The Finals!

Are finally here!
3 tix... for Darb, Nic & I ...

NED bus waiting for the team :

Efan Ekoku preps for the game :

Christie show-cases the custom vuvuzelas :

IBC humor!

Hangin in the IBC halls w/ daddio :

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Soweto : 10 July

We were given a special tour yesterday.

Moss Tau, a friend of Hugh Masekela (famous South African musician, and Sal's dad), gave us a first hand tour and account of the Soweto Uprising that started 16 June 1976.

Moss had been 30 yrs old at the time, too old to participate, as it was the students that had risen up in protest of a new law that was to mandate schools use the Africaans (Dutch-based) language, instead of English. His children were still in elementary school.

We went to visit the newly-erected statue of the student leader of the uprising Teboho "Tsietsi" Mashinini, which is on the grounds of the high school he attended.



We then followed the route the students had walked, and stopped at the site of their 1st clash with the police - near the Hector Pieterson memorial :

We also visited the houses of Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu - who lived on the same street in Soweto ... I can only imagine the level of political activity there in the 50s and 60s!

Lunch at Nabita... Making friends.
Nic's same 2 questions work all over the world : "what's your name?" and "how old are you?"

Cape Town (July 5-8)

Table Mountain - 6 July 2010

Boy oh boy! we all match in our spanky ESPN vests!


Nic met a canine Brazil supporter on a rock :


Jed gets behind the camera:





Pre-game neatness (and quiet) at NED-URU semis match
(VIP section ... thanks again Jed!!!!) :

Headphones dampen the vuvuzelas... And we got to keep the blankets! :

Cape Point Light House - 7 July :

Penguins at Boulder Beach :

Baboons on the side of the road... I was trying to get a photo of them opening a car door... but those smart baboons must have been somewhere else ... these were just picking bugs off each other! 

8 July: 

Darb goes to tour Robben Island (Mandela's prison) ... 

while I go to lunch with Tommy Gonzales :

Nic bouncing on the trampoline of Tommy's new 90' cat in Elliott Basin :

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Morukuru - movies

Young lions wrestling in tree :

Elephant digging for roots :

Lunch served by the water hole :



Giraffe Walking :
note that they move both legs on the same side while walking...



Evening game drive :
We set out around 3:30 or 4... sun sets by 5:15 or so, Tom brings out the lamp, and sweeps side to side. We looked for leopards, never found them ... but at least we saw the lions!



Butterfly hunters (Anthony and Nicole) :

On our way back from Morukuru to Johannesburg... 

Standard police checkpoint :

More from Morukuru (July 1-4)

NOTE : Just catching up on photos from past days
(I didn't feel much like blogging...  :(


The Lodge ... living room :

Reviewing the day's pictures with Amy, Anthony & Jabu:

Dining Room (yes, it seats 10...) :

Asion, our OUTSTANDING chef... prepared us 4 course meals... 3x a day!

(in a kitchen I want to own at home!)

One of the 3 bedrooms (all king sized beds) :

 

with 3 bathrooms to match!

And outdoors ... towards the river, breakfast on the deck :

A quick swim before lunch :

down by the river :

African BBQ out back in the boma :

Joined by our hosts (and guide) Amy & Anthony :

Sorry, Darb .... I didn't get a picture of the "fire pit" ... 

July 5 - More Travel... Cape Town

Arrived Cape Town...
Staying at the Taj downtown.
Long day of travel - but will start uploading back-logged photos tomorrow!

July 4 - Travel Day

No one told me you don't get to sleep on a safari!

Up at 6:00am for tea and a muffin, out the door in the dark at 6:30am ...
drive until 9am looking at majestic African wildlife,
breakfast at 9:30 or so...
relax (swim, read, wish I could sleep) until lunch at 1 or 2,
out at 3:30 for evening game drive, back at 7 (in the dark),
dinner 7:30-9:30 (they are multi-course, gourmet meals - best food I have EVER eaten!!)
download cameras, charge everything, try to write in blog, upload photos ...
in bed by midnight ... try to sleep...
Repeat for 3 days...

I would do it again in a heart beat!

July 4 was a low key afair : a BBQ in the hotel lobby :(

Off tomorrow for Cape Town -
Semi Finals Netherlands v. Uruguay on the 6th.

(scroll down for more safari photos of Lions...
I will upload the rest when I have slept more!)

Morukuru - Day 2

...and then there were Lions.

We had an excellent lunch around a water hole, then went for an evening game drive. We found 4 immature lions wrestling in a tree - absolutely amazing.

On the way home ... under a dense canopy of African stars on a black moonless night - we stopped to enjoy the view.

I couldn't help recalling the part in the Lion King where Mufasa tells Simba about their ancestors in the stars that will always be there to guide them.

RIP Daddio, we will always love you.

====================================
NEW photos :
====================================

Tom, our tracker, followed the lion's prints in the road...

We found 4 immature lions wrestling in a tree ... 2 or 3 at a time :

Wildebeest near the airstrip earlier that evening : 

And our evening refreshment stop... 

Morukuru Safari - Day 1

Our 1st morning we had a very successful game drive.
We left around 7:45 (an hour after normal game drives ...
but hey, we're setting our own schedule here!)

Anthony, our guide, and Tom our tracker helped us find :

Zebra, Kudu, White Rhino, Giraffe, Wart Hogs and Elephants

Zebra :

Kudu (we had some kudu steak for dinner (not this one!)... very tasty! :

White Rhino:

Giraffe... look at that tongue! He uses it to get between the thorns and strip the leaves :

Bird... named?

Elephant :

Our Internet connection exists, but it is a *bit* slower than dial-up, so pictures are uploading about 1 per hour! Will get some up now, and the rest when we get back to Johannesburg.

On our way to Madikwe

All we did today was drive.
Oh, and eat at Chicken Licken...
that was an experience in itself!
More fun tomorrow ...
Nic wants to see Elephants,
Darb has asked for Rhinos -
I'm just happy !

Lion Whisperer - Kevin Richardson... WC 2010

We went to visit the 'Lion Whisperer' today...

I was not sure what to expect,

but was TOTALLY blown away by what I saw.

This guy, Kevin Richardson, plays with lions as if they were family pets.

You'd almost think they'd be that way with anyone,

until you saw the way they reacted to Nic ...

they looked at her like a nice appetizer!

Visiting the lionesses :

"The most love I've had from these 2 girls in absolutely ages"

Pictures from the way there:

Help Wanted Ads, Johannesburg-style:

Lunch at the famous "Maggies Home of the Chicken Pie"

burnt out fields next door... still smoldering....

When we get there, a helpful hint :

Our 1st giraffe sighting:

Then the action shots :

I will never again refer to a 'bear hug'...

This is from the video above ... different angle

2 lionesses giving Kevin some love :

The noise is eerie... they all start roaring at the same time

Other family members included a leopard

and a hyena .... looks just like Kitzy!

Thanks Kevin!