planned. The highlight of our time here was our cruise on the Beagle Channel. This is the channel that is the absolute southern border of Argentina with only 2 islands belonging to Chile to the south. This is Argentina's main shipping path to connect the Atlantic and Pacific ocean. There were many different options of what kind of boats to take, from large catamaran's that herded the cruise ship takers (I'm not sure what they like to call themselves) around like cattle to small 6 person cruises where you hoped you had calm waters. We finally settled on the Patagonian Adventure Explorer. It was a relatively smaller boat, but large enough to handle the weather and small enough to feel personal. 

Happy Cruisers

Our first stop was bird island. This island was the home to an absurd amount of imperial cormorants (or shags). They feed off the abundant marine wildlife and build their nests from kelp and their own poop. Eventually they overrun their current island with their own poop and will move to a different island in the channel, only to do the same thing to it. Eventually they'll cycle back through their previous islands after a couple years away (and presumably a deep clean from mother nature).

The birds were everywhere

After bird island, we headed out to check out the old lighthouse. It was constructed in the early 1900's as there are some very dangerous shallows in the channel. The last major shipwreck here was in the 1930's. It was a cruise ship and while everyone was rescued, the population on the cruise ship was more than double that of Ushuaia at the time so they had no room to house the people. They had to use the jail to accommodate people and it took three months to get everyone from the ship out of town. 

Despite the moody weather, the cruise offered spectacular scenery

The other fact we learned about the lighthouse was in the color scheme. The lighthouses are either red/white/red or white/red/white. Depending on the color scheme, it told you (as a captain) if the danger was to the west or east. This island also happened to be home to a large colony of sea lions as well.

I guess it was nap time when we got there.

After the lighthouse, we stopped off at an island that gave great views back into the city and also housed some of the early native settlements. To celebrate a successful voyage (a 3 hour tour some might say), we all toasted with coffee liquor, made by the first mate on the ship. It wasn't half bad. It was like a Bailey's without the cream. The overall scenery was beautiful as the snow capped mountains just rolled off right into the water.

The Andes rolling off into the channel with Ushuaia along the shore

We also had some amazing food in Ushuaia. We found a great pizza and empanada place the first night which really hit the spot after the bus ride. We also had a delicious dinner out at Paso Garibaldi where the crab ceviche was fantastic as well as the local caught trout and steak. While there were no breweries visited, we were able to sample the local brews from both Cape Horn and Beagle brewing.

Paso Garibaldi. Highly recommended!

In our final day/night in Ushuaia and to celebrate the end of our eight weeks in South America, we decided to treat ourselves to a night in the Los Cauquenes resort and spa.  Not only are there cruise ships and Hard Rock Cafes at the end of the world but also 5 star resorts!! Our room had an amazing view of the channel and we had excellent massages to loosen up all those muscles we had used during all our Patagonian hiking! We finished off with a great dinner a bottle of Petit Caro, which we had sampled much earlier in our trip in Mendoza!

A room with a view

After a great night's rest, it was time to head back to Buenos Aires for one evening before catching our flights over to South Africa to begin our next leg!

-nick

P-P-P-Pick up a penguin*

*For non British readers the title is a reference to adverts for a chocolate biscuit.

By now we were quite familiar with how bus stations and buses worked and we had an easy morning's journey to Punta Arenas. It is a town with a large port used by cruise ships and Antarctic expeditions. The main square had a variety of architectural styles as a result of the influx of Europeans in the late 1800s following the gold rush and sheep farming boom. 

Some of the more interesting buildings around the square

Our first task on arrival (once we had found where we were staying) was to try and book a trip for the next day to Magdalena Island which is home to over 100,000 penguins. The penguins arrive in December to mate and lay their eggs and stay for a few months until the adolescent penguins have shed their fluffy feathers. We had been contemplating a trip to see penguins at some stage, but I had just read The Penguin Lessons (a lovely non-fiction book about a penguin rescued by an English school teacher working in Buenos Aires in the 1970s, I recommend it to anyone looking for an easy read) and had developed a new found interest in penguins! Mission accomplished we headed to the supermarket to buy our supplies for the next couple of days. 

During our time in Argentina we'd enjoyed drinking beer from Austral, a Punta Arenas brewery dating back to 1896, and we had organised a tour for the next day. With a day of penguins and beer to look forward to we had a quiet afternoon doing chores (laundry), trip admin and playing yahtzee. 

The next day we were up early and at our designated collection point for 6.30am with about 40 other tourists. We were driven to a small dock just outside of Punta Arenas. Most of the drive was along a road adjacent to the water and we caught a brief glimpse of two dolphins swimming along the shore line. We all filed into a yellow boat that was deceptively spacious inside. We were lucky that, for Patagonia, there wasn't much wind and the water was quite calm. 

On arrival to the small island there were penguins everywhere! I was surprised by how noisy they were! They look directly up to the sky, puff their chests out and honk veraciously! As tourists we had a circular path roped out around the island and had been warned to stay at least a metre away from the penguins. The penguins ignored the tourists and walked across the path as they pleased. We could have spent hours watching the penguins interact with each other, waddle around the island, climb in and out of their burrows and ducking and diving in the waves. 

Thousands of penguins means hundreds of photos, here are just a few! 

Penguins contemplating a swim.

There were penguins everywhere!

We had about an hour on the island and then everyone got back on board the boat. The sea was deemed calm enough by the captain to head to a nearby island which housed a number of sea lions. Unfortunately we didn't get as close to this islands, we could just see the sea lions by sitting on top of the boat.  I was surprised by how big the sea lions were. It was then time for the return journey where most passengers (including us) had a quick nap as a result of the early start and the sea air. 

After a quick trip back to our apartment for lunch we were off to the brewery, but then disaster struck! The tour was cancelled due to unplanned repair work. A little disheartened we walked back into town to find an establishment selling Austral on tap. We finally found a locals bar almost opposite our apartment serving Austral's El Calafate on tap and we managed to use up some of our Chilean Peso (Punta Arenas would be our last Chilean stop) sampling a pint or two! 

-Jess