Monday, January 13, 2025
Here’s a video recap of what we thought about our 24-day overlanding safari tour of Africa. What did we like? Dislike? Would we do it again? Find out below. And here’s a short montage video someone on our tour made for his students—focusing on the first few days of the East Africa portion of our tour—using a 360 camera. And if you missed it, here’s more on the overlanding truck we used:
Monday, January 13, 2025
A video discussion of our wildlife experiences in Africa. Did we see everything we wanted to? What were the game drives like? Find out in the video below. -S 🇿🇦🇧🇼🇿🇼🇿🇲🇲🇼🇹🇿
And we’re off on our 24-day safari thru South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, and Tanzania!
Here’s our vehicle for the journey! -S 🇿🇦🇧🇼🇿🇼🇿🇲🇲🇼🇹🇿
Thursday, December 19, 2024
For our last full day in Johannesburg, we opted to do a day tour of some of the main historical parts of the city. The first stop was at Constitution Hill, which is at a former prison complex/military fort built by Paul Kruger in 1898 to protect against British Invasion and then to house Boer prisoners from the Anglo-Boer war. Starting in the early 1900s, political activists opposed to apartheid were imprisoned here, including Mahatma Ghandi.
We decided to spend more to have the hotel do our laundry for us today, so that opened up some extra time that we spent—magnificently, I’ll say—getting (quite excellent, yet cheap) 90-minute in-room massages. A rare treat, for sure, but also a great move after weeks of flights + long drives! -S 🇿🇦
Amarula is a great South African liqueur that my friend, Theresa, introduced me to when I visited her in Cameroon. So naturally I wanted some when we got to South Africa, but haven’t been able to find until tonight. Cheers, Theresa! -J 🇿🇦
Marking off South Africa on our quest to drink a Guinness in an Irish Pub in 32 countries. This makes 17/32 -S 🇿🇦 🍀🍻
Edit: So…this Guinness is terrible. We weren’t sure if it was just a keg gone bad, icky lines, or just how it tastes down here.
The answer: “Instead of barley, it’s typically brewed with maize or sorghum, which produces a more bitter taste compared to barley.”
Sunday, December 15, 2024
Photos from our visit on Friday to the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi National Park, a 230,000-acre preserve about 3 hours north of Durban, South Africa. Established in 1895(!), it’s the oldest nature reserve in the country, the only state-run park in KwaZulu-Natal where each of the big five game animals can be found, and is home to one of the largest populations of white rhino in the world. This was another private game drive (perhaps our last of the trip?
Saturday, December 14, 2024
Our first tour out of Durban was three-pronged. The first stop—and the reason we booked the tour—was a game drive in the Tala Preserve. Up close with a journey of giraffe! This was our favorite moment of the day. Because we had a private tour, we were able to slowly exit the vehicle and walk a few feet out for a few photos. Pretty sure this is very much not allowed, but…well… Reminds me of an African version of that famous The Beatles Abbey Road photo.
One of the first experiences we had in Pilanesberg National Park was these two subadult rhinos fighting one another. -J 🇿🇦
Thursday, December 12, 2024
Our first safari game drive in Africa was in Pilanesberg National Park, 2.5 hours outside of Johannesburg. The park was formerly farmland located inside a large volcanic crater, but was rewilded as (mostly) natural habitat. -S 🇿🇦 An elephant drinking water, which is dripping off its trunk. Our first giraffe sighting of the trip We watched this guy spray himself with water for a bit, though it was hard to capture given our angle.