** Amor’s Creations, the hair stylist I went to in Port Elizabeth to repair the mess from my haircut at the salon in the Green Line mall, is excellent!

** The Coachmen Restaurant in PE also makes a really nice meal for a fair price.

** There is a small deli just down the road from Amor’s Creations in PE that makes the best potato waffles – other types too.

**  Manna Bookstore Trade and Exchange in Storms River Village needs your trades!!  Don’t forget . . .

** The Friar Tuck restaurant in Margate does a great steak, and they use lovely Karan beef.

** Uvongo Book Exchange has lots and lots of books!  Just off Marine Drive in Uvongo/Margate.

** Bushwillow Lodge guesthouse in Hoedspruit is a great place to kick back and relax if you are going to Kruger Park or other neighbouring places – and they have the resident bushbaby, lots of birds in the trees – beautiful place.

** A couple good restaurants in the Khamengelo (sp?) Mall on R527 in Hoedspruit – there’s a sports bar in the back right corner and an Italian restaurant in the front left corner.  There’s also a Wimpy there if you like that kind of stuff.

** The computer shop in the Pick ‘n Pay Centre  in Hoedspruit is wonderful – fix any problems with your electronics, have supplies and friendly efficient service.  I’ve lost their card, but will try to get their name from the friends who live in the area.

*** And my favourite find!  SIGNATURE cosmetics.  Due to allergies, sensitivities and so on I haven’t been able to wear cosmetics of any kind for years and years.  Signature is a line developed in SA from the old Coty ‘recipes’ and when I wandered through the store, just browsing to see what was new, I stopped to sniff the mascara, which is the cosmetic I miss most.  No reaction from my sinuses or eyes!!  I don’t have that lack of reaction even to the most expensive hypo-allergenic cosmetics on the N American market.  I bought a couple and they are great.  No problems whatsoever.  Available at most large shopping malls or by mail-order from the company website: http://www.signaturecosmetics.co.za/

** Second favourite find: Mohair socks.  SA is trying to move forward with a fledgling mohair industry, so there are many small shops selling different things made from mohair.  I decided to try the socks, since it’s hard to get wool socks here and I have to have my wool socks for the winter.  I love them.  Warm and cuddly (a lot like me!) and I hope to get more .

The stop-over in Amsterdam was lovely, as before.

This time I took the tram to the flower market – what a sight!  A whole street with shops filled with bulbs of every imaginable variety.  Many I have never heard of or seen before.  Some delft for sale and even plants sealed in cans.

Had lunch at a lovely little cafe on a corner, then walked along the canals for a bit before getting back to the airport.

Delft planters and touristy stuff

Bikes and boats everywhere - what an orderly, well-run city!

Just look at the tiers and rows of bicycles parked across the canal!

A TROOP of darn monkeys!  I knew I’d remember if I quit trying to force it . . .

Ramsgate beach map sign

Just had to share my day with you all.  Went out to Ramsgate where a friend had a cottage when she was small, to see how built up it had become and maybe get some photos for her.

It was an absolutely perfect day, weather-wise.  Hot sun, good cool breeze down by the water and not very many people on the beach, which was lovely.  Walked up and down the beach and took some video from different places which I will send my friend in hopes that she can recognize where the cottage was and that the beach scenes bring back some good memories for her and her family.

Saw lots of little lizards on the rocks – one kind which jumps straight up into the air – very strange to see and funny.  A dassie sped across the rocks in front of me and I didn’t get a picture as he surprised me so much I just gaped.  Then I had lunch on the beach, and after that went down closer to the water and just sat in the sand watching the waves and the sand crabs and trying not to doze off.  Sat there for a couple hours and I fully plan to do that again tomorrow if the weather co-operates.  I feel so relaxed right now that I could pass for a sea sponge.

Going  to get some supper and have an early night so I can get on the road tomorrow early.  Well, sort of early I guess.  The flying ants have descended – they look much like our fish flies at home – and the geckos are out in force having feasts.  It’s such a hoot to watch them I keep going out and sitting on the porch just to see them work.

ttfn,

View from my deck at Treetops 2

View from my deck at Treetops 1

Geckos at their fast food joint

I’m back at Treetops, and I love the decks here in front of the rooms.  Way up in the trees.  Herd (flock? pack?) of monkeys on the roof this evening, making a heck of a racket and jumping from the roof over the deck and into the trees.  I’ll sure miss being able to sit out front and see all the birds and butterflies too.  Going to miss the geckos all over the front wall and sitting on the porch light, not to mention the little guys scrambling around my room looking for goodies to eat that would otherwise just bite me.

My room gecko

Eeee-ew! A huge red centipede

Flocks of hadedas fly over twice a day as I’m on the path between where they spend their nights and the Conservancy where they go each day to eat.  Now there’s a racket!

I never know that geckos made a noise, but they do.  Sort of a whirring sound, which I’ve been told they do only at mating time when they’re getting territorial, but I’m far from sure that the imparter of this information knew what he was on about.  Just found out too that geckos don’t have sticky pads or suction cups on their feet but can climb walls due to some sort of molecular attraction that they’ve just discovered. Weird!

Also saw a strange little gecko with raised lines all down the length of him, crosswise.

Unless something radical happens, don’t know if I’ll be making any more entries here before I leave – may just sit somewhere and commune with nature.

I’ll e-mail you all when I get the photos up and the video uploaded somewhere that you can see.

Got some really cute video clips of petting the cheetah – you can hear her purring.  She purrs so loudly that it sounds like a truck engine idling.  She licked my hand and I said to the guide that I was surprised her tongue wasn’t much rougher.  The guide said that then she wasn’t licking hard as they have to be very careful when they’re all sweaty because she will then lick hard for the salt and it only takes 6 or 7 licks to take the skin off you just like sandpaper.

And some cute clips of the two baby lions.  They had just been fed so were feeling lazy, but would make sure you scratched the right places either by rolling over or grabbing your hand with a paw.  Licked my hands and nipped them a bit – really cute little guys.  Didn’t want to leave at all.

Good to hear too that they’re being very responsible about gene pool mixing – trading breeders with other projects and zoos, and that they are also keeping those animals due to be released to the wild well away from human traffic and you can just see them in the distance.  They do need the little ones and a tame one though as the revenue from the petting section is what keeps them going I imagine.  It ain’t cheap to feed a cheetah.

The cheetah guide with the 'tame' cheetah

I’ll get the video up as soon as I can after I get home and let you all know.

Another thing I forgot to tell you about.  Some of the townships here (like reservations at home) are mostly better off or educated working people like teachers and government workers, and they may have a fairly nice house, lots of “stuff” (my friend Party that I visited earlier has a 3D TV set-up) and they may or may not have electricity – if not, solar hot water and propane for fridges and a generator – but many townships have no running water.  So I saw as I was driving one day, a few well-off looking ladies with nice new ‘bakkies’ (small pick-up trucks) who had taken their loads of laundry down to a nearby river and were washing their clothes and spreading them in the field to dry.  A country full of strange contrasts here.

A couple towns I passed by that were interestingly named – Dam-Dam and Hanky.  There was another good one today but I’ve forgotten it.

Supposed to rain tomorrow, but all I have planned is a nice massage if I can get an appointment – these hours of driving are making my back a bit stiff, and a haircut repair – both the guide at the cheetah project and my LL at the B&B have offered to take me to their hair stylists (you would not believe the looks I’m getting on the street!).  It’s already so short the only remedy may be to shave it all off – I don’t know.  Cross your fingers for me . . .

(–New haircut was a success)

ttys,

Got here Friday afternoon, started looking at what I wanted to see and emailing for further directions for a couple things that looked interesting yesterday.

Yesterday morning I finally found the Johnny Clegg disc I wanted, and while I was at the mall I decided to get my hair cut.  It’s really been bugging me since no matter how long I grow it little bits keep breaking off and then they’re too short to be caught back and just keep flying around my face and hanging in my neck.  Anyway, the result of telling the girl to cut it short and a little bit feathery is undoubtedly the worst haircut I’ve ever had – and I’ve had some terrible ones.  Little “Dutch boy” bangs and some choppy pieces that stick out at the side of my head like I’m the Flying Nun or something.  I have no mirror to let me see the back, (and maybe that’s a mercy or I might stay indoors for the rest of the trip) but I can feel that it’s really short and choppy.  A veritable ‘backed-into-a-running-lawnmower’ of a haircut!  I’ll have to see what Stacey, my regular hairstylist, can do with what’s left when I get home.

Went to church this morning and when I got back no further information from any of the places I’d want to see, so played with the dog, read and napped.  It wasn’t as windy today, which made it nice for sitting out in the lovely garden here and watching the birds and the geckos that climb on the garden wall.

I still can’t get over how business people here just don’t get back to you when you e-mail them.  Whether it’s for accommodation or for more information on a tourist site they are running, it can be days or weeks before you get a reply. Don’t understand it when they’re all complaining about how poor they are.

Not much else going on, so back to my book.  Even the dog has deserted me since I finished sharing my supper left-overs with her this afternoon.  Faithless creature!

ttys,

Hadeda on the lawn

View from my porch at Tsitsikamma

Also, the N2 has been run across and north of the old road, so it’s right outside the cabins practically.  Now it’s the main route from east to west on the south end and you hear trucks and racing cars all day and all night.  Not the pastoral serenity I was looking for.  Still really nice staff, but that doesn’t make up for what was lost.  And now they take in small coach tours, so the place is full of noisy tourists, mostly German while I was there.  Don’t have anything against German tourists, just coach groups tend to be much more noisy than single travellers.

BUT – when I left this morning I decided to double back and look at Storms River Village since that’s where the canopy zip-line tours run from and I really, really want to do that, but chickened out again yesterday when I had the chance to do it.  What a place – I’m in love again!  One little street of one block with touristy things on it – horse riding, tubing, bike tours and the zip-line thing, with a second-hand bookshop and a small grocery store, restaurant and internet cafe.  Then there were some accommodation establishments, one called Tsitsikamma Village Inn caught my eye.  Large, well-tended grounds.  Several types of living spaces – Swiss wooden cottages, adobe type fisherman’s cottages, old Cape Dutch ‘row housing’.  It was so intriguing.  I went in to the reception and asked the woman what the charges were, and they’re half of what the place I stayed was.  And she said feel free to wander about and any room door that is open, I could go in and check it out.  They were all excellent rooms.  Done up so nicely, clean bright and thoughtfully set up.  And the Albert and Victoria suites were really something!  THEN when I spoke to the woman on the desk again, she said that the former owners of Tsitsikamma Lodge bought this when they sold the other place to the chain. This couple have a genius for making a place have a vibe where you just feel like you can let your breath out and your shoulders relax.  I wanted to stay there so badly, but already had my reservations at the B&B here in PE, so regretfully left.  Had talked to the second-hand bookstore owner and he said that a monthly rental there in the village would be about R2-3,000/mo.  That’s pretty reasonable and I loved the place, what little I saw of it.  Don’t know if it’s close to a beach or not, but google earth will surely tell me.

Storms River Village 2

Storms River Village 1

Saw lots of birds at the Lodge though.  One that looks like a robin kept coming and sitting on my windowsill and looking in at me.  It was a hoot.  And lots of  hadedas on the lawns.  MT you’ll have to tell me how to pronounce that bird’s name.  I’ve been rhyming it with lah-di-dah but have no idea if that is correct.

Also saw this bright little thing that never sat still for more than a few seconds unless it was way high up.  Irridescent as so many here seem to be.  Black, red, turquoise and yellow.  Looked a lot like the lilac breasted roller but black where the roller has the lilac.  It makes a strange sound, a ‘tink-tink’ call that sounds just as if someone was snapping their fingernail against an empty beer bottle.

The weather is something else.  When I was through here before, it was gloomy.  While I was down the road, PE and East London had a heat wave of 38C.  Now I’m here and it is thundering and gloomy, and the wind!  My grief!  PE is definitely the Chicago of SA.  It thunders and lightnings a lot, but doesn’t rain much – a few sprinkles.  I asked the chap at the Lodge about that because it thundered and lightninged in a major way all last night but there was only a few drops of rain there.  He said because it is already so damp on this side of the mountains that the clouds don’t release their rain until the other side, over the Karoo, which is a desert, so they will be glad of it.

The wind is so bad I don’t really feel like venturing out so it’s a good time to catch up on my blog here, then I’ll see what this town has to offer by way of touristy stuff.

I did go back to the elephant orphanage and did a different program this time.  Since the weather was great and there were lots of people they did the walks and educational talks this time.  The walks are when they bring elephants out and you can hold ‘hands’ with them and take them for a walk.  That was fun, and the educational session was good too.  You get to feel the elephants’ trunks, teeth, foot pads and so on and how everything works is explained to you.

And I went to Birds of Eden again.  Love that place.  Had a great long chat with the woman who owns it as she was walking on the path back to the office so started explaining some things to a bunch of us who were looking at the birds.  So everyone else moved on and we stood and chatted for quite a while.  A lot of the birds they have there as well as the small monkeys which are new and the pair of duikers, were pets that people either were mistreating or decided that they couldn’t handle.  Even though there is the monkeyland park next door, which she also owns, those monkeys – two kinds of tamarins I think they’re called – can’t go in there since they really don’t know how to behave properly to be accepted and they’d be killed.

People just don’t think before they get an animal way too often.  One of the elephants at the elephant orphanage was a pet.  Someone kept her until she was about 4 I think and was getting way too big for the house but didn’t want to stay out.  So the poor thing got turned over to the orphanage and they had a heck of a time for a couple years  keeping her out of the ‘people buildings’.  Now she has taken over the role of foster mother to any new elephants because even though she’s the oldest, she can’t be a matriarch of the herd since she doesn’t know enough about elephant stuff.

Saw a T-shirt on the net that I loved.  I’d get it if I didn’t already have too many T-shirts.  It said “Anything unrelated to elephants is irr-elephant.”

Anyway, I think that’s all for today.

ttys,

I got a disc by Cherilyn Macneil who I really like.  She had a group called Harris Tweed, but people in the British Isles made legal noises over the name of the band, so now it’s called Dear Reader.  If you don’t know it, check out Harris Tweed and especially a song called Ode to Confusion.  I love it, and the new disc seems to be really good too, what little I’ve heard of it – but will get plenty of listening time in tomorrow on the 7 (est) hr drive to Tsitsikamma.

Today was another lazy day.  Breakfast here is only between 7 and 8, so I had breakfast, then a long nap.  Woke up at noon, went looking for music and groceries for supper.  Tried the local Mickey D’s – they don’t have Big Macs!  Have all the chicken stuff and a flatbread chicken sandwich they call a foldover which I haven’t seen at home, and the fish fillet.  Had lunch there and then got the music and groceries.

Did I ever tell you that you CANNOT get pure fruit juice here – except apple?  I mean, the stuff is 100% fruit juice, but everything is mixed.  Nothing is 100% of one fruit.  Not even Ceres!!  Why I can’t get a jug of pure orange juice in  a country with so many citrus groves and fruit juice plants is beyond me.

Another realisation is beginning to dawn and maybe those of you who have lived by the ocean can tell me how it is for you?

I’ve always dreamed of retiring near the ocean, but on this trip am finding that I don’t like it much.  It’s beautiful, and smells wonderful, and sounds great – but everything is always damp and clammy.  Your clothes are damp, your bed and pillows are damp, your towels are damp before you even start your shower!  When I get home I’m going to have to wash everything I brought with me in Lysol to get the mildewy smell stopped, I think.

I need some desert time to balance this clamminess.  Tsitsikamma is more inland, so maybe I can get things dry at least.  I still love so much about the ocean, but maybe I’ll have to plan to live a bit more inland and just go and visit lots?

Going to grab some supper, read for a while and tuck in early, since I’ll need to get an early start tomorrow.

ttys,

P. S. Another thing I’ve discovered here is that if you want to get photos of flowers in the tropics, you literally have only a couple hours after they bloom before they start fading, falling apart and being eaten.

Found out what that big dark bird is – a Cape Loury.  Saw one in flight yesterday, and what a beauty!  All charcoal gray, except for a wide copper-coloured band around his neck and brilliant scarlet underwings. Another beautiful bird, which mein host only knew as a white-eye is small – sparrow sized – with a brilliant mustard coloured belly, the front of his neck is turquoise and his back is a shiny lime green.  He blends in so well with the leaves and shadows in the trees that you have to look really hard to see him.

Drove 9 hrs today – all through the inland route to East London.  Decided to ignore the blinking GPS, which wanted me to take the N2 the whole way.  N2 is sort of like 401 on a smaller scale.   I wanted to see more of the coast line and some of the smaller inland places so I headed for those and just let the GPS squawk away.  After I saw a bit of what I wanted, then I let it guide me back to the N2 eventually. Took me through many, many foothills.  I went up and down as much as I went ahead.  Beautiful country.  Roads cut through hills which have so much iron in the dirt that it is brilliant red or orange – almost burgundy in some places.  Went through a town called Collywobble – no kidding.  All sorts of picturesque little towns and settlements spread across the hills.  Lots of rivers and forests and the Kei gorge too.  It’s really hard to drive and admire the scenery at the same time though, so maybe if I ever get here again, I’ll do more by bus like I did the first time.

Going to chill here tomorrow, and will go to Tsitsikamma on Tuesday and stay 3 nights.  Then maybe back to Grahamstown for a couple days.  Who knows?  Playing it by ear right now as don’t have to be back in Durban until the 25th.

Last night in Margate was really foggy, and here tonight.  Boy – we do NOT know what fog is at all!!  It comes rolling in and soaks everything immediately.  I’m so glad I wasn’t on the road either night when it hit, because I don’t know how driving would be in that.

Anyway, I’m kind of beat and do want to get off my bum as it has seen enough abuse today.

ttys,

There are enough hadedas flying overhead, screeching, to satisfy even MT.  They’re big birds with downward curved beaks – long ones – which they use to root up grubs and insects in the grass I think.  At least that’s what it looks like they’re doing.  They’re quite pretty, seeming to be quite different colours as the light hits their feathers from different angles.

Saw another big bird today in a tree just off the porch here, big and dark coloured with a short flat topknot.  His call was sort of a ‘whoo whoo whoo whoo whoo whoop whoop whoop’  I’m counting on MT knowing what it was.

The drive through the gorge was beautiful!  Took a hike through the forest to see Hoopoe Falls, and you can forget that if you’re ever here.  The hike took me two hours there and back – granted I’m a pretty slow hiker – through some paths that were six inches wide along the side of a cliff, over fallen trees, up and down rocks, past numerous centipedes, both the black ones and the red ones, and past one pile of what looked like monkey poop, which was when I started wondering if maybe I should go back to the car.  But I could hear the hoopoes and the falls and really wanted to see them.  Didn’t see any hoopoes and the “falls” was all of two feet high!  Was I p.o’d!  Sweat was even dripping off the end of my pony tail – all for what?

Hoopoe Falls? Good grief!

The path to Hoopoe Falls

Well the bad part was that I smacked the car up.  It’s the damn GPS’s fault – again.  Getting to the gorge it told me to take a turn and it was shortly after that that I realised that the ‘road’ was fast narrowing into a small one-track sand lane.  I was looking for a place to turn around when I came to a very steep bit with deep dry sand.  I shifted right down and made a run for it, but the car stalled out after spinning its tires.  With the stall I lost my steering and brakes – at least any I could manage, and the car slid backwards down the hill into a rock.  Ripped the bumper and creased the rear quarter panel.  What that’s going to cost me will prevent any further vacations for a while, I think.  I don’t think – I know!

The car still runs OK and all the lights appear to be working – going to go out now that it’s dark and check again though.

And the damn thing still doesn’t count exits on the roundabouts properly.  Took the exit today that it told me to (I was behind a big truck so couldn’t see what was ahead) and I ended up in a huge mall parking lot.

I use two maps, my google directions when they’re available and the GPS and I still have trouble arriving where I want to go.  Best advice?  If your map or google seems to say different, ignore the GPS.  It will take you places no tourist was ever meant to see!

I finally got to the top of the farmer’s lane today and there was a big fence with a huge sign that read “GPS Users:  This is NOT the road to Oribi gorge.  Return to main road etc”  He has made a big space to turn around, and kindly helped me check under the car to make sure nothing was leaking.  He says he gets literally dozens of travellers up there as their GPS reads his laneway as a road.  He had to put the fence up since the lane ends abruptly and a few feet later there is a cliff that gets you to the gorge much more quickly than you might have planned.  He is also building a few cabins up there which will have a spectacular view of the gorge and making a trout pond too as well as more cabins down in the bush.  Will be worth seeing when it’s done I think.

Oribi Gorge 2

Oribi Gorge 1

Anyway, I’m a bit low right now about the car accident, and anxious about how much it will cost.  Just hoping I don’t have any problems with Avis about it, but for sure if I ever have to rent a car again, will make sure that I have time to wait until they give me the size I want.  Again ordered (and was promised) a VW Golf, and got this huge Toyota which has a seat so low I can barely see over the steering wheel and surely can’t see either the rear end or the front end to tell where they are.  And you know I’m not short, so it’s a very weird car, made for N American males only I think as they have longer bodies from hip to head.

Have another lizard fast food joint outside my door.  A CF light in a big glass enclosure that there will be 4 or 5 of them sitting on it at night just waiting for the moths and other bugs to come sailing in to them.

Oh, also for you language buffs – saw a sign on a bathroom decorator’s shop the other day – in a good, upscale part of town too – “Bathroom Bizarre”.  What a difference spelling makes, eh?  Also saw a fish and chip menu that gave you the option of “tartare” sauce with your fish.  EEK!

Now I really am going to go.

ttys,