Community Tour

As with other parts of S. Africa, the unemployment situation is quite high. Most of the villagers work for the lodges. The average wage is about Rand 3,500 (US$500) which isn't too bad but one bread earner would support like 10 family members. The community we visited was not the largest, it had around 5,000 inhabitants.

SRB through his own pocket apparently provides free Antiviral medication to any AIDS patient but the govt give Rand 400 assistance (US$55) per month for people whose white blood cell count drops below a score of 200 so the sick are sick all the time penduluming between the sickness and unemployment.

Here a new creche is being built, there were two kids that were absolutely petrified of anyone with white skin. No I have added the scary yellow to his palette of nightmares?

Other tours

There are quite a number of other tours to take, there is a cultural tour (more local dancing and gumboot dancing, seen enough of that now!), a heli ride to "god's window", we failed to find another couple... and the only other one that I had interest in was the one where virgin has a dedicated person to help the community. The one we saw, has no middle generation, there is 70% incidence of AIDS and there are only grandparents or grandchildren left.

We visited one of the schools where the zinc roof had been blown off so the govt put tents for the kids to study. Another guest donated a truckload of books but they only got shelves recently and another one donated computers... if they can now sort out eskom and the electricity...

I must say the buildings are alot more solid than some of the schools I attended in malaysia but they also have more severe weather here. Some of the children did not look good and many had food 5 days a week because the school fed them, they would go hungry over the weekend.

more shots

of animals and the free for all wine cellar leading to a private balcony, dining for 2. The dinner company of all the nights were quite good, we met a photographer for the Sun (he had the biggest paparazzi lenses, only shadowed by the lens to view saturn at the observatory), most visitors to this resort are from the UK, one couple got engaged, he found the place on his many atlantic virgin flights. Yes there were virgin comics in the lodges, nope no virgin cola served.

here's a male dung beatle, it takes him 20 mins to build a big ball but since summer is over, its not likely a female will come by to lay an egg. The weather by the way is glorius, nice and warm! compared to Joburg.

Stuff seen on game drives

A strangler tree (the viney one) where the vine strangles it host tree and takes over). The postman tree where people used to leave messages and other people heading in that direction will take it along with them.

On one game drive we came across the hyena den with their pups, here's quite a good short clip... there are alot of animals that we saw, the cheetah, the leopard, the lions, elephant, a variety of yummy (quoting loren) antelope, buffalo, hippos, giraffe, primates... oh another great thing about this place, they give you a guide book to animals, flora and fauna of the place! Nice Touch Sir RB!

For the uninitiated, the white poo belongs to the hyena... its all crushed bone and the residue calcium, not too many carcases in this area, in fact we only saw one big male elephant skull that prob could not get broken down by the hyenas.

Post walk pre lunch

This is another good part of the day... loren would hit the gym perched high on one of the mountains, I would read and drink big glasses of home made ice lemon tea (oh just remembered another good feature of this place for older kids... there is wii as well as internet access).

One day i did yoga, read my Amy Tan collection of essays and the pool is nice too, but it being winter I did not pack my suit.

The lunches are great too, most days still feeling breakfast in our bellies the salad sufficed, there was a great salmon one but I did skip breakfast one day to make it to Kudu burger for lunch, a glass of white wine and then it was treatment time (and a mini nap).

The early morning drives

start at 530am, its really too early and too cold to consider, we only did it on the last day, after 3 blissful nights of good good sleep (even loren said I looked younger, was it the sleep or the treatments?), all in all I must say it was 4 days free of any child related minor or major aggravation! oh and the help yourself to the wine cellar helps too!

My favourite part of the day is post breakfast (our routine was wake up at 8, crawl out of bed around 815, see the hippos down by the tree house and then head to breakfast 9). A bit of digression, we had two encounters at the treehouse, the first was the babboons breaking into the locked treehouse by breaking down the wooden door, the place looked like a frat party, they tore big masks off the walls, broke glass and toilet paper strewn everywhere, apparently they thought the open bar policy applied to them too? The second wonderful experience was having breakfast in the treehouse.

Anyway, after breakfast, we would take a big walk about an hour around the bush, we saw alot of smaller wildlife like the lion ant (it makes a sand trap where the ant falls in and can't come back out), this beetle for example i fyou touch it will cause blisters, then a big group of caterpillars and the trees have lots of hooks, hidden ones too. The ranger said if a type of plant's seeds gets on your socks you might as well throw your socks out.

The night drives

usually start at 4pm on the winter schedule. Before that tea starts at 330pm, these places have too much food to serve and the first day we got cream puffs, another day was yummy carrot cake, the third day was too evil I did not try it, the last day was the swiss roll.

We scheduled all our massage and facial type therapies after lunch...

We had really nice surprises on the night drives, not just the animal viewings but the after drive drinks out in the open, a circle of chairs, an open bar a big fireplace was one night, another night they set up dinner under the stars and wheeled out a telescope. The rangers were knowledgeable also about the stars and as a big treat we got to see saturn through a telescope! rings and all!

Here is a local dance performance by the bonfire! Oh and they also build a very decent outdoor toilet for the ladies!

Ulu Saba

and the tag line to this to this safari lodge is... Sir Richard Branson's private game reserve. The verdict? highly recommended! It is an incredible place and although Virgin airlines seems to not be so great anymore, along with virgin cola, this game reserve has a few very nice touches... among them:

- laundry service free of charge (delivered back the same day)
- shampoo, conditioner, bath lotion etc... although packaged for the mass market in china or japan? is nice to use and not in those irritatingly small bottles. These are the home sized bottles
- drink as much as you like and help yourself to the wine cellar or any bar
- tennis courts for those who play tennis
- a gym on the highest perch of the Rock Lodge
- a spa in both lodges
- incredibly good food
- incredibly good staff, service and knowledge
- an observatory
- a tree house
- animals that like to hand around for easy viewing...

Will elaborate more with each posting... the game lodge is made of 2 parts, the safari lodge that links to the tree house that overlooks a big dam where there are resident hippos and crocs. The rock lodge that is perched on top of a hill (the only 4 mounds) in a vast flatland, where one can see for miles and mile (or a giraffe strolling by).

The only negative experience was we were the last stop on the taxi air service and I seem to get motion sickness! Felt quite sick upon arrival. Oh and kids under 11 are free, not sure if that is a positive or negative.

Mr. Cool again

Ike is still toddling around... he likes to fight his sleep and can scamper up a person like the person were a coconut tree and he the monkey. Amazing.

What to do with Passover leftovers...

Chinese style... so porpor has been very innovative in the kitchen... here is what happened to the:

1.) Gefilte fish - fried and disguised as fish and chips; gulfed down by meera and nate, ike viewed it suspiciously. Also used in a sandwich
2.) Matza balls - cut into small chunks and add into fried rice
3.) Herring - eat with fried rice and is good substitute for the sweet and sour pickle, otherwise used
4.) Matza crackers - Ike's post nap snack
5.) Chicken Livers - sandwich anyone?

I am also sad to announce the drowning of about 1kg of my worms! My theory is this, the cold front drove the worms to seek warmer shelter and so they headed to the lower tray. The design of the rectangular worm farm is not good (read do not buy this unit!) and so water is not easily emptied out. The worms could not climb back up (I now have a worm ladder) and so they drowned! boo hoo hoo! I didn't even realise there were so many worms in the farm. Now I am considering placing them in the garage for the winter. Their eating rate seems to have drastically reduced.

Ike managed a big bump on his head... loves matza crackers and is adjusting not bad to school... exhausted tho afterwards.

Mr. Cool

Interview with batty and spidey

These guys and their suits! I am really getting my moneys worth out of these suits, nate seems to never tire of them, I should try and get superman before he grows out of this phase!

Short clip

here's a short clip of me videoing ike before he realises I am there. He usually never wants to leave the swing, he's just discovered them, sometimes he looks so sleepy in the swing, I am afraid he may fall asleep and fall off!

Ike and these fancy water bottles

Another video clip of ike growing up.

More Videos

Am getting quite good at using my Nokia N82 to take videos but my interview skills still need improvement, for those who want to see movement, here are the boys...

Christines evilly hot hot "hot pot"

Which could be called hell soup as the soup was really really spicy! tongue burning spicy even for a seasoned spice eater like me and woon! and christine said it was just "mild" for them Chengdu (read szechuaners).

As usual the food could have fed another 10 people but it was good, lots of Chinese "bouncy" fish balls and cake, tofu, mushrooms and sauces that were hot with vinegar or a raw egg.

There were two hot boilers and we all ate for 3 people. The haagen daz that I brought could have really soothed the burnt tongue but the coconut, yam and sago was really good too.

Skies in Joburg

Have been taking pics of the sky here, some days the clouds look like pancakes, other days cotton candy... there seems to be more clouds these days than just blue blue skies. Today at the park, whenever a cloud blocked out the sun it was cold but hot again when the sun came out, its hard to dress for weather like this!

Meera is here for the week

Meera (age 10) is the daughter of one of loren's colleagues, nate and ike enjoy playing with her and she is really good with young children. Her parents just moved from singapore and our OSIM chair came in their shipment. Anyway, her parents are off to cape town and Kruger national park, so she is staying with us for a week, nate is quite happy about that and its nice to see them play so well. i think younger kids must learn alot from older kids and I hope lots of good things will rub off!

Here's Ike being pushed on the swing by Meera, he was laughing so hard! but also seemed to be falling asleep with the back and forth motion of the swing!

Earlier in the day, he and axel, sat together voluntarily or rather he went to sit next to axel, I wonder if he knows that guy is his own age group and thus his buddy? Ike is very into throwing tantrums now, we are definitely in the terrible twos. Lots of patience needed again....

Batman does Science center

Nate is either batman or spiderman or has alternate personalities as his super suits need to get cleaned, I think we are really getting our moneys worth with these costumes... should we get superman as well? I wonder how long this phase will last. Loren is quite pleased as he gets to watch super heroes with him.

He likes to see his cape flutter... here he is with dada at the science center, Ike who enjoys the science center as well did not get to go as he is now past his sick phase and back to waking up at 430am! aarrgh.