The Garden Route and on Safari in the Western Cape

Safari

Hi! This is Kenzi. For the past week, we have been on safari in South Africa. It has been really fun seeing African animals in the wild!

Our first park was Bontebok National Park. In the 1930’s, there were only 30 Bontebok in the entire world! South African National Parks (SANParks) specifically founded Bontebok National Park to save the species. They succeeded in doing so. When we were there, there were dozens of Bontebok! The park is right outside the town of Swellingdam.  We saw several species there: Burchell’s Zebra, Red Hartebeest, and, of course, the Bontebok (including right in camp!).

The next park that we went to was Addo Elephant Park. This is the 3^rd largest game reserve in South Africa. On our first night there, we went on a game drive and were surprised because we only spotted one elephant! We also saw many warthogs and kudu. The next morning, however, we saw plenty of them. Some of the babies we saw were the size of Rock! Comparatively to the big ones, they were VERY cute!

However, the sightings of the week were spotted on the last morning. We had gotten up early to go to the southern part of the park. Right before we got to the turn off, we spun around a corner and saw a spotted hyena in the middle of the road! As if that wasn’t cool enough, it had the leg of a red hartebeest in its mouth!

As we were coming back from the drive, still having not seen any big cats the entire week, we took a bathroom break at the park’s picnic site. We had a look at the sighting board and noticed that a lion had been spotted at the dam (watering hole) close to where we had seen the hyena! The kill MUST have been at the dam! We decided to go to that dam and just check it out. We saw two lions!!!!!! YAY! I was so excited!

Now we are at Mountain Zebra National Park. We haven’t done a game drive yet. More updates to come!

Southernmost point in Africa

Cape Buffalo Sparring

Herd of Elephants - Addo Elephant Park

Cape Buffalo

Kudu

Black-backed Jackal

Kudu

Bontebok

Seashell hunting at Jeffrey's Bay

Red Hartetbeest

Ostrich

Warthog

Zebras Squared

Cape Town, South Africa

Cape Town was awesome! Although, there was a lot of traffic. In our apartment there were five beds so we all got our own bed. Mackenzie and I were SO tired that we slept from 6:00 @ night to 7:00 in the morning! My Mom and Dad had gone to the grocery store while we were sleeping so we got to make our own breakfast!  

The first day we checked out Table Mountain, but did not go up to the top because my Dad almost stepped on a puff adder! Later in the week we hiked up and over the mountain. The views of the ocean were awesome!

The next day we went to the Two Oceans Aquarium. In one of the tanks there was this HUGE eel that had black spots. I am telling you it was huge! We also got to see the penguins, rays, and turtles get fed. Today is our last day in Cape Town. We are renting a safari car and you sleep in tents on the roof! I can’t wait to see the animals in the parks!

Audrey

Hiking Table Mtn. Cape Town in background

High on Table Mtn overlooking Camps Bay

Mackenzie channeling her inner-Mary

Table Mountain from the top

Cape Town Aquarium

South Africa Museum

Penguins at The Boulders

Whale Skeleton

Inle Lake, Myanmar

Our final day of tourism-related activities in Myanmar was an all-day boat tour on Inle Lake.  The lake itself is a living, breathing, thriving environment of human activity.  The Burmese have lived on the lake for a long time. Carving out an existence in homes elevated by stilts, fishing, and creating arts and crafts.

The fisherman are amazing!  They balance on the back of their long boat on one leg and the other leg hooks around their paddle for forward propulsion.  Their hands are free for manipulating their nets.  Remarkable balance.

Check out the video below for a look at the local metal work taking place at Skol Studios East.  I would like to see Jeff, Alan, and 1F Jef show me something at Skol Studios West next time I am in Ouray.

We had such a terrific travel experience in Myanmar.  The local population made it what it was.  While the government has been oppressive for some time now, the people are as kind and welcoming as any we have ever encountered in 25 years of world travel. It is another reminder that there is a HUGE difference between human beings and the government behind their nationality.  With the political winds shifting in Myanmar for the better, I expect it will make the world travel short list of 'must see' locations.

We are now in Cape Town, South Africa after about 40 hours in transit from SE Asia. Whew!  The flights went off without a hitch: Inle Lake to Yangon; Yangon to Bangkok; Bangkok to Doha, Qatar; Doha to Cape Town.  A new continent for the kids and a new phase of our trip.

We will be in CT for a week.  Hopefully, getting in some good hiking, climbing, and sightseeing.  I have contacts here from having done an RfR gig 3 years ago and we intend to get together with those friends as well.

Hamming it up for the tourists

Shan Sword (Oh, how I wanted one!!)

Lady at Floating Market

Fisherman - Inle Lake

Cigar Making

Inle Lake Village  - entirely on stilts with boat only access

Trekking from Kalaw to Inle Lake

From Bagan, we took what turned out to be a very pleasant bus ride to Kalaw. We saw some great scenery along the way and the ride was mostly bereft of the nausea-inducing curves of the Laotian bus experiences.

The British established Kalaw in colonial times as a hill station retreat for their civil servant corps. Situated at 4500 feet, it was a cooler spot to be able to escape to during the heat of summer.

We absolutely loved Kalaw!  Wow. What a great little spot. There are probably 10,000 or so residents.  The town is surrounded by hills and there is awesome hiking to be had right out your front door step.  Just like home! During our trip research last year, Joanie and I had read about trekking from Kalaw to Inle Lake and we were very keen to include that in our Myanmar itinerary.

We spent 3 days in Kalaw doing day hikes, exploring the local market, and planning our trek with Sam’s Family Trekking service. Sam himself gave us the trek options to choose from in a very engaging briefing at his shop.  Sam is around 65 years old and has retired from fieldwork. However, his charisma and story-telling skills had us hooked from the get go.  We could not wait to get started. Our stoke was high!

The people of Kalaw (and all of Myanmar for that matter) were so incredibly friendly.  We got warm receptions everywhere we went. The local wine merchant even put in an offer for Rock, but we had to inform him he is not for sale. At least not yet, anyways :). While Kalaw is certainly in the guidebooks and well regarded, it sure seemed to be under-visited from our perspective. We felt like we had the place to ourselves.  The locals were fascinated to see a young family from America. That has been a consistently positive reception throughout our visit in Myanmar.

Our trek began right in town proper.  Over 3 days and 2 nights, we would travel through the local hills towards our finish at Inle Lake.  The trek cost $12 per person per day for a local guide, cook, lodging, all meals, boat ride across Inle Lake, and luggage transfer from Kalaw to our hotel in Inle Lake. We could travel for 2 years instead of 9 months if our $$ went this far everywhere.

We passed through small villages, visited with local farmers, and stayed with families in the villages themselves.  The experience was absolutely the highlight of our trip thus far.  It was so genuine.  Absolutely sublime. We have trekked in Nepal, Peru, and many other places and there is a strong element of ‘tourista’ in those places. This had none of that at all.  Probably because it just has not seen anywhere near the same number of visitors. Yet.

The weather continued to be flawless. We have had nothing but bluebird conditions for weeks on end.

If you decide to visit Myanmar in the near future – and you should btw – do not miss out on the trekking from Kalaw to Inle Lake. It may very well be as good as any we have done in our world travels.

Bagan

Our first stop in Myanmar following the requisite ingress via Yangon was to see the temples of Bagan.  Bagan is located in the middle of the country and it is home to a collection of approximately 4000 ancient temples (called pagodas). The temples are situated in a 16 square mile area.  This made it a good spot for visiting by bicycle. 

The temples were built over a couple of hundred years during the 1200-1300’ish timeframe.  We elected to fly up to Bagan from Yangon in order to avoid the 11-hour bus ride.  Myanmar in general is not an easy country to see by ground transportation.  Not unless you have a lot of time to spare.  We got no protest from the kids on the avoidance of the bus ride.

There is no questioning the spectacular nature of the temples of Bagan. However, whether it was due to being “templed out” after 8 weeks in SE Asia or perhaps being unfairly positioned following the visit to Angkor Wat, we were a bit underwhelmed.  It kind of reminded me a bit of seeing a site like the Eiffel Tower: “OK. Nice. Now what?”

Bagan certainly qualifies as a ‘must see’ in Myanmar. Two full days there seemed like plenty to do it justice.

Two memorable weeks in Burma

Bagan

An impressive load to carry to market

Morning water run

Resting under a Banyan tree

Village boys pausing for photo

Fishing on Inle Lake

Hay loft in village

Kalaw

Monk in prayer - Bagan

Farmer in traditional longhi - a predecessor to the Manpri (note the Shan knife)

Tired trekker

Typical scenery while trekking

Shwedagon Pagoda - Yangon

Typical sunscreen on child (yellow mud)

Trekking past a wheat field

Typical village kitchen

Trek finish, with our guide Pangshwe (r) and our cook (l)

"Long boat" ride - Inle Lake

Village girl