Day 50 – 2/27/07 – Transfer to Pucon, Chile

So here’s a good one. We showed up at the airport on the wrong day! According to our self made hotel itinerary, we were supposed to check out of Mendoza and into Pucon, Chile on 2/27/07. According to the flight itinerary, we were supposed to fly from Mendoza to Pucon on 2/28/07.

Way back in December, we changed our itinerary to subtract a day from Mendoza to add it to Pucon. We both had an enormous amount going on in the weeks before the trip, and at that moment at the airport, it became evident that Lou “may or may not have” actually called the airline to make the change.

However, once again, LAN proved to be an excellent company. They didn’t panic, laugh at us, or send us home. The agent calmly took our itinerary and went into the back room. The “arrive at the airport one hour before departure” ticked away, but 30 minutes before the scheduled take off, she came back with the price of $50 each to change our tickets. We rebooked, PAID, and rushed through security, and we made it onto both flights (Mendoza – Santiago and Santiago – Temuco).

In passing through Chilean customs we had a second surprise: It cost $100/person in US dollars (cash or credit card) to enter Chile. There was a huge sign saying that there is a reciprocal tax to enter Chile for certain visitors. We learned the US, Canada, Mexico and Australia all charge the same fee for Chileans to enter their countries. Again, here’s a moment where we just knew that the “US started it”, so we swiped the MasterCard and had our passports stamped. The consolation prize ass that the $100 ticket was stapled into the passport and good for the life of the passport. Without even stepping foot outside the airport, we had rationalized that we’d have to come back to Chile because we’d automatically be saving $200.

Since we were going to be in Pucon for 5 days, we decided to rent a car. Feeling a little more comfortable with an international agency, we rented with Avis and on the advice of the guidebook, we took every insurance they offered. The only thing not covered on the car was the radio. We rented a lovely little red Peugeot in excellent condition, and Lou called it his Chilean Ferrari.

The drive through the countryside was fantastic. There were rolling hills in the forefront of mountains and snowcapped volcano peaks. The mountains were lush green and we passed pastures of llamas, cows, and sheep. We made a few wrong turns in the small towns but they were easily fixed. Our drive from the airport to the hotel took 90 minutes.

This week’s retreat, Hotel Antumulal, was absolutely lovely and Gloria, the manager, was fantastic. The hotel was a 1970s masterpiece in the Bauhaus Style and we were pretty convinced it was architected by Mike Brady himself. The rooms had lush bedding, loads of the blankets and a fireplace. The hotel was on 5 hectares of lands and had numerous pathways to hike around the property in the mornings. Rather than a beach resort, it felt much more like a ski chalet.

Through the package on the Internet, we had breakfast and a $10,000 peso/person credit for lunch or dinner every day. That translated to just paying for drinks at dinner – approximately $7 for a ½ bottle of Chilean wine and two small bottled waters.

The only downside was that the meal service in the dining room was relatively slow. We say relatively because it’s probably a very healthy, socially enabling, gastronomically correctly paced dinner. But to Americans, it took freakin forever to get water, bread, salad, then entrees, and then the check. Each meal was a 2-hour endeavor. But the food was excellent and well worth the exercise in patience. And, we’ve taken it as a message to slow down.

Day 51 – 2/28/07 – Pucon, Chile

After a leisurely morning and breakfast, we drove 10-minutes into downtown Pucon. It’s a charming little town that resembles any tourist or ski village with one supermarket, gear stores, jewelry stores, and restaurants. Lou bought a sweater to replace the one that had been shrunk to a child’s size 6x while being “dry cleaned” in Africa. Julee bought a bra, because these South American women no how to “push up” like no one else in the world.

For lunch, we walked 5 blocks outside of town to a restaurant called Marmonhi, where most of the patrons were local. The food was excellent, but Julee’s favorite was the breadbasket, which came with a Mapuche favorite: Fried Doughnuts (without the glaze). It is the perfect way to start a meal – any meal!

This afternoon’s adventure was fishing. Our guide picked us up at our hotel and we traveled in his jeep up into the mountains about 50 minutes. Lou and I didn’t know what to expect. In fact, we thought we were going fly fishing on a river. As it turns out, we went up to a small mountain lake to troll for wild trout. The altitude meant chillier conditions, and thankfully we were basically prepared. Although the guide did lend Lou his stylin hat.

The scenery and circumstances were picturesque. The lake was breathtaking, with calm waters surrounded by mountains. There were no motors allowed on the lake, so we could only hear cows mooing and birds calling.

And adding to the experience, all the rowboats were pretty old and made completely of wood. They were so charming that we ignored their questionable sea worthiness.

From the beginning; we had a great feeling for our guide Marcos. His was well prepared with extra clothing for us and had packed a cooler of tea, cookies, juices and sodas. His English was wonderful, so we could easily joke around. It took about a half-hour for Marcos prepare the lines and flies and put the paddles on the boat. Once we were ready to shove off, he gave us our fishing technique instructions, “Pull back when you feel a tug”, and we were off.

Within 20 seconds of dropping down the lines – Julee had her first fish. And then, the next 6, all in the range of small to smaller.

Convinced it was the lure, Julee and Lou changed reels at then Julee promptly caught a fish on Lou’s once dormant line.

Then, Lou was convinced there was a preferred side of the boat. So, we precariously changed places. That was the magic bullet as finally Lou got a bite and reeled in the biggest fish of the day.

We stayed out on the Lake past dusk and didn’t head in until 8:30pm. In the meantime, Julee was freezing despite the long underwear, sweater and jacket. In addition, we both had sore butts! After catching 11 fish between the two of us, we headed back to shore. Just as we made the decision to leave, Julee got one last strike and finished out the night bringing in the last (and her biggest) trout. It was the perfectly book-ended fishing excursion.

Starving, we had dinner at the hotel. Still trying to warm up, we both had soup (Lou – mushroom sesame and Julee – carrot/pumpkin). In honor of the all the fish we threw back into the lake, Lou also ordered grilled Lake Trout in a light leek and butter sauce. At this hotel, we discovered our favorite cheap Chilean Wine Concha y Toro’s “Cassillero del Diablo”. Fortunately, it’s very easy and affordable to get here in the States.

Day 52 – 3/1/07 – Pucon, Chile

We enjoyed our guide so much that we signed up for a second evening of fishing. This time we requested fly fishing in a river. And, if you ever travel to Pucon, we highly recommend Marco. His website is http://www.flyfishingchile.cl/.

Marco picked us up at 4pm from the hotel. Our first stop was to the super market to pick up some Whiskey, and then we continued about 30 minutes outside of the city to his favorite riverbed. It took about 30 minutes to put on the gear and set the lines, and then we had a quick casting lesson. “10 and 2”. “10 and 2”. It really takes a bit of coordination and practice to develop the rhythm of casting. But Marco was patient and gradually added a few more tips. After a half hour of practicing along the banks, we waded into the river.

Here’s a funny note. When we arrived, there were kids jumping into the river. Check out the snow gear that Julee was wearing.

At dusk, thousands of mosquitoes appeared and the trout were jumping. Watching them launch out of the water was fascinating and frustrating. They would jump three feet from us but we couldn’t reel them in. In the end, Julee felt a couple of bites and Lou caught the smallest fish on record, which Marco called a “keychain”. Despite the lack of fish, the experience of wearing the waders, being waist deep in the river, and private casting lessons for hours was simply awesome.

The whiskey at the end was a nice touch too.

Day 53 – 3/2/07 – Pucon, Chile

Here’s what was supposed to happen: An all day excursion which included ascending an active volcano with the aid of crampons and ice picks and then sliding down the ice luge to the bottom.

Here’s what actually happened: Julee woke up sick as a dog. Her unidentified bacterial-viral-tapeworm was back with a vengeance and at 6:15am she knew she wasn’t going to make through an all day excursion. A sweaty, weepy mess, she went back to bed. Lou called to cancel the trip and talk to the desk staff.

In the hallway, Lou ran into a frantic couple screaming on the phone. They were trying to catch a bus to Puerto Monte, and their taxi transfer did not show up. Always a gentleman, Lou offered to give them a ride to downtown Pucon (about 8 minutes from the hotel). Pulling out of the driveway, the guy pointed to the bus and said, “There it goes”. Lou raced down the road and finally got the bus to pullover and stop. The couple jumped on, and the bus and sped off. Lou came home. All this before 6:30am.

We spent the balance of the morning back in bed.

For lunch, Lou headed out to the terrace overlooking the lake and feasted on a fabulous steak with mushroom risotto. Julee, having skipped lunch, felt better and couldn’t bare the thought of missing the alternative excursion: The Canopy.

The bus picked us up at the hotel and drove about 20 minutes to the canopy park. There, we were once again strapped into a harness, given gloves, a helmet and abbreviated instructions in English. There were about 15 of us in our group. In a single file line, we climbed up the ladders through the trees to the canopy platforms.

Despite the rickety feel of the tree houses, we felt relatively safe and the guides ensured we were attached via carabineers to safety lines at all times. Once on the platforms, the guide would reattach our equipment to the correct lines, tell us to sit and then give us a push. We spent the next hour zipping from tree platform to tree platform; it was just like the Ewok village from Star Wars. On the second to last zip line, they even gave us a spin. It was a fantastic way to spend an hour and see more of Chile’s forests and rivers. Once again, our excursion had exceeded our expectations.

A side note from Lou:
One of the guides had a little crush on Julee. Looking for which one was her boyfriend, the guide kept asking all the men on the tour if they were Lou. Needless to say, I was very nervous letting him “secure” my harness to the zip line.

On the excursion, we met two hilarious guys from California. We started talking to them because Lou had “lens envy”. Since Lou speaks fluent “photography”, he struck up a detailed conversation with Thomasz and Lev regarding camera lenses. These guys provided great commentary on the along the way and we have them to thank for our canopy action shots.
We took our new friends dinner recommendation and ate at a lovely Spanish restaurant called Puerto Pucon. It was Midnight once again, so we called it a night.

Day 54 – 3/3/07 – Pucon, Chile

We cruised around Pucon in the morning trying to find a laundry mat so that we could have clean clothes for the grand finale, the Inca Trail. There were several lavadaria’s in Pucon, however, they only offered drop off service and were closed on Sundays (the day of our departure). We finally came across Lavandaria Nelly, and the sweet laundress took pity on Julee’s Spanglish and look of desperation and agreed to do the laundary and come in at precisely 9am on Sunday morning so that we could pick it up.

We then grabbed some pretty questionable empanadas from a roadside restaurant and headed back to the hotel. There, we packed up for our next excursion, which included stealing the robes and towels from our room. We drove back into town and met up with Thomasz and Lev.

While swinging through the trees, they mentioned they planned to spend the next day visiting one of the thermal baths in the area. Since Julee had read “Frommer’s Argentina and Chile” from cover to cover, she had read about the best hot springs in Chile. With “3 stars and a moments” rating, it had to be awesome. Frommer’s never lies. So, Thomasz and Lev put their trust in us and followed us for two hours (70km) through farmlands and winding dirt roads through the mountains.

Termas Geometricas did not disappoint. It was another occasion where we ran out of hyperbole. It was beautiful, serene, majestic…it was perfect. There were several tiers of hot springs, each a different temperature, carved into a mountain ravine. Some of the pools held only 3-4 people, while others could hold extended families. There were couples, travelers and families with small children there that day. But with so many options, the four of us found a quiet pool and hung out there until we wanted a change in temperature or a change in scenery.

From the last pool, the path led up to a beautiful waterfall, which has the iciest-cold water we’ve ever felt. Just wading to the waterfall and back was nothing less than painful and then numbing. Feeling “refreshed”, we jumped back into the hot springs.

Our friends had brought a bottle of wine, so we topped off the afternoon by sitting in front of the fire at the mini-lodge, drinking wine and eating cake, all discussing how outstanding these hot springs were. Tom and Lev also confided that they weren’t too sure about Julee that day on the canopy. Julee was really quiet the entire day and didn’t engage in much conversation. Belted in and flying through the trees, Julee was quiet because she was concentrating on NOT barfing. Needlesstosay, she was doing much better and far more her talkative and not-so-shy self at the hot springs. Tom and Lev found that hilarious.

The drive back down the mountain was equally fun. Lou again pretended that his 1.4 L Peugeot was a “Chilean Ferrari” and he took the turns likes a racecar driver.

Back at the hotel, we had our last Chilean steak and salmon and packed up for our trip to Santiago in the morning.

Our final thoughts on Chile:
The Chilean Lake District is an amazing place. It’s a giant outdoor playground. The food is a little more expensive than Argentina, but it’s still fresh and fabulous and a bargain for US travelers. It’s worth the $100/person to get into the country. We were really not ready to leave.

After a nearly full day in Buenos Aires, we hopped a LAN flight to Mendoza. The single room airport was a cinch and we walked outside into a vineyard. That’s right, they grow grapes at the airport. It was beautiful (and immediate) welcome to Wine Country.

We took a 30-minute cab ride into the town of Mendoza to The Hotel Argentine. It was tourist class hotel right on the main square. The rooms were big and very simple and a bargain compared to the Park Hyatt next door.

After a quick Scotch, we strolled around the main town square, which was a large park. There were street performers and puppet shows for kids, a huge fountain and an evening market. We meandered around killing time before our dinner reservation at Azafran.

Oddly, the restaurant couldn’t take us any later than 10:00pm. We thought it was because they were closing and wanted to go home. Wrong! They were completely booked after 10:30pm and only had openings earlier in the evening. The meal was superb. They offered two 3-course chef’s tasting menus, so naturally, we ordered them both.

One of the appetizers was avocado extravaganza. At one point, Julee had fried avocado dipped in guacamole with a fresh avocado on top. The main dishes, one steak and one pasta, were divine and we can’t even talk about the desserts. It hurts. It was at this dinner that we coined the phrase “Eat yourself to misery”.

Day 48 – 02/25/2007 – Mendoza Wine Country

And Night 47 was the last night Julee felt like herself. Something happened after that diner that changed her GI track for the next three weeks. But being the champ she was…

Julee went down to the desk in the morning to arrange for a private driver through the wine country. The hotel hooked us up with Gustavo who was fantastic. He spoke nearly perfect English and was a wine fanatic. He gave us great tidbits about Mendoza, life in Argentina and the vineyards.

The first thing we learned is that Mendoza is really a desert oasis. All the parks are man made and were built to provide the town with natural air coniditioning and a higher level of oxygen. All of the trees are imported, the parks are man made, and all the small lakes are filled and drained every few months to keep the water fresh.  We also learned that having a dry climate allowed them to very preciesly measure the amount of water that the grapes receive.  Since all water is controlled they don’t have to worry as much about having a bad season because of to much rain.

He took us off the beaten path to some lesser known, privately owned operations. The only difficulty was that we couldn’t buy any wine. It was just too fragile and too heavy to carry with us.

Although Julee started the morning with enthusiasm, she basically broke down as the day progressed. By Noon she was lying on the floors of the wineries trying to convince everyone it wasn’t the wine. By the third winery, she was BITB (barfing in the bushes). But, back at the tasting with a smile when she felt better.

Since everything was closed on Sundays, our driver suggested we head to the Mendoza Mall Food Court for lunch. Here’s where we concluded that Malls are the common denominator. The Mendoza Mall looked exactly like any Two Story Mall, USA. We were surrounded by KFC, McDonald’s, GAP, Timberland, Sunglass Hut, the works. And the quality of food is just about the same. Lou had a nasty meat sandwich with an egg and Julee had a French fry and a diet coke.

That night we did nothing. Absolutely nothing. Julee was miserable and Lou took that as his cue for a well-deserved rest. We ordered soup from room service watched 5 hours of Red Carpet at the Oscars on E! It was the only English programming we could find. We were all ready to watch the live broadcast in its entirety when the pre show started over again. After all that waiting and listening to banter, they didn’t show the Oscars live in English on any of the 60 channels that came into the room. So I think we changed over to “Cheaper By the Dozen II”. It was not our best moment.

Day 49 – 2/26/2007 – Mendoza

Sick, schmick. Julee was not going to miss an excursion! So after lunch, we both packed up and prepared for the afternoon’s adventure – paragliding.

Our pilot and his wife picked us up at our hotel. We drove a couple miles outside of town and then headed 20 minutes up the dirt road to the top of the mountain. Once at the top, we got our instructions. “Look straight ahead. Run when he says run. Sit when he says sit. Landing instructions will be given at the bottom. “

Within seconds, the pilot hooked Lou into the harness and told him to look straight ahead as they waited for the wind. And whoooosh, they were gone.

From Julee’s perspective:
The pilot’s wife drove us back down the mountainous windy road to pick up Lou and the pilot. At the bottom, I asked Lou, “How was it?” And, all if could say was “fine.” It wasn’t until the ride back up that I could see he was green. Apparently, they had chased an eagle and all that spinning did Lou in.

Back up the mountain we drove and within seconds I was strapped into the harness with the pilot reassuring me that all I had to do was run. And with the next gust, we were airborne. It was incredible. The skies were unusually clear and the view was fantastic. Paragliding with a pilot is absolutely effortless, especially when the pilot told me I could release my death grip on the handles. Once I relaxed at sat back, it was like floating in a lazy boy. My favorite part happened after the pilot asked if I liked roller coasters.

The landing was perfect. The pilot simply stalled the canopy and we dropped what felt like two inches to the ground. Based on my other experiences of hot air ballooning and sky diving, this was by far the gentlest landing.

That night we headed out to the Park Hyatt for dinner. The restaurant was a plush, modern outdoor patio. Since eating was still not on the top of my list, I took it easy with a pumpkin soup while adventurous Lou had the goat entrée, which he says he’s glad he tried, but given the choice of goat or lamb, would definitely chose the lamb.

Not ready to turn in, we went to the casino at the Hyatt. The casino was about the size of a large cruise ship and had slots and tables. For those who are a bit sheepish about gambling, Mendoza is an excellent place to start. The low bid tables have a 2 pesos minimum, which was about 60 cents. So we played Roulette for an hour of so and we were up muy, muy pesos and tried out luck at the blackjack tables. We weren’t quite as lucky there but had a hilarious time.

Day 50 – 2/27/2007 – Mendoza

After breakfast, we headed to the airport and we were shocked when they couldn’t find our flight reservations…

Day 43 – 02/20/2007 – Buenos Aires

We got up and spent a frustrating morning online, trying to find another hotel room. Lou suggested that we give up the search. If we found a new hotel cruising around town, we’d pop in and ask about availability. We were growing attached to the Art Hotel; we just needed to step into the hallway to change our minds or our clothes (which is a great way to meet the neighbors).

Our first full day in Buenos Aires officially started by walking towards the Palermo neighborhood, which was about a 30-minute stroll from our hotel. Our first stop was the Botanical Gardens, which consisted of lovely paths, plentiful benches and incredible greenery. We had heard that Buenos Aires was full of beautiful parks, and it was true.

Our walked continued on to the Zoological Gardens, or as we’d say, The Zoo. You’d think after being on Safari, “The Zoo” would be a little mundane. But no, we loved it. We felt just a little bit superior as we identified all the animals in the “Africa” exhibits before reading placards.

After tearing Julee away from the animals, we grabbed lunch at a nearby café. It was there were learned the difference between raw “crudo” ham on a sandwich and cured “cerrano” ham on a sandwich.

 We then walked on to the Evita Museum, which opened on July 25, 2002. The museum is a converted mansion where The Eva Peron Foundation once housed single mothers with children. The guidebook reported that the museum treats her history fairly, looking at both the good and the bad. However, the stories told are definitely skewed towards her public works and speeches of self-sacrifice. The exhibits and commentary only allude to the “bad” and never articulate the accusations against her. That aside, it was a great museum and we did learn quite a bit about the progressive social programs she started including:

• Securing women’s suffrage in Argentina
• Creating safe homes for single mothers
• Founding schools for orphaned children
• Establishing senior citizen care and communities
• Passing the Workers Bill of Rights

The museum also displayed some of her amazing clothes that the military (despite the coup) had preserved.

That night we went to Cabaña Las Lilas in Puerto Madero on the riverfront. It was a fantastic parilla (steak house). Julee got the tenderloin and Lou the baby beef. It was an enormous amount of food, and once again, we were blown away by the bill and how “affordable” even the fanciest of restaurants are for those earning the US dollar.

Day 44 – 02/21/2007 – Buenos Aires

Today was our day to see the touristy side of Buenos Aires. We decided to do a half-day “City Tour” bus tour with a bi-lingual guide.

 Casa Rosada – Our First Stop was Plaza de Mayo square. This is where all the big Argentine political demonstrations occur. It is also where the Casa Rosada (Pink House) is located. Similar to the White House, the Casa Rosado is home of the Executive branch of the government. Although it had some scaffolding on it, it was fun to imagine Evita addressing her throngs of followers while standing on the balcony overlooking this Square.

We also stopped for a few minutes to browse the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral before loading back onto the bus. Unfortunately, the Teatro Colon, the famous opera house and a do-not-miss in every travel book, was closed for remodeling.

 The next stop was the La Boca neighborhood, which boasts one of the two famous soccer clubs in Buenos Aires. We stopped at the soccer stadium, which was running a fabulous racket. For 9 pesos, we were able to go into the empty stadium to take photos. Brilliant!

 We traveled further into La Boca to Caminito Street, which is characterized by its brightly colored buildings which were once brothels and are now artists’ studios. Once one of the ghettos of BA, it is now a lively tourist spot during the day and credited with being the birth place of Tango in Argentina. There are couples dressed to the nines that accost you to take pictures for pesos. And then there are the understated couples placed strategically in front of restaurants dancing amazing Tango, the best we saw in BA.

The tour dropped us off dropped at Puerto Madero, just down the street from the restaurant from the night before. We grabbed some lunch and walked along the waterfront until we came across an old Argentine Navy battleship that was converted into a museum. Built in 1897, the ship was well presrved from the bridge to the brig. Julee and I both had a great time peeking into all the officer’s quarters and reading the old charts and mission manifestos. Unfortunately, all the writing was in Spanish, so we amused ourselves with some imaginative translations.

 After the ship, we headed back downtown to Florida St. This is a famous pedestrian shopping avenue of malls, leather shops, music stores, souvenir shops and street performers. Once you walked down the avenue for a couple minutes, you pretty much get the idea of what is available. The highlight of our stroll was a couple that would freeze their position until someone put money into the bucket in front of them.

Back at the hotel, the next challenge was to arrange our tango lessons.  Our friend Mara from Chicago had given us a list of several of her favorite teachers in Buenos Aires. We emailed her favorites, and Jose and Viky were the first to respond. Via email, we set up three hours of tango lessons, one hour each day for the next three days.

All fired up about dancing, we wanted to catch a Tango Show that night, so we headed to the famous Café Tortoni. When we got there, all four shows that evening were sold out. (Rookie mistake. We had been advised to make reservations.) The manager took pity on us and found us tickets for the following night and gave us the cross streets to a venue where a Milonga (tango dance party) was happening.

We didn’t have the exact address, so we wandered the streets of the intersection listening for tango music. Silence! We did see a bunch of people milling about in front of the Armenian Cultural center but we figured they were Armenian and gathering for an Amenian event. It wasn’t until we danced in front of a neighborhood cop that he pointed out the milonga was in the basement of the Armenian Cultural Center.

We wouldn’t recommend this event, but they did offer free group lessons (in Spanish). It was so crowded we could barely move and the dance floor quickly turned into a battlefield. So we broke for safety and watched. At 12:30am, a new lesson was beginning and the dancers were still going strong.  We were going to bed.

Day 45 – 02/22/2007 – Buenos Aires

 Julee had read in Frommer’s that there is a tour in English of Recoleta Cemetery on Thursdays. Lou couldn’t imagine why tourists would want to visit a cemetery and much less need a guide to such a depressing place. To our surprise, we were both pretty impressed completely entertained. Rather than grass and headstones, Recoleta was an amazing assortment of elaborate mausoleums in a wide variety of architectural styles. Each row of mausoleums actually resemebled a city block, with structures that resembled banks, churchs, modern homes, and dilapidated fixer-uppers.

 Recoleta is where Argentina’s rich and famous, including Evita herself, are laid to rest. It is exhorbitantly expensive to purchase a mausoleum in this cemetery, as several resting places are “on sale” for 1million US. There are also high maintenance and janitorial fees that must be paid each year to keep these tombs in shape. Many families simply could not afford to keep them and quite a few have fallen into disrepair.

A colony of cats also seem make their home in the cemetery and jot around like the own the place. We were told that some local ladies come to feed them every day. Lou asked the guide if there were any Jewish people buried there, and she said that while there are no religious restrictions, there is a Jewish cemetery on the other side of town.

We both enjoyed seeing all the tombs but we were completely taken with our tour guide. She was probably in her 30’s and was so passionate about her country. A proud “Porteno” (Buenos Aires local), she loved to talk about what made Argentineans such an eccentric people. She would carefully look around to see if any Argentines were around as she whispered stories about dead bodies that would go missing for years and suddenly turn up again in abandoned cars.

She also informed us of a common taxi scam. If you try to pay for your taxi with a large bill, the driver could swap it with a phony and give it back to you claiming you gave him the counterfeit. The cabbies would repeat the process with each customer until they’d swindled you out of 100s of pesos. Luckily we didn’t learn this lesson the hard way, but nonetheless, change your large bills for smaller ones at money exchanges or retail stores.

We had to skip out on the end of the two hour tour to make it to our first tango lesson on time.

Our teachers Jose and Viky, http://www.joseyviky.com.ar/, were adorable. They were very personable and patient and had great senses of humor. They had a very impressive English vocabulary and we could understand them, almost perfectly. The funniest part of the first lesson was when they were describing one of the steps in the basic pattern. Right in the middle of the step, the lead waits or does a “pau-zah”. Every time they said “Pau-zah”, Lou gave me the funniest look. Finally it dawned on me that he wasn’t getting their Spanglish. They were saying “pause” as two syllables and not one. Once we had that straight, we flew through the lesson.

Realizing that we were traveling, Jose and Vicky did their best to find a teaching location close to us. It only took us 30 minutes of walking in circles before we realized they had arranged our first lesson at a gym just 5 minutes from our hotel.

 That night we took in a tango show at the famous Café Tortoni. They had a small theater (sat about 40) in the basement and somehow we managed to get a table in the front. The show was ok. Actually there was a lot more singing and bad acting than Tango dancing but we really enjoyed ourselves. The most impressive act was two gauchos (cowboys) swinging little balls on strings which was great fun to watch.

 After the show we went to another Parrilla (Steakhouse) in the San Telmo called La Brigada for dinner. Once again we were amazed at the gigantic cuts of excellent beef and good wine. All veggies look away. That photo is of only half the filet!

Day 46 – 02/23/2007 – Buenos Aires

After breakfast at the hotel, we headed across town for our second tango lesson. This time we rented space in a proper tango school. Again, Jose and Viky wowed us with their teaching and their demos.

 Having had two lessons, Julee had to now get “Tango Shoes”. On our friend Mara’s advice, we headed to Comme Il Faut, a very exclusive shoe specialist. We walked in and Julee just said “6.5 and black please”. Out came 30 boxes of shoes of all different designs for her to try on. It was a very “Pretty Woman” experience. Since the shoes were about 1/3 the price they would be in the States, Julee rationalized that two pairs were defiinitely better than one.

That afternoon, Lou headed back to the hotel to work on the blog and Julee headed out to Palermo Viejo, a hip barrio with lots of cafes and boutiques.

For, dinner we headed out to Piegari, an excellent Italian restaurant across from the Four Seasons. As typical Americans, we tried to order salads, one entrée per person and we were contemplating a side when the waiter said, “No! One risotto. You split. That’s enough”. We loved that he kept us from ordering an obscene amount of food. True to Argentianian portions, one entrée for two was plenty! It was also amazing to see the restaurant booming at Midnight. There were even parties, with kids, waiting for a table.

Being the night was still young, we took a taxi into San Telmo for an “underground milonga”. What’s that? A loft party with tango dancers and music. It was fantastic. It was a lot like a Tuesday night at Julee’s dance studio but it was on a grander scale. We danced a few tangos together and than a teacher found Julee and wouldn’t let her go. She got a few pointers on the floor and we watched some guest performers . We called it quits at 3 AM to grab a few hours sleep before our 10am lesson.

Day 47 – 02/24/2007 – Buenos Aires and travel to Mendoza

For tango dancers 10am is considered dawn, but these sweet teachers were awake and cheery for Julee’s private lesson. They focused on womens’ styling and dancing in the unbearably high heels until Lou joined the lesson at 11am. It was hard to say goodbye Jose and Viky, but we hope to bring them to Chicago to teach at Julee’s studio in the near future.

After the tango lessons, we headed back to the hotel to pack up. The only hold up was our laundry. Due at 10am, it finally arrived around 1pm. Fortunately, the hotel staff extended our check out time so that we could pack.

 Having found the perfect empanadas the day before, we headed back to our favorite café for our last lunch in Argentina. With the clock ticking down to departure, we had one more event to cross off the list. We had to get gelato at Persicco.

  Our friend Mara again gave us very specific instructions to obtain the perfect gelato. And WOW, she was right. We both ordered the Dulce De Leche and we were in heaven.

 The Argentinans must feel the same as Persicco has there was a fleet of gelato delivery scooters. Just another reason to love Argentina.

At 3pm it was time to head to the airport for our flight to Mendoza. We were excited to head to wine country but sad to leave this amazing city. Buenos dias, Buenos Aires.

Day 40 – 02/17/2007 – Travel to El Calafate, Argentina

In preparing for our 4th flight in 4 days, we came up with a list of lessons learned thus far.

- The best thing Julee’s mom told us to pack were small packages of tissues and wet naps.
- Having antibiotics with us has been a godsend. We have both had sore throats, and we each taken a course of Azrithromyacin.
- The most tiring part is the packing and repacking. Some days it’s the entire suitcase (easy) and other days we are packing up the daypacks for extreme heat, extreme cold, or the unknown.
- If the hotel room is small, one person should vacate for at least an hour in the morning giving the other person room to sort out their shit.

Our morning flight to El Calafate, which is in the heart of Patagonia region in the south of Argentina, was a cinch. From the one room airport, it was about a 20-minute drive into the city. It was the first time we’d encountered a cab driver that spoke NO English. Not a single word. He kept trying to talk to us and all we could say was a phrase our friend Chris taught us “Lo siento, pero mi espanol es muy malo”. Translation: I’m sorry, but my Spanish is very bad”. It’s a useful phrase but it’s just enough to trigger a Spanish response. So we had to change it to “Lo siento, pero mi espagnol es NADA”.

The hotel Kosten Aike was very comfortable and looks a lot like a mountain chalet. In fact the town of El Calafate looks a lot like a ski village with cafes, Internet cafes, souvenir stores and restaurants. According to Frommer’s, 300 people originally inhabited the town. Once the airport was built, tourism to the glacier exploded and now 20,000 people live and work in El Calafate – nearly all related to tourism.

Our only agenda for the day was signing up for our excursion tomorrow. Luckily, we met a nice mom/daughter combo at the Art Hotel who had just returned from El Calafate and they gave us the scoop on the glacier hikes. Based on their advice, we knew exactly what we wanted do, “BIG ICE”. Thankfully, they told us not to sweat all the warnings regarding the difficulty (18 – 45 yrs old only, physically fit, good knees and backs, etc).

After checking in, we headed downtown (which was two blocks away) and signed on the dotted line. They gave us a few more warnings in person, but we were convinced we could rise to the challenge.

Back in town, we discovered one of the local customs is drinking Yerba Mate. Ever in search “native” experiences, we immediately went to a café and ordered a Ceremonial Yerba Mate. It’s a very bitter tea, tempered with sugar, served in a hollowed out gourd and sipped through a metal straw. When we ordered, the waiter said “Is this your first time?”

He carefully took us through the ceremony and was a little surprised we liked it. Apparently, it’s so bitter that most foreigners do care for the taste of the tea. We liked it and drank an entire ceremonies’ worth. In fact, Lou drank to the point of a buzz.

For dinner, we followed our Bible, Frommer’s 2005, and went to Las Tabilitas. We of course ordered beef and red wine. It was fantastic. It was a very straightforward dinner. Huge filets, served naked – so salt, no pepper, no sauce. And they were delicious. We know we keep harping on the prices but they are unbelievable. We had 2 enormous glasses of malbac, a large green salad, 25 ounces of filet, mashed potatoes and pumpkin, and tip for $26 US. That’s only two martinis in Chicago.

As far south as we are, the days are long and the nights are short. It only started to get dark around 9:30pm. We had a 6am wake up call so we called it a night.

Day 41 – 02/18/2007 – “Mini Trek is for Pussies”
(Lou made me write that)
There are several ways of visiting the glaciers in El Calafate. You can drive to see them from a distance, take a boat ride to the front of the glacier, a 4-hour mini-trek that includes about a ½ hour walk on the glacier or you can do the 10-hour “Big Ice” adventure.

Big Ice started at 7:30am with an hour’s bus ride to “The Balconies”, a series of wooden walkways and terraces from which you can view the front of the Perito Moreno Glacier. The glacier has a 5 km (3.1 mile) front and rises 60 meters (200 feet) above the water. It was an awesome site and Lou’s first glacier! (Julee’s been to Alaska.) We could hear rumblings all around, but the ice was not calving (falling into the water) in front of us. We could only hear the powerful echoes.

From the Balconies, we got back into the bus for the transfer to the dock. At a small landing, we boarded a transfer boat and crossed Lake Argentino right in front of the glacier. Cramped into the belly of the boat, we couldn’t really see the glacier, but it was an easy 10-minute crossing.

On the other side, we disembarked at a small compound of 3 cottages and bathroom facilities. There, we were saw our first big piece of ice crash into the water. There was thunderous boom and then splash. It’s such a powerful feat of nature, you feel like clapping when it happens.

At this point, the guides gave everyone a last chance to back out of the 7 hour hike. Thankfully, four very large Russian guests in street clothes opted to join the less strenuous tour as someone had really sold them the wrong trip!

With the Inca Trail less than a month away, Lou and I felt we HAD to do it as conditioning and wondered if a tourist’ activity could really be that hard.

Big Ice continued with a 20-minute brisk hike through the woods to the equipment center. There, we were each outfitted with a harness and crampons to put in our backpacks. Once the group of 20 was geared up, we took off on a lightening speed hike up and around a dirt mountain trail. At one point, we had to hold onto a rope for leverage against a steep slope of falling earth. The hike was along side the edge of the glacier, and that alone was breathtaking.

After 40 minutes, we reached the entry point of the glacier. The guides helped everyone into their harnesses and strapped us into our crampons and gave us a quick rundown on glacier crossing technique:

1. Keep your feet wide apart so that the metal edges of the crampons do not catch each other
2. Walk uphill like a penguin taking very small steps
3. Lean back when walking downhill and take very strong steps that truly pierce the ice

Being that Julee takes “directions” very seriously, you add 1,2,3 and Julee looked like a spastic cartoon character waddling across the ice all day.

Note from Julee: As many of you know, I am very sensitive to certain words. I simply do not like the way they sound and prefer not to use them. In fact, in college, a group of friends and I developed a list of “Words We Do Not Like”. As you might imagine, “crampon” is the latest addition to the list. So from now on, the devices shall be referred to a “glacial sandals”.

Walking on the glacier felt like walking on a snow cone, with shaved, crunchy ice on the top supported by a solid center. We literally walked to the middle of the Perito Moreno glacier. It was a rigorous hike to lagoons, over crevasses, next to water chutes 100 times more powerful than the waterslides at 6 Flags, and around ice walls. The ice of the glacier is so compact; it turns the deepest, truest blue you’ve even seen. And the water is delicious – most of the hikers filled their water bottles from one of the lagoons. This was another situation where we knew words wouldn’t really do the experience justice and we hoped our pictures would be to capture the icescape and the colors.

Even after 5 hours of hiking on the glacier, I (Julee) felt like a baby horse not yet sure of my footing next to the guides who were running all over the glacier and scaling ice walls.

Although the guides cross the glacier hundreds of times each year, the glacier changes slightly every day. So they were picking out our path as we went along. There were a few times we’d take a huge leap over a running stream, only to double back to find a safer path.

Although the guides could all give commands in English, the bilingual guide was a little new and a little shy. When we stopped, the head guide was spend minutes explaining the movement, size and geological history of the glacier. He’d wave his arms explaining the forces of nature and rattle off very big numbers in Spanish. Then he’d cue the English-speaking guide to translate, and we’d get “The glacier is bery bery old”. And to follow up, “The ice is bery bery deep”.

At the end of the day, we hiked back to the side of the glacier, took off the equipment, hiked back through the mountain, dropped the equipment at the station, and hiked back to the cabins, got back onto the boat and then onto the bus. We left at 7am and we got back at 8:30pm. It was exhausting but fascinating and exhilarating.

That night we walked the two blocks to town, had pizza and beer at a pub and then walked 5 blocks to the edge of town to hear the music festival. At 10:30pm, it was just getting started, but it looked exactly like any live music concert in Chicago. The band was on a big stage; there were sponsor signs everywhere and festival food lining the edges of the field. Granted it was on a small scale, but we called it “Lalacafate”.

Day 42 – 02/19/2007 – El Calafate

Today was the day we promised ourselves we’d “take it easy”. Lou’s throat was still a mess. He’d taken a picture of the back of his mouth into the mirror (very clever) and emailed it to his doctor, and we were waiting to hear his e-diagnosis.

So, laying low consisted of moving from café to café trying to find the fastest Internet connection. We literally had water and sandwiches in one café, the moved across the street for coffee and broadband, and then finally down to the locutorio (internet café) for two computers and Skype.

At 5pm, we hopped on our flight and headed back to Buenos Aires so exited at the thought of staying put for 5 nights. Back at the Art hotel, the staffed greeted us with smiles and had already put our laundry in our room. But, they hesitated to bring up the suitcases. We thought that was a bit odd until we got into the room.

This was the week the Art Hotel was nearly fully booked and we were in the “Small and Cozy Twin”. They didn’t want to bring up the bags because there was no room for the bags!

Up in the room, we spent an hour or so searching the Internet and the guidebooks trying to find an available room under a specific dollar amount. Stressed about finding nothing, we went to sleep around Midnight bummed that we’d have to somehow change hotels in the morning.

Day 37 – 02/14/2007 – Travel to Buenos Aires

The flight on Iberia from Madrid to BA was LONG. Since it was a daytime flight, we opted not to take Ambien. It’s amazing how much longer 12 hours is when you are awake for some of it. (Julee still managed to sleep for about 9 hours. Putting Julee on a plane is like putting a toddler in a car seat. As soon as Julee starts to feel vibrations she’s out cold. She wakes up to feed, burp, and then is able to fall right back to sleep again. I am not sure how she does it.)

We landed in Buenos Aires around 9:45pm and it took about an hour to get the luggage. We had both heard stories about how dangerous Buenos Aires had become since the Peso was devalued a couple a years ago during their last “financial crisis”. Coincidentally, as soon as we got off the plane, an airport security officer handed Julee a flyer warning against accepting “verbal solicitation” for a taxi. The flyers and guidebooks advise using a taxi service or “remise” with a booth at the airport. So, we went to the first booth we saw and put in our order.

It was about 20 minutes to the hotel, and we got our first taste of the CRAZY driving in Argentina. You know those gates at tollbooths to keep you from going though the speed pass lane without stopping? Well, our cab driver hit one!

We spent the night at the Art Hotel on the recommendation of our dear friend Mara. (She’s a true jet setter who spends several weeks a year in BA perfecting her Tango). We used this hotel as our home base for our stay in Argentina. It’s an old Victorian mansion remodeled as a hotel. Our room was cozy with just enough room for a queen size bed, two suitcases and a wireless connection. And the bathroom has everything in miniature to fit the comforts that you are accustomed to. But it’s charming, and the staff is wonderful.

By the time we got to the hotel, it was midnight. We grabbed water and Pringles from the minibar, bagged our laundry and
repacked our backpacks as quickly as possible. We fell asleep at 1:30am and we were up at 7:00am for our flight to Iguazu.
Day 38 – 02/15/2007 – Iguazu Falls

After our nap, we ran downstairs for the continental breakfast, which is included in the hotel stay. We had ordered the cab the night before and it was right on time. Thankfully, the domestic airport was only 15 minutes from the hotel.
Our destination was Iguazu Falls. The Falls sit on the border of Argentina and Brazil and can be viewed from both sides. It is actually a series of 275 waterfalls fed by the Rio Iguazu and declared a World Heritage Area by UNESCO in 1984.
(Frommers)
We landed in Iguazu and booked a taxi to the Sheraton Hotel, which is the only hotel inside the national park. It’s a discotastic Sheraton but the location was unbelievable. The lobby and terrace looked out onto the Falls, and they were stunning. (There are loads of tour groups and as you might expect, the average age of the guest there was 65 and a half.)

Hungry per usual, the first task was lunch. Having read that the Sheraton had the best restaurant in Iguazu, we thought it was a no-brainer. We were salivating for some Argentinean beef, and so we ordered hamburgers. OY – they were horrible. First of all, the patties were maybe 1/8” thick, they were green, and they came to the table bubbling, which means they were right of out of the deep fryer. They were THE WORST HAMBURGERS we’ve ever eaten. We had to hike off our anger immediately.

The Sheraton was literally 50 yards from the head of the trails. We just started walking and at the fork in the perfectly marked trail, choose between the superior (upper) and inferior (lower) trails. Both are beautifully designed catwalks over streams, through the jungle, and between rocks. Both trails have fantastic lookouts at all levels of the falls, including the feeder rivers, middle terrace and base. The tiered falls are stunning. The rushing water forms falls of all shapes and sizes. There are massive thunderheads and small linear streams, with an overwhelming amount of verdant jungle and rocks. Julee’s first comment, “Niagara Falls sucks.”

Like the tourists who feed the baboons in South Africa, the tourists here feed the Coatis (aardvark like mammals). These raccoons sized animals travel in packs of 10 – 15 and are all over the trails and will come within inches of tourists. There were also a number of and Tegu Lizards. They were huge! One of the lizards near that cafe had to be 3 feet long. Unlike the lizards in South Africa, who would take off when they felt vibrations, these lizards stuck around.

We took about 2 hours to walk both trails. Fearing the rigors of the Inca Trail, Julee made us do the lower trail again at “hi speed” just for the exercise. (If you’ve ever watched Friends, it was a very “Monica”.)

About 3pm, in the scorching heat, we headed back to the Sheraton to the pool. Everyone heads to the pool. It is “jungle hot” with blaring sun in Northern Argentina in the summer . After a long swim, sun we decided to nap before dinner. Interestingly, there were a ton of channels on the tube. But every program was overdubbed in Spanish. Unlike all the other countries we’ve been to, we couldn’t even get CNN or BBC. We ended up watching 2 episodes of “Studio 60” which we downloaded from iTunes. No nap.

That evening, we paid 80 pesos ($25US) to hire a taxi for the evening. It drove us into town (about 15 minutes), waited and then drove us back. We read in Frommer’s about “La Rueda”, and it was fantastic. We finally got our first Argentinean beef. It came as two HUGE filets. Lou nearly cried it was so good. For $35 US, we had 2 glasses of wine, 2 bottles of water, 2 diet cokes, 2 salads, a plate of pasta and enough beef for 4 people. We were heart-broken at leaving an entire filet on the plate. Future plan – share the beef.

Note: When you pack for a 9 week trip in a 26″ bag, you tend to bring a small range of clothes and everything must go together. Since our color palette was white, black and kahki, Lou and I had inadvertantly matching outfits nearly every other day.
Day 39 – 02/16/2007 – Iguazu Falls

We had until 5pm before we needed to leave for the airport, so we opted for the Gran Aventura – a buffet of activities. It started with a 6 km jungle tour, a short walk to the river and then the main attraction, a boat ride under the falls. We piled onto a tour boat, put on the stinkiest life jackets we’ve ever smelled, and put everything into a provided waterproof bag. We sped down the river towards the Falls. They stop the boat to give you a moment to take photos and then plow into the spray of the falls. It was thrilling. You can’t believe it’s safe.
After the aventura, we headed back to the pool and then a much needed shower in the locker rooms (since we had to check out of the hotel earlier that morning). Then Lou bought me a Valentine present – a mani and much needed pedi at the spa. And of course, he got a mani too. He’s Lou!

Then, it was back to the airport for another flight. Thus far and for the duration of our trip, LAN has been a great airline. The agent not only gave us great seats on a full plane, he also checked us in for our flights for the following morning. They continually practiced customer service that some American carriers couldn’t even conceive of.
Here are some tidbits regarding our experiences flyging LAN airlines:

- Even the seats in economy are comfortable.
- They play “Just for Laughs”, which is like candid camera, throughout the duration of a domestic flight. There’s no sound. Just the picture. But every once in awhile, the entire plane just busts out laughing.
- There is always turbulence climbing and descending.
- You can tell you’re in South America, because the women in the cartoon safety movie wear miniskirts.

Back in Buenos Aires, we realized our first “rookie mistake” of the trip; We forgot to write down the address of our hotel. Problem 1: Being relatively new, Art Hotel wasn’t listed in the local phone books at the airport. Problem 2: We had used the all the battery in the laptop on the airplane and didn’t have an adapter plug on us. Problem 3: All the stations at the Internet cafés were booked. Finally, a super cute British couple heard us and said that Art Hotel was in their guide book, “Time Out Buenos Aires” and we quickly copied down the address which is now permanently in Julee’s purse. Needless to say, we made it home just fine. Back at the hotel Julee was craving pizza, so we ate at a delicious café, Los Maestros, right around the corner. Pizza and Beer. Buenos Noches, Buenos Aeries.

Day 34 – 2/11/07 – Madrid

The only way to get from South Africa to South America on an American Airlines reward ticket was to connect through Madrid on Iberia Airlines or London on British Airways. Since we visited London a couple years ago, we thought that it would nice to see Madrid.

We arrived in Madrid in the morning. The very helpful tourist desk attendant advised us to take the public bus into a transit center in town and then a taxi to our hotel. We stayed at Hotel Casadillas which was on a cobble stone street off of Gran Via, and it turned out to be a great location.

We were exhausted and literally slept until 3pm that day. It was very hard for Julee to sleep knowing that things were happening in Spain outside, but exhaustion even got the best of her FOMS (fear of missing something).

That afternoon, we just started walking. We wandered to Playa del Sol and then Plaza Mayor. (Lou remembered visiting that square with his brother 15 years ago). It was Sunday and nearly everything was closed, but it was still fun to wander the streets.

Lou was craving a movie and we literally stumbled onto a movie theater showing “Diamante de Sangre” (Blood Diamond) in English, but we missed it by 20 minutes. So we had another 2.5 hours to kill. We tried, we really tried. We went to the Chocolateria by the theater and ordered Churros and Chocolate. There, a crazy drunk man yelled at us in slurred Spanish for 20 minutes. Then he moved onto the next table.

Even after dessert, we still had 45 minutes until the movie. Defeated by exhaustion, we hailed a taxi and headed home. Waking up at 4:30 am for 3 days in a row and beaten us down.

(Churros Y Chocolate was the name of my high school Spanish book.) (Lou)

Day 35 – 2/12/07 – Madrid

To start the day’s adventures, we walked about 20 minutes to the Reina Sophia Museum. It’s the home of the Surrealist movement – Miro, Picasso, Dali. It’s most famous for Picasso’s Guernica – a tribute to the Basque town of the same named that was carpet bombed on Franco’s orders. It is one of Picasso’s masterpieces, and according to the article my mother had sent us, Picasso refused to give it to Spain until Franco was dead. Until a few years ago, it was in The Met in NYC. Now, this painting has its own gallery in the Reina Sophia and is absolutely worth seeing.

In addition to viewing Geurnica, we rented the headset guides to help navigate the enormous museum and learn more about surrealtists. After two hours and 15 galleries, we were full, so we headed to lunch at a nearby Cafeteria and ordered Paella. Having nothing to compare it to – it was delicious. Looking back, it may have been more a Bennigan’s or Rice Roni Ready made quality, but at that moment, it was authentic, filling and yummy.
Having found another 4 movies theaters close to the hotel, we headed back to catch a movie during “Siesta” time. We got there just in time, but none of the theaters had English versions. So, we cabbed back to the movie theater from the night before and just missed the showing AGAIN. Fortunately, everything was open on Monday night so we walked about and shopped. The
biggest accomplishment of the night was that I got Lou to buy his first pair of Euro jeans.

Madrid has a tapas bar on every corner, and if you don’t use a guidebook’s recommendations, it’s really all about which is the cutest one because the menu’s all look the same. So, finding a old tavern, we popped in for Pate, Chorizo con Pan (cured ham on warm bread) and a Empanada de Carne. We had never seen it before, but the bar also had a whole pig’s leg mounted on some device that allowed the bartender to carve off fresh pieces of Serrano ham. Lou thought this was pretty cool, Julee almost barfed.

Smug that we had actually made it past 9pm, we headed over to the movie theater and caught the 9:45 Blood Diamond with English voices and Spanish subtitles. Interestingly, the movie tickets had assigned seats.

Having just left Africa, watching Blood Diamond was even more powerful experience, than if we had watched before our travels.
Day 36 – 2/13/07 – Madrid

We had planned to use our stopover in Madrid to recharge and catch up. So Julee worked for a couple of hours and then turned the computer over to Lou and went shopping. Before we left, Lou had discovered the LUXE guides, which are hilarious, British tour guides of 12 cities around the world. They are incredibly “cheeky” and really focus on the upscale accommodations, restaurants and shopping. In fact, they lay out Shopping Days for you . For each of their cities, they have 1/2 day walking tour instructions that read “Start Store A and buy this, exit and turn right, skip this store-o-crap and head straight for that Store B. Stop for a Martini across the street..” For those with bottomless bank accounts, they have “Advanced Shopping” routes. I (Julee) followed the basic shopping directions for our neighborhood and found the guide was right on. Fortunately, the color du jour is “green” and the style is “Empire Waist” – neither of which looks good on me – so I saved a bundle.

Midafternoon, Lou and I walked to the Royal Palace, both the historic and current residence of the royal family. The tour granted amazing access to this opulent palace: the sitting rooms, throne room, poolroom, study, pharmacy, and armory, seemingly everything but the current apartments. We ran out of superlatives and hyperbole trying to describe the ornate décor, textiles, marble, carved furniture, sterling silver, and ceiling frescoes – it was too much! The photos can’t do it justice. You simply have to visit to fully appreciate the decadence and palatial wealth.

We took about 2 hours to tour the palace (with our audio guides), and then strolled over to Café Oriente for a beer. There was cute old man playing an accordion – everything from Tea for Two to Flight of the Bumble Bee. And there was some rock star next to me talking about “tour buses” “being in the studio” “blah” but we had no idea who he was.

Since most restaurants don’t open until 7:30 – 9:00pm, we walked and walked and walked around Madrid. The narrow streets wind through old neighborhoods and the stores and bars are tiny. It feels like quintessential Europe. We actually walked ourselves right back to Plaza Mayor and finally to our restaurant, Paella Real. It was “old world” restaurant that specialized in Paella. We had the mixed (Chicken, Vegetables and Seafood) and Lou said it was much better than the day’s before. I (Julee) was too focused on the Langoustine’s eyeballs staring back at me to notice.

On the walk home, we stopped to listen to the various street musicians. These guys were talented instrumentalists – a chamber group and a young guy playing what looked like a harpsichord. It was such mild and clear night, it was hard for me to turn in. I would have stood in the street for hours, but……

It was at the restaurant that Lou figured out that I had our departure time completely wrong. I thought we left at Midnight, but it was actually NOON the next day. My head had officially exploded – I had read too many itineraries and had too may dates/times in my head. I had the whole next day planned and had to scrap everything and try not to morn the things I was really excited about but wouldn’t get to do. Ah well – lesson hard learned. Check departure itinerary upon arrival – just to be sure!

We headed back to the hotel to hmmmmm PACK. The real bummer was that laundry was on the to do list for the next day as we were both down to the bare minimum. So we packed up our dirty laundry and made the best of it. Surely, we were far more disgusting when we backpacked after college….right?!?!??!

Day 30 – 2/7/07 – Transfer to Lion Sands
Benny and Audrey kindly drove us to the airport this morning. We flew to Capetown to Johannesburg and then hopped on a charter flight back to the Kruger Park area for our second safari at Lion Sands.

Unlike Tinga, Lions Sands was not a concession, but one of many privately owned game reserves, which border Kruger. There are no fences, so all the animals are free to roam between this private reserve and the immense Kruger Park. However, due to some differences in the landscape, Lions Sands in known for its concentration of leopards, the last of the Big 5 which we hadn’t seen.

We really had no idea what was involved in our charter flight and we were a little surprised when we learned the charter would make 3 stops. We actually stopped at Singita and Londolozzi before landing at Skukusza (the airport for Lion Sands). At first we were a little annoyed at the thought of having to make so many stops, but we soon realized that all those stops meant we got to fly over the bush at very low attitudes as the flight time between landings was 10 minutes, 3 minutes and 3 minutes. Being the seasoned trackers that we were, we could easily spot elephants, rhinos and giraffes from the air.

Lion Sands sent a Land Cruiser to pick us up at the airstrip and to bring us to the camp. Right away we noticed that the jeep was not in as pristine condition as the Tinga vehicles.

The main lodge was very lovely and had an amazing bar overlooking the Sabi River, we were however slightly disappointed with our accommodations. In comparison to Tinga, these rooms were ¼ of the size, had bugs everywhere, and were even more costly.

But we didn’t have much time to think about it, because we had only 10 minutes to prepare for our first game drive. At tea, we met our new ranger Cameron and our tracker Samson. Cameron was very young but was encyclopedia of knowledge. For example, Cameron told us that that ticks like to congregate around the anus of animals because that’s where the skin is the softest. Also, male elephants in must (heat) often suffer from Green Penis Syndrome (GPS). This is where the penis actually grows algae on it because it is constantly wet with urine. And on a more olfactory note, Cameron showed us that when you burn dried elephant dung it actually smells very good due to all the herbs and grasses the elephants consume and barely digest. And Julee will add, Cameron was hot!

The highlight of one of our drives was coming across a herd of elephants and a fully-grown male elephant in must, one the most unpredictable and dangerous mammals in the bush. We were convinced our guide was a little cocky, because it felt like we were dangerously close. The elephants dropped his head, snorted and came towards us quickly. Cameron then showed us why he always has an escape route – and we took it.

It was a very exciting drive, even though we didn’t see a leopard. And we weren’t that concerned, we had five more drives to go and Cameron bet us his car we would see leopards!

At Lion Sands, you always have dinner with you jeep mates and your guide. It’s actually a great custom, because you immediately get to know at least 4-5 other people at the camp.

Our Lion Sands buddies were:
A lovely couple from South Africa who actually owned a small game reserve themselves.
A couple our age from New York
And another very sweet couple from England.

Day 31 – 2/8/07 – Safari
Lou was a total trooper during our stay at the camp. He caught a nasty bug on our last night in Capetown and completely lost his voice. He took another course of Arythromycin but nothing seemed to help. He was really uncomfortable. To try to recuperate, Lou slept in during the morning drive.

Julee went out with the rest of the jeep and the highlight of the morning drive were two rhinos that came within 10 feet of the group during their breakfast break (when they were all outside of the jeep!). But still, no leopards.

(After the morning drive I grabbed Julee’s camera. Expecting to see animals that I missed while sleeping in, all I found was pictures of Cameron’s ass.) (Lou)
We did have a few issues with the overall service and facilities at Lion Sands.  It was not what we expected for this price range.  We have spoken to the management who assures us these were isolated instances and they have corrected the problems we had.  The saving grace of the lodge was the food. It was truly gourmet cuisine. The soups were original and flavorful. The lunches were enormous, and the dinners had a variety of meats, from crocodile to kudu, impala to fresh fish. We truly found the food (and Cameron’s butt) the greatest attribute of the camp.

The afternoon drive was peaceful but we had the chance to hike into the bush to get “too close” to another bull elephant. It was a prickly walk through the bush with Cameron in front with the rifle and Samson, the tracker, behind us keeping the group together. After seeing the elephant we stopped for our last sundowner – whiskey on the rocks of course.

Day 32 – 2/9/07 – Safari

The morning drive was quiet but still breathtaking.

A new couple, Shelly and Wally joined our jeep in the afternoon. They were a hilarious couple from Johannesburg celebrating Wally’s 50th birthday. Besides being wonderful companions, they brought us fabulous luck.

During the evening drive everybody including Cameron was getting very nervous that we weren’t going to get to see our leopard. We finally we got a call on the radio that another Jeep had spotted a leopard not to far from where we where. We drove as fast as we could to find it when all of the sudden we heard Cameron let out a sigh of relief and said “Yes! We got one”. We all turned to see the gorgeous male leopard. A sense of calm came over the whole jeep as we sat and watched this magnificent cat sit, yawn and drink from the pond.

Towards the end of our stay, we were ready to live in a bug-free zone and here’s the topper. Just before bed, Julee decided to take a shower. All of a sudden, there was a “Psycho” scream from the bathroom and Julee came tearing of out the shower, wearing only flip-flops. Naked and crying, she was in the middle of the room screaming “Call the ranger, call the ranger” as there was an 8″ tarantula (baboon spider) that was on her towel and she nearly grabbed for it. Lou immediately named it “Charlotte” and then killed it with 8 or 9 whacks of a magazine.
Day 33 – 2/10/07 – Last day on Safari
Our last drive in South Africa was chalked full of incredible sightings.

The rhinos lying in the puddles blowing bubbles.

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The pack of buffalo.

And, another leopard.

Knowing it was the NY couple’s anniversary, Julee asked the lodge manager if they would arrange champagne at breakfast.They took it another step and arranged for a special “bush breakfast”. It was a fantastic surprise for our friends, and the breakfast was wonderful, complete with two bottles of champagne.

Before departing, Lou braved the elements and jumped in the outdoor shower. Julee tried it once, but the circling moths and lizards were too much for her.

We packed and loaded up the jeep to head to the airport. On the way back, they radioed to say that our flight was delayed. So we took our time and turned the transfer into a game drive. Our drive, Orange, was a tracker and we a great drive to the airport. Once there, they radioed again to say that our flight was delayed several hours. (Luckily, we had a 7-hour connection window back in J-burg). So we loaded up the jeep again and had a much faster ride back to the camp. Back at Lion Sands, they invited us to have lunch during the delay. We jumped in the jeep once again and this FLEW to the airport. It was a two hands holding on the safety bar kind of ride. YEE-HAW!

We finally boarded the flight, which didn’t have air-conditioning until we took off. Lou immediately burst into sweat. The only we could do was laugh how we had sweat through our clothes and starting praying there were showers in the business class lounge in J-Berg.

We had been warned several times regarding the luggage theft at the airports. Knowing we were checking our bags hours before our flight departed, we opted to have the bags wrapped. Despite the warnings, the J-Berg airport may be our favorite airport in the world – it’s really a fabulous mall with gates. The lounge was lovely, the showers were clean and the wi-fi was fast. We boarded around 10pm at departed on Iberia for our flight to Madrid.

Written by Julee – and this should be no reflection on my competent English teachers at both Liggett and Michigan.

Once we decided to visit South Africa, we called everyone who knew who grew up, lived in or visited South Africa. Bohj was a huge help with the safaris, Mara gave us a list of her favorite places and foods and Ray said, “You’ll stay with my folks”.

Ray Thompson has sold my dad two boats, and over the years has survived my father’s “requests and suggestions” and actually become part of our family. Adored by my parents, I’m pretty sure if we were at my parents’ house at the same time, Ray would get my room and I’d be sent to the basement. Learning that we were going to Capetown, Ray (who Lou and I have never actually met), arranged for us to stay with his parents and later his brother’s family. Thrilled with the thought of having a home base in a strange city, Lou and I quickly emailed with his mom. After just a few emails, these poor people had committed to hosting us, complete strangers, for nearly a week.
Audrey and Benny La Rue met us at the gates, with a sign with our names on it. The first thing Audrey’s says is “My, you look like your mom”.

We shot out of the airport and straight to their house in Fish Hoek Bay, which is a gorgeous town on the ocean. Audrey and Benny live in a fantastic home tucked into the mountainside, and the view from all of their balconies is amazing.

As soon as we walked in the house, Lou’s jaw dropped at their incredible bar. Benny is a scotch fanatic and built a shrine to his collection of spirits. Benny actually had tears in his eyes remembering some of the 30 year olds he has tasted. “The nectar” only added to the instant bond we had with our hosts. We settled in for biltong (beef jerky)*, cheese, biscuits and salmon spread and chatted up a storm, starting to get to know each other. It was an incredibly warm welcome to Capetown.

We did notice the iron gates that surrounded Audrey and Benny’s home. It’s not that they lived in a bad area, quite the contrary. Crime is a real problem in South Africa and it affects everybody. We would learn more and more in the days to come about some of the social and economic problems that plague this beautiful place.

*Note – Biltong is what we Americans would call Beef Jerky. It is a South African delicacy and is served everywhere as a snack. It can be made from beef, ostrich, kudu, and springbok just to name a few.

Day 25 – 2/2/07 – Loads of Penguins, Two Oceans and Some Ostriches

For our first full day, Benny and Audrey gave us a whirlwind tour of Capetown! They were superb guides on our marathon of sight seeing. Here’s some of what we accomplished on the first day.

Scratch Patch
Precious stones are a hot commodity in South Africa, and they have stores called “Scratch Patches”. In addition to ready-made jewelry, you can “harvest” your own precious stones from big gardens or treasure chests. It’s the perfect place for a beading enthusiast.

Boulders
Boulders is a spectacular small beach, with sand, rock alcoves and 1000s of penguins. Since, Lou and I are both fascinated and amused by animals, so we seek out any type of animal encounter. This was an exceptional”city” experience since we were visiting the penguins in their truly natural habitat.

Cape of Good Hope
We then drove into The Cape of Good Hope nature reserve. We had a tasty lunch at a restaurant over looking the mountains, and then Lou and I headed up to the Light House. It was a 15-minute walk up a path and a few steep stairs. The view was spectacular with the waves crashing against the rocks. The Cape of Good Hope is famous because it is where two oceans meet; To the west is the cold and rough Atlantic, to east, the much warmer Indian Ocean.

Cape Point is also famous for it’s baboons. And they didn’t let us down. There were baboons hopping along the tops of cars, stealing sandwiches and raising havoc in the ladies restroom.

Ostrich Farm
Close to Capetown is a small Ostrich Farm, and these awkward birds are hilarious. Even more entertaining was our guide. In every way possible, he pointed out just how dumb the birds really are. He had us in stitches. As a side bar, ostrich farms are very lucrative because these birds are prolific egg layers, have a very short gestation period, provide meat that is lean and healthy, their feathers make great boas and their hides create the second toughest leather on earth.

Long Beach
We hit long beach around 6pm, just in time for the after-work rush to the waves. There were huge breakers, 100s of surfers and it seemed like an equal number of dogs. It was awesome; exactly what you’d picture in a surfing movie.

On the way back home Benny felt is was important for us to see what one of the “Townships” looked like. Under Apartheid, these cordoned off sections of town are where non-whites were forced to live. The Townships still exist today. A drive through the settlement was quite an eye opener. The houses were shanties constructed of corrugated metal and plywood. You simply could not believe that people, families, live there. Benny felt comfortable driving through one of the townships during daylight, and so we drove through the front section closest to the main road. We were in awe, sad and overwhelmed by the realities of this destitute side of South Africa. Back home around 8pm, Benny and Audrey grilled up some tenderloin with a black pepper sauce. It was a feast!

Day 26 – 2/3/07 – Capetown

The next morning Benny and Audrey drove us over to Sean (Audrey’s son) and Michelle’s. We were immediately struck by their hospitality and they took us in for the next two days. Sean and Michelle have two wonderful boys, Joshua (9) and Matthew (6). Wherever we went, it was a full carload.

Waterfront – Two Oceans Aquarium
The Waterfront is a tourist mecca of shops and street performers. (And for the boaters – it has the oldest working dry dock in the world.) We stopped for burgers and chips (fries), and then headed off to the Aquarium for a couple hours. The salt-water fish are so much more exotic than the fresh water fish. We thought we’d seen it all at the Singapore Aquarium, but Capetown had new fish, sharks, sea horses and giant lobsters to observe. Before our travels, Lou and I didn’t even know we liked aquariums!

While the kids were catching the puppet show at the aquarium, Sean, Lou and I headed over to Mitchell’s Microbrewery for an afternoon beer and a visit to the Red Shed. There, a number of local craftsman and local companies who sell their works at the waterfront. I bought a small painting on canvas.

Malay Quarter – Bo Kaap
Our friend Mara told me that as a child, she used to go to Bo Kaap to a small place that had the “best simosas”. Sean and Michelle hadn’t been to that area, so we took a scenic drive through this colorful Malay neighboorhood. We found the restaurant, Biesmiellah, and ate the simosas on the corner, just like Mara told me to.
Rhodes Memorial
After leaving the Waterfront, we drove to Rhodes Memorial built to honor Cecil Rhodes who became prime minister of the Cape in 1890. He was the consummate British Imperialist whose dream was to see a Cape-to-Cairo railway line so that the “sun would never set on the British Empire”. The memorial is up on the mountainside and has a great view of the Cape Flats and the Capetown University grounds. Michelle even pointed out her college dorm.

Cape Town Fish Market
For dinner, we went to the Cape Town Fish Market (which is a chain) for some excellent sushi.

We were stunned by how much there is to do in Capetown and we kept thanking Sean and Michelle for taking us to what we were certain were tourist places they’d been to a thousand times. But like any native, they rarely hit the tourist attractions in the city and appreciated the excuse to visit the sites. Therefore, the motto for the entire South African marathon became, “It takes a tourist!”
Day 27 – 2/4/07 – Betty’s Bay

The next morning, we drove about an hour to Betty’s Bay, a seaside holiday village. Betty’s Bay had another colony of jack-ass penguins which kept us entertained for a half hour. Once we got to Michelle’s parents’ holiday-now-permanent home, we went for a swim in the Indian Ocean (65-70 degrees). There was kelp everywhere. It adds a pungent aroma to the beach, but we quickly got used to it.

Back at the house, we ate the fresh crayfish (rock lobster) that Michelle’s parents had caught that morning. And those were just the appetizers, as they grilled up a huge Braai (BBQ) for us. After lamb ribs, lamb chops, sausage and boerewors (spicy sausage), we were stuffed. But of course, we made room for melktert (similar to a custard pie). We were thoroughly amazed how once again complete strangers welcomed us into their homes. It was a fantastic South African Sunday.

That night, Sean drove us back to Audrey and Benny’s. After some Scotch, we crashed out once again.

Day 28 – 2/5/07 – Beach, Breakfast and Wine Country

Audrey and Benny made sure we got to enjoy their beach. So we all popped out of bed at 7:30 to head down to Fish Hoek Beach for a morning stroll and seaside breakfast.

After a quick shower, it was off to wine country. It was a bout an hour’s drive to Stellenbosch, which is the oldest wine route in South Africa with more and 100 estates and farms. For Americans, it is very similar to Napa. We went to e of Audrey and Benny’s favorite estate called Hartenberg. After a wine tasting, we ate a delicious picnic lunch in the garden. What amazed us most were the prices of the wine. You could purchase excellent bottles for $10/US. Very good bottles were $US 6-8. Everything being relative, wine is not quite the same bargain to those who live on the Rand, but wine is not the extravagance that it is in the states. It’s very affordable.

We drove back to Fish Hoek that evening and had dinner at a Harbor Front restaurant. We all had delicious seafood dishes of either Kop or Cape Salmon (which is a white fish, not a pink fish like in the US). We returned home for an early night as we had to wake at 6am wake up.

Day 29 – 2/6/07 – Mountains, Prisons and Monkeys

In another act of selfless hospitality, Sean took the morning off work to hike with us. He came to get us at 6am for our ascent up Table Mountain. The plan was to hike up to the top in about 2 hours and then take the cable back down. However, the winds were blowing so forcefully and the clouds were so thick, the cable car wasn’t running. After 90 minutes and reaching what we think was 2/3 of the way up, we decided to turn back and head to the bottom. (In addition, I was getting blown off my footing. Every time a gust came, I had to really dig in a lower my center of gravity. I even had to give Lou the backpack because it was acting like a sail). We made it down safely and but I was bummed we didn’t get to “summit”. From what we hear, there’s an extraordinary view from above. It’s really one of the top attractions in Capetown and we didn’t get to the see the Dussies – which are giant hamster like animals that are closely related to the elephant. I know – I can’t picture it either! So climbing Table Mountain is just one of the plethora of reasons for returing to South Africa in the near future.
After the hike, we had a few hours to kill so Sean suggested we head to “World of Birds”. Apparently it’s one the largest bird parks in the world. It was all very impressive, and our favorite was the “Birds of Prey” exhibit. In this exhibit ,you walk inside the cages are face to face to with some serious predatory birds. Their enclosures are very large, but there are no fences between you and the animals. Most of them kept their distance on their perches, but others definitely flew around or had something to say. I have to admit it’s a little frightening to be so close to eagles, hawks, and vultures. The most captivating animals were were the owls. They watched us so intently with their huge eyes.

In addition to birds exhibits they also had an “interactive” squirrel monkey exhibit. There were literally hundreds of squirrel monkeys that would jump on you while you walk around. They are very clever little guys and they would reach into your pockets and steal whatever was in there. (In a previous visit to the park, one monkey popped into Benny’s pocket and stole and then destroyed his ID.) They jumped on my backpack and tried to undo the lock and one even tried to pull the ponytail holder out of my hair. Lou finally managed to get me (with my feet dragging) out the monkey cage.

On our list of things to do was “fish and chips”, so we headed back to the Waterfront for lunch. The fish and chips we had are a little different then we are used to. Rather than breading and frying small fillets, they bread and fry the entire fish (head excluded or I wouldn’t go near it).

An insert from Lou
Having traveled for almost 5 weeks now I was in serious need of a haircut. I found this really cool “old school” barbershop at the waterfront. The barber worked like “Edward Scissorhands”. Hair was flying all over the place as he quickly circled around and rapidly snapped the scissors in no distinguishable pattern. All I could here was steal grinding, and I was convinced I was going to come out of that chair with giant patches of hair missing. He finally finished and stepped away to what turned out to be a pretty decent haircut.
From the Waterfront we took a ferry out to Robben Island, the former political prison during the 1960 – 80s. Robben Island is just off the shore of Cape Town, and you must take a 30-minute ferry ride to get there. The Island was once a leper colony and then military base, but it’s most notorious the location where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned there for nearly 20 years.

Once our boat arrived at the harbor, they piled us into buses for a 30-minute island tour. There is a small village where the employees of Robben Island live. The village is mostly comprised of the former officers’ facilities.

Once were arrived at the prison, a former political prisoner greeted our group. For an hour, he took us through the mess hall, group cells, exercise field, described their daily meals, listed the rules and gave us general insight into the agony of being a prisoner. The tour culminates in a viewing of Mandela’s cell.

Throughout the tour, our guide revealed a little of his story. As a young man, he joined a guerrilla terrorist group focused on ending the apartheid regime. He received specialized training in East Germany. He returned to Africa via Angola and was smuggled through several countries back into South Africa. After several missions, he was picked up in J-burg. He served 20 years in the prison and was then released. I asked if it was difficult to come back as a tour guide. His response was that although there have been great strides for Black South Africans; there are still very limited employment opportunities. It was his only chance for a job. In addition, since there are very few political prisoners who survived or are still alive, he felt “Someone has to do it”.

Audrey and Benny picked us up the waterfront and took us home. Audrey had cooked up a delicious homemade baboutie, a Malay-South African classic. Baboutie can best be described as a spicy curried meatloaf. Benny pulled out some special wine and champagne, and we all enjoyed our last night in Cape Town.

Day 21 – 1/29/07 – Johannesburg – Kruger Park – Tinga Private Game Reserve

Cathay Pacific 747 – Flight time 12 hours

We boarded our plane in Hong Kong around Midnight and 1 snack and 1 Ambien later; we were two hours outside of Jo-burg. So rather than being jetlagged, we actually got a full night’s rest. Lou was particularly excited about this flight, as it was the first time we got to sit in the upstairs section of the 747. Lou always imagined the upstairs being some sort of smoky nightclub lounge with a bar and piano act. He was sadly disappointed when we headed up the stairs and Michelle Pfeiffer was not slinked out over a piano. Turns our there was just extra rows of business class seats and the cockpit.

At J-burg’s airport, we transferred to Airlink, a small regional airline. As a first observation, we noticed that we were no longer on Asia’s “Exact Time.” It had much more of a “fluid” feel about it. Onboard, we thoroughly enjoyed the in-flight magazine, Skyways. It was fully of interesting articles, buzz clips, recipes, historic facts – it was so interesting that Lou took it! Later that afternoon, we were raving about the magazine on our first game drive. The South African woman we were with, turned around and said, “Really, you really like it? I’m the editor!” And by editor, she meant that she wrote the articles, took many of the photos and chose the fun facts that we found so educational. Mandi was absolutely delightful and we became fast friends. As it turned out, Mandi was reviewing the lodge for the magazine – more on her later.

It was about an hour’s drive from the airport through the countryside to the Kruger Park gate. Once inside the park, it was another 30 minutes to Tinga Lodge. On the way to the lodge, we saw impala, crocs, zebra, waterbucks and warthogs. To us, our transfer seemed like a game drive.

Once at the lodge, they took us to our spectacular bungalow. It is the most incredible accommodation we’ve ever experienced. It had a living room, private plunge pool, and the shower ROOM looked out into the bush and the Sabi River. They warned us right away to keep our porch door closed, since there is only a low electric fence separating us from whatever else is out there. The hostess who took us to our room said, “If the animals want to get in, they get in”.

Seemingly on cue, we weren’t in the room 5 minutes before a family of monkeys “hopped” the fence by swinging through the trees. Julee ran outside to see them and was chased back inside. They explored our porch, drank from the plunge pool, and peered into the shower through the window. It was quite the welcome to South Africa.

Just two hours later, we met for high tea at the main lodge and we were off on our first official game drive. In addition to our tracker, Johann, and our ranger/driver, Derek, we had Mandi in our 4×4. She was such a wealth of knowledge. Having seen most of the animals before, she knew their calls, their mating habits, the birds, the trees….it was awesome. It was like having three guides to ourselves.

Some background information on our location:
Kruger Park is giant national park occupying the northeastern corner of South Africa. It is approximately the same size as the state of Rhode Island. The park is open to public and has paved roads which are fairly easy to navigate, and there are several safety rules you must obey. When you are in the Kruger Park, you must remain inside an enclosed vehicle at all times and you must stay on the roads.

Kruger Parks also leases large plots of land called concessions to private lodges. When inside a private concession, you can drive an open vehicle, you can may take the vehicles off road and even leave the vehicle. We stayed at Tinga Private Game Reserve, which was one of these concessions. It has about 5000 hectares which only the guides and guests of Tinga are allowed to travel. In addition to all of their knowledge of the plant, animal and bird life, the rangers have the ability to navigate the jeeps along the seemingly invisible trails. Our game drives consisted of a combination of the rugged terrain of the concession and the paved public roads.

At Tinga, the safari vehicles were Land Rovers outfitted with three rows of seats. A nice feature of these jeeps was that they didn’t have sides, so it we had unobstructed views, but they were covered, so we were shielded from the direct sun. The seats were really comfortable (well padded – thank god). There were also blankets for the cold morning drives and ponchos if it rained.

(As I write this, some animal is shaking the crap out of a tree about 30 feet in front of me. Scared? Mmmm hmmm.) (Julee)

That first afternoon drive started about 4:30. We saw an amazing number of animals. This was one of our favorite sightings of a pride of lions, and all of the animals photos are posted on flickr. Just click on the link at the top of the page.

About 2 hours into the drive, we stopped on a rock plateau by the river for a “Sundowner”. They unpacked the trunk, and took out a table and tablecloth and set up a full bar of wine, mixed drinks, beer, macadamia nuts, dried mangos, biltong (beef jerky) and walnuts. Our preferred drink was whiskey (Scotch) on the rocks.Sundowners were a great break from sitting and a fun opportunity to talk with guides. Derek and Johann both spoke wonderful English, in addition to their native “mother tongues”. They were very personable and they would answer any question you posed.

Happy hour was about a half hour, and then we popped in the jeep for the last half of the game drive.. Towards the end of the evening it was completely black. Sitting in the front of the jeep, the tracker would sweep a spotlight across the roads and up in to the trees to try catch a reflection from any animal’s eyes. Once they spotted an animal, they turned off the light so that they would not give unfair advantage to either predator or prey.

We were thoroughly amazed but our guides’ ability to spot animals. For instance, that night, we were cruising at 40 kmph and they spotted a chameleon, CHAMLEON, on a tree, at night.

Our first dinner was in the Burna, an outdoor area with a huge campfire in the middle and white tablecloth service. On our first night, we all (12 people) dined together – all the guests, the general manager husband and wife team, and the rangers. There were 5 salads and South African BBQ – chicken, beef tenderloin, kudu sausage and braised impala. It was such an elegantly catered evening. The dress however was very casual. The dinner was right after the drive, and they gave you the option to go right to dinner or go back and change. So some guests were in the typical safari wear of clean white shirt and khaki pants and other guests were literally in their bathing suits and shorts.

(OK – now there is a big lizard on the roof above me).

Day 22 – 1/30/07 – Tinga – First full day

For the morning drives, you got a pleasant wake up call at 4:30 AM. At 5am there was coffee and snacks for about 15 minutes and then everyone leaves at 5:15 A.M. for the morning drive.

Each day had the exact same schedule. The only variance was where you had dinner. Everyone at the lodge followed the same schedule:

4:30 – Wake up Call
5:00 – Tea/Coffee
5:30 – 9:00 – Morning Game Drive
9:30 – Breakfast
10:30 – 1:30 – Sleep, Swim or Massage
1:30 – 3 course lunch
2:30 – 4:00 – Sleep or Swim
4:00 – High Tea
4:00 – 7:30pm – Afternoon Game Drive with Sundowner
8:00 – Dinner and Drinks
Repeat!

By the second day was had figured that being on Safari was a lot like being an animal in the bush. We got up, ate, looked at other animals, napped, ate, looked at animals, ate, slept.

Amongst the highlights of the day, we saw a herd of elephants crossing a river. Check out the hippos getting out of their way.

Another amazing part of the drives are your proximity to the animals. Since nearly all of the animals grew up in the parks, they are habituated to the jeeps. To them, we basically look like rocks, so long as everyone is seated. Once someone stands up or makes a sudden movement, all bets are off.
We made several friends at the lodge:
Dan and Anne – travel writers from Philly
A super cute Italian couple – the husband gave everyone Italian names and for the rest of our stay, Lou was “Gigi”.
Derek and Laura – a couple from Manchester, England on their honeymoon. We spent hours sharing stories and drinking with them and suffered some serious separation anxiety. We’ve been texting them every since.

Day 23 – 1/31/07 – Tinga – Second Full Day

In our conversations with the ranger and tracker, we learned about the true definition of the “The Big 5”. The Big 5 doesn’t refer to the largest animals or even the hardest to find but refers to the 5 most dangerous animals to hunt. In other words, if you shoot one of these animals you better have killed it or you are in trouble. The term “The Big 5” has since become a marketing term used by the game reserves to create an attraction that brings people in. The Big 5 are the elephant, lion, leopard, rhino, buffalo. The most elusive of the 5 are the lion and leopard. Game drives take skilled guides and a bit of luck. It is possible to go on safari, even several drives, and still not see all 5. Interestingly the extremely dangerous hippo is not one of the “Big 5” as it was not an animal that was hunted for sport.

Here’s more of what we today :

Since there were so few people guests at the lodge, they wanted to do something “special” and arranged for a private dinner for each couple. Ours was on our balcony. It turned out to be a comedic disaster. Rather than relaxing and enjoying a romantic evening, Julee was game driving on the porch – lizard, monkey, moth, beetle, and lizard! We ate pretty quickly, packed up the table and moved it inside and head up to the lodge to meet up with the Italian couple and Derek and Laura.

That night a huge storm rolled into Tinga very quickly. It was a massive downpour which we waited out up at the lodge with Derek and Laura. So instead of going to bed at a reasonable hour (which on Safari is about 10pm), we were up til midnight drinking whiskey.

Day 24 – 2/1/07 – Tinga – Morning drive/Afternoon departure

There was a little excitement this morning because there was a huge male elephant in the camp. The only thing they could do was watch him. He was just feeding in the bush at the far end of the camp. After an hour he was gone. But it was an amazing experience to stand in front of one of the rooms and smell and see a full-grown African Elephant.

Although we had still had so much ahead of us, we were sad to leave Tinga. Derek even got a little teary eyed as we left. Since we were such a gregarious group, we bonded with the staff and each other. I had a pit in my stomach that the second safari wouldn’t compare. (Foreshadowing!)

It was a fantastic first safari experience. We did get to see 4 out of the 5 “Big 5″. The only animal that eluded us was the leopard. But we were going on another safari 6 days later, and the rangers told us we had a better chance of seeing the leopards on that reserve.
After a few beers at the airport bar, Derek and Laura flew off to Mauritius and Lou and I flew to J-burg and connected to Capetown. There, we would meet our new South African family.

Day 18 – 1/26/07 – Hong Kong

Hong Kong wasn’t originally on our list of places to visit. However, the only direct flight to South Africa we could get was through Hong Kong, so we decided to spend 2 days there and at least get a taste of it. We both agree now thought that we would have liked more time there. Julee keeps saying, “I am not done with Hong Kong”.

We arrived into Hong Kong around 9pm. At the airport, they tried to sell us the $70 charter to our hotel, but being the savvy travelers we are, we opted for the $2 public bus. It stopped only 3 times and dropped us a block from our hotel.

We stayed at the Langham Place Hotel. It was the most hi tech hotel we’ve experienced, as it had WiFi, IP phones, Plasma TV and even the room safe was equipped with a laptop charger. It was a great room, but the hotel itself was IN A MALL. We had to pass 3 Gaps and a Starbucks to get outside.

The first night we were hungry and went downstairs to explore the neighborhood. We were in Mong Kok which is definitely a very local part of town (and a bit of a red light district as well). It is such a local area, that the concierge couldn’t even recommend a restaurant in the area he thought we would like. We braved it anyway and went down to the street. Contrary to all of our other travels in Asia, there was almost no printed English on signs or menus. We were so tired and intimated by the bright lights, people and pig heads in the windows, that even gastronomically adventurous Lou voted to head back up to the hotel bar. We ended up ordering martini’s and hamburgers and there was an excellent jazz combo performing that night. I (Julee) had to send my hamburger back 3 times just to approximate “cooked” and they still served the beef pretty much raw. So we just the fries and listened to some great music.

Day 19 – 1/27/07 – Stanley Market

Not exactly sure of what to do, we headed down to the wharf for a short ferry (7 min) to Hong Kong Island. So after those 7 minues, we still weren’t sure what to do so we stood around holding our map trying to get some ideas. A college student came up and asked if we were trying to find a location. He gave us the suggestion to head to Stanley market and walked us ½ mile to the bus stop and made sure we got on the correct bus.

The bus ride to the other side of the island was incredible: 45-minutes of winding roads, cliffs on the left and drops to the right. And we’re in an enormous bus inches from the sheer cliff. The view was breathtaking. Ironically, one of the prettiest beaches is Repulse Bay. Don’t let the name fool ya – it’s gorgeous.

Although there are were some legitimate stores at Stanley market, most of it was crap mass-produced in China, which I guess technically makes them local crafts. Our guidebook actually had a shopping guide of the area, so we were able to hit a linen store to get some linen pants for Julee (who was dying in her jeans). For lunch we found a nice restaurant called The Boathouse, it was delicious.

That evening we met up with Julee’s friend, Christine Tse. They knew each other from Swing Dancing. Julee met her in NYC, but Christine now lives in HK and was our personal tour guide for the evening. We met up at “The Peak”, a mall on top of the mountain. The view of mainland Hong Kong was amazing but the wind that night was fierce. Picture, Picture….back inside.  Hong Kong has the most stunning skyline we have even seen.  Beats both New York and Chicago.

As a surprise, Christine is actually friends with our friend Mugsy who’s wedding Lou will be standing up at in a couple months. We were both pretty surprised as Mugsy is cool, but not, “known in Hong Kong” cool.

Christine took us around the “night life” part of Kowloon. It’s a square area of bars and clubs teeming with locals and expats. Since it’s a fairly confined area, you can drink in the streets. After sighing that we were too old for “boom boom bars”, Christine took us to a great martini bar closer to where she lives. Lou had a fabulous new martini – take note – pepper vodka and grilled pineapple.

Christine also said that they call the local dollar a “honkies”. So of course, we needed to giggle and repeat that 10 times.

Kowloon has a huge escalator that runs right through the city and up the mountain called the Travelator. This is how Christine commutes to work, so of course, we asked her to take us on it. She literally jumps on this moving sidewalk and “travelates” to work. We called it a night around Midnight and hopped on the underground back to the hotel.

Day 20 – 1/28/07 – Playin the Ponies

We read that Hong Kong-onians were wild about the ponies, so to get the local experience, we hopped on the train and headed for the track. It was awesome! They have a special deal for foreigners – show them your passport, pay $100 honkies, and you got access to the “Members only” area. This allowed for seating on the finish line and no-crowd betting. It took us awhile to get the hang of it, as there are about 75 different bets you can place. Our favorite was placing a bet that two horses would come in some version of 1,2,3. Lou actually won about $50 US. Julee won about $2.50. Julee had a very interesting strategy for betting; it was based completely on the name of the horse. For example in one race, Julee bet on “Happy Jockee” because it was spelled like her name with 2 e’s. The other horse she bet on was “Hello Pretty” because she liked the way it sounded when she said it out loud. Lou had a much more scientific approach based on wind speed, track humidity and helmet color.

We sat right in front of the finish line and there were a couple of photo finishes. We were also nearly in front of the winner’s circle as well. I think we were both amazed at how feisty the horses are. It takes a big effort to get them into the starting gate and the winner’s circle. The horse’s area always escorted by several handlers.

At 5pm we trained back into town and had dinner at a restaurant on the 50th floor of a hi rise overlooking Hong Kong Island. The view was stunning. The menu was distuging (to me). I (Julee) am not making this up – Shark’s Lips and Pigs Throat were entrees. Needless to say, that night I (Julee) ordered vegetarian.

We visited the local market in Monkok after dinner then we headed out to the airport around 9pm for our midnight flight. These were our last couple hours in an eastern country. Tomorrow morning we would wake up in South Africa.