I have to admit that I really enjoyed Cape Town. I loved the hotel we stayed in and I enjoyed looking at Table Top Mountain every day. Although we were warned about the crime in the area, we were told it was safe to walk around the area as long as we paid attention to our appearance and our surroundings. We rode the cable car up to the top of Table Top mountain. It was really spectacular. The little furry animals on the side of the top of the mountain are called dassies – or rock hyraxes.

We went to a city park in Cape Town and then around the city proper. We stopped at the Wharf as well, which was close to our hotel, so spent several days exploring that area.

One of our last nights in Cape Town, we went out to eat at a wonderful restaurant called Gold Restaurant. It wasn’t just good African food, it was an EXPERIENCE. Our faces were painted…we all had a drumming lesson for about 30 minutes and there was lots of good African music and dancing.

After our time in Pilanesberg, we drove four hours back to Johannesburg and then flew to Cape Town, South Africa, on the far southwestern coast of the continent. Our guide had some time to talk to us more about South Africa’s recent history, which I am going to share here.

Nelson Mandela was born July 18th, 1918. His father died when he was young and he was raised by his uncle. He wanted to be a lawyer but ended up as a security guard for awhile before college before coming a professional warrior. Mahatma Ghandi inspired Nelson to be a politician. He was soon labeled a troublemaker. He was arrested in 19642 and charged with treason and sentenced to a lifetime in prison. He served 27 years. He spent 18 years on Robben Island in a damp concrete cell that was 8 x 7 feet with a straw mat to sleep on. He spent his days breaking rocks which led to the breakdown of his eyesight due to the glare of the limestone. He worked on his law degree by correspondence by night from the University of London. He was permitted one visit and one letter every six months. In 1968, Nelson’s mother died and then his oldest son died in a car accident shortly thereafter. He was not allowed to go to either funeral. In 1975, he began his autobiography and it was smuggled to London. It was not published at the time. In 1982, Nelson was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison in Tokai, Cape Town. In 1988, he was moved to Victor Verster Prison near Paarl. He had much more freedom there and worked to finish his degree. In February 1990, Nelson Mandela was freed from prison and made his famous speech at Cape Town City Hall calling for forgiveness, a reconciliation with the whites and a commitment to peace. This speech was televised across the world and earned him the Nobel Peace Prize. Many white South Africans fled the country thinking that a civil war would break out and their lives would be in danger. Four years later Nelson Mandela would become the first black South African president. (something he stated he would do in 1952). Mandela was married 3 times and fathered 6 children and had 17 grandchildren. His children had no interest in following in his political footsteps and most live in quiet anonymity in the Johannesburg area.

Our only bad weather day was our day in the wine country…which was fine. We walked around the town of Franschhoek, admiring the many art galleries and large pieces of art they had in the area.

We stopped by the prison where Nelson Mandela was released from….which is still a maximum security prison today.

Our first wine farm (yes, that is what they are called – wine farms) was Fairfax Wine Farm. Both of the wineries we went to were in the Somerset area. At Fairfax, they paired their wines with different kinds of cheeses. Fairview wine farm started in 1693.

Our next wine farm was had lunch at and had chocolates with the wine. This was Webersburg Estate in Stellenbosch, also founded in 1693.

After being in Botswana for a few days, we drove back to Zimbabwe and then flew to Johannesburg. We then drove about 4 hours to Pilanesberg National Park. They have the Big Five there for wildlife and the game reserve is a 150,000-acre area centered on a caldera of an extinct volcano. They had a large rhino population there and we got to see a lot of white rhino, although there are also black rhino as well. Know the difference? It isn’t the color. They are both dark gray. The white rhinos tend to have their heads down and and have flat mouths and lips. They tend to keep their young in front of them and defend them from behind. The black rhinos have a pointed upper lip, they tend to keep their heads up and they guard their young from the front. They are more aggressive. This was special for us because we did not see rhinos very close when we were in Kenya and Tanzania two years ago. They were so far away you could barely tell they were rhinos with strong binoculars. That wasn’t at all an issue at Pilanesberg! We saw a lot of rhinos up close. We went on sunrise game drives starting around 0545. It was dark and COLD at that time in those open-air vehicles. We had several layers on including fleece lined ponchos, wool blankets, and hot water bottles that became our best friends. I broke down and bought a beanie to keep my ears warm. You could see your breath. Remember, it was winter there and South Africa is pretty far south. In the morning we would stop mid drive for coffee, hot tea or hot chocolate. In the afternoon game drives, we would stop and have a beer, wine, water, or for me, a ginger beer (nonalcoholic). I fell in love with the African ginger beer. It was very peppery and spicy. We stayed at the Black Rhino Lodge and it was a really nice place. Both the sunsets and the sunrises were amazing. I don’t know if it was because there was a lot of dust in the air or what, but the rays of the sun were just so beautiful. I have a few signs that I feel my Joe is trying to connect with me. Sunrays coming through clouds is one of them. Another is magpies…I got to see the African version of a magpie…the magpie shrike at one of our drink stops one morning. It shrieked several times and just sat on a wall and let me come relatively close. They were nice signs that Joe was with us on this trip.

See the baby rhino with its mom??? Hope I got better photos with my good camera!

The paw print in the dirt is from a hyena. We didn’t see him, but our driver was tracking him!

These thorn bushes were everywhere!

Botswana was a lovely time! I wished we could have gone to a couple of more spots within the country. Like Zimbabwe, Botswana is considered quite safe. It is an upper-middle income country with approximately 2.5 million people. The capital is Gaborone and the country covers 581,730 sq miles, of which 70% of it is the Kalahari Desert. Other African nations joke that their national flag is mostly blue because they need water so badly. Their soil is not good enough for farming but they do have a big export of beef and diamonds. The official languages are English and Setswana. Botswana became independent in 1966 and the country is safe and stable. Prior to 1966, the country was called Bechuanaland. Botswana is one of Africa’s richest countries due to their rich diamond mines. When we went into Botswana, we had to wash our shoes on our feet at the border as well as all shoes in our bags. There is anthrax in the dirt in Zimbabwe and with Botswana having such a big beef industry, they are very careful.

We stayed in Chobe National Park, which is the 2nd largest national park in Botswana and home to over 15,000 elephants over the 4,500 sq mile park. The Chobe River runs through the park with Namibia being on the other side. We went on a river boat cruise on of the evenings to see the animals in and near the water and to watch the sunset…which was spectacular. The rest of the time we did land game drives in open air vehicles. Some of the animals and birds we were able to see was a leopard (only on good camera), impala, maribu (the ugly bird), lionesses, giraffes, elephants, baboons, kuru (the ones with spiral horns), hippo, fish eagle, cape buffalo and warthogs. (just to name a few.)

We actually went to Zimbabwe twice on this trip. We flew into Victoria Falls from Johannesburg the first time and then we drove into Zimbabwe via Kasane from Botswana. This meant we needed two sets of visas to enter the country for each of us. Zimbabwe was the only country we needed ETAs/VISAs. I was able to do it all on line and pay for it ahead of time and it was in their system under our passports. They scanned our passports and were able to just stamp us in and let us go through, which was nice. The capital of Zimbabwe is Harare and the currency is Zim Gold (ZiGs) and it is not worth the paper it is printed on! The citizens of Zimbabwe deal almost exclusively in barter-trade and credit cards. They use multiple currencies to include the U.S. dollar. Rich took some ZiG out of the ATM and we couldn’t even spend it. The owners of the craft stalls had never even seen it before! They were all staring at it and passing it around, marveling that it was their money but had never seen it before. Zimbabwe once was one of the world’s worst hyperinflation countries in the world. Rich actually has a 2.5 billion ZiG note. The poverty level is as high as 60%. Of the 17.3 million people who claim to be Zimbabweans, 6 million live in RSA – and 70% of them are there illegally. Another fun fact about Zimbabwe is that it has the highest number of official languages in the world at 16. English is considered their business language where Shona and Ndebele are also quite popular. Zimbabwe has only been called that since April 18, 1980. Before that it was called Rhodesia. Zimbabwe had one of the highest literacy rates in the Africa at 90%. Zimbabwe is bordered by Mozambique, South Africa, Botswana, and Zambia. It is a relatively safe place to walk around. We did a lot of fun things while in Zimbabwe.

The first thing we did was go to Victoria Falls is also known as Mosi-oa-Tunya (the smoke that thunders). The falls serve as a natural border between Zimbabwe and Zambia. (Zim and Zam). The falls are 354 feet down and 5,604 feet wide, making it the world’s largest sheet of falling water. It was ripping while we were there! Over 2 million gallons of water go over the edge per second. On a clear day, you can see the mist rising from the falls for nearly 40 miles. It was unfortunately overcast the day we were there. Otherwise, you are guaranteed to see multiple rainbows in the mist. The whole area around the falls is a tropical forest atmosphere due to all the mist. We were given rain ponchos to wear but even those didn’t hold up to the driving mist we were walking through. We were soaked through. I brought a second pair of shoes just for this visit to Victoria falls. My shoes were wet for 2.5 days!

This was the tent camp we stayed at in Zimbabwe. We could hear the baboons well into the night. We saw a lot of warthogs and a friendly giraffe was around when we ate breakfast.

One of our trips in Zimbabwe was to a research/rescue/rehab facility for wild animals. Melusah showed us around. They do soft releases with orphaned animals (letting them go out during the day and come back to the facility at night until they are ready to be completely on their own) and hard releases such as treating an adult animal and releasing it to the wild as soon as possible. He is standing next to an elephant collar. They work the Kasi enclave, which is roughly the size of France. There are 80,000 elephants in that area. The elephants can be a nuisance, as they love to go into neighborhoods and eat the mangos off of trees and knock the trees over. The researchers here use firecrackers to scare the elephants away. The bull elephants are more stubborn. Elephants don’t like spicy foods or smells though. The workers sprinkle chili on the elephant dung. They will also used a golf ball covered in chili oil and shoot the bull elephant with the golf ball out of a potato gun at 200 km/hr. It doesn’t hurt the elephant but elephants and their long memories will equate that place with spicy chili oil and it will keep them away for years. To scare off lions, they use vuvuzelas (you know those annoying long plastic horns they blow into at soccer games – or used to until they were banned). This facility also has a top notch animal forensics lab to help figure out where animals are migrating to and to help get evidence against poachers.

The next place we went was the Wild Horizons Elephant Sanctuary. We were able to be up close and personal with one of the three herds that lives in that area. I fell in love with the matriarch of this herd – Coco (the handlers call her Coco Chanel). She is in her 40’s and a sweet girl. I actually got a foot print of hers to hang in our house.

We also had the pleasure of breaking up into smaller groups of 4 and going to a local Zimbabwean house for lunch. We went to Chipo’s house. She and I are both 55. She served us some of the typical food she would serve her family. About 1/3 of the plate was filled with hot, thick white polenta. Some of the other foods were kale seasoned with salt and pepper, chicken, hot kale in peanut butter, black-eyed peas, carrots & beans, dried little whole fish, chicken, and beef. We ate with our hands. We scooped the hot polenta in our fingers and then dipped it in whichever food we wanted to eat and then ate it together. Chipo came around and washed our hands before and after the meal, serving and washing the men first before the women. Chipo means “gift or talent” in Shone. She said that on her mom’s side, all the female relatives were called moms and male relatives uncles. On her father’s side, the male relatives are called dads and the female relatives aunties. When a girl wants to marry, she has to talk to her aunties (her female relatives on her dad’s side). There is a dowry that must be paid to the father of the woman…usually in cattle. Polygamy is okay for men but not for women. Mpisi talked with us at length about the loss of Joe. He was very compassionate and was truly genuine talking to us about our grief and losing a child. This was really interesting!

We also went to a tribal village in Zimbabwe and met with their chief, Mpisi. He was a character! He had a lot of wonderful life lessons to share with us. He seemed much younger than his 83 years. He greeted each of us as we got off the bus and asked us our first names. Names are important. He asked me how I spelled my name. He said they have a similar name Sindi, which means “blessed.” The surnames of the tribes are all wild African animals. Their laws are very simple. When you turn 18, you become a voting member of the legislative wing. You can vote and have the right to have land. The tribes really dislike lawyers and politicians, who just make things way more complicated. Mpisi stated that women are very important in the tribe. A woman’s counsel can change men’s minds. Men can’t be a leader without women but women can be a leader without men. Men fight and women bind. If a member commits a crime, the tribal laws will hand out the punishment unless it is a criminal offense. They don’t really believe in putting offenders in jail. It doesn’t help their family but hurt them if they are in jail. Instead they are forced to do community service from 8-4 for 5 days a week. This tribe has over 9000 people in their legislative assembly. They grow corn, soybeans, pumpkins, watermelons, and beans. If you feed the nation, you are not taxed. Mpsis handed around a big floppy black sun hat and asked if we could figure out what it was made of. We couldn’t figure it out. It was made from VHS tape! We had a lot of fun walking around their area. They had a liter of puppies that were roly-poly and eating on of the men’s pant legs. When Mpisi dies, one of his children will take over for him. Women can be chief but they cannot marry because the chief’s family is tied to their surname. She has to keep her father’s name. If the chief doesn’t have a child old enough to be chief, the chief’s brother can lead until the child is old enough. It also doesn’t always go to the oldest child, but the most qualified as a leader. The widows are allowed to mourn for a year and then they look for a husband within the family. The eligible men sit in a semi-circle. The woman places a walking stick in front of the man she wants to care for her. She then goes to wash the hands of the elders. If they allow her to wash their hands, they are voting yes to the union. Pretty interesting, right?

I am home! I have actually been home a week but have just been trying to get my life back in order after 2.5 weeks overseas. I am now playing catch up with my blog posts. These posts will just be photos from my phone. I usually like to let the dust settle in my head a bit before going through my good camera. I will do that soon and post my favorites then.

First off, it is a LONG way to travel to South Africa. We flew from Montana to Denver to LaGuardia. That took up most of the day. Then is was a 15.5 hour flight to South Africa. It is just a long time to be sitting and trying to sleep in tight spots on a plane. Would I do it again? Yes…but like childbirth….give me some time to forget the travel part! We landed in Johannesburg (affectionately called “Joburg” or “Jozi”). We had an entire day there prior to our land tour starting, so we went on a tour based out of our hotel around the city. We had been told that we were under no circumstances to be traveling the streets of Johannesburg alone. We spent 8 hours with Chris, our driver, guiding us around the sites and sounds of Johannesburg. He was a young man who was willing to talk to us candidly about his country and his city and answer our many questions.

First, a little history on the Republic of South Africa (RSA). It is the southernmost country on the continent of Africa and is made up of 9 provinces. The population is about 63,020,000 people. (Making it the 6th most populated country on the African continent.) The currency used is the South African Rand (ZAR). One U.S. dollar = 16.35 ZAR. The paper money has Nelson Mandela on one side and a wild African animal on the other.There are three capital cities: Pretoria (administrative capital), Cape Town (seat of Parliament), and Bloemfontein (judicial capital). The country of South Africa touches the south Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean. The neighboring border countries are Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Eswatini. There is also a country entirely enclosed by RSA called Lesotho. There are 11 official languages in South Africa with English, Afrikaans, Khosa, and Zulu are most commonly spoken amongst other tribal languages. South Africa is eight hours ahead of Montana in their time zone while we were there. We were there during their wintertime and I was in long sleeves, long pants and mostly jackets during our time there. RSA has 19 national parks. We spent time in Pilanesberg National Park, which I will post on separately. RSA is mostly Christian, with more than 85% of the population identifying as Christian. Ethnically, about 81% of the country’s population is black, 8% colored, 7% white and almost 3% Asian or Indian. Here is where it gets a little tricky. In South Africa, a person can be black or colored. Colored is not derogatory term, simply a term to designate if someone is of mixed race. Years ago, they looked at the color of your skin and they used to do a “pencil” test to determine if a person was black or colored. You had to put a pencil in your hair and either shake your head three times or jump three times. If the pencil fell out (if your hair was straighter and softer) you were labeled as colored. If the pencil stuck, you were considered black. Unfortunately, simply due to genetics, some families were torn apart due to this kind of testing. Learning about this kind of thing was absolutely abhorrent.

Kids go to school from age 6 to 18/19 years old. They have a winter break in June for 3 weeks (which was happening while we were there) and then for 6 weeks in December/January for the “festive season”.

Johannesburg is the largest city in South Africa. It is located in the northeastern part of the country and sits at 5751 feet – higher than Denver. Zulu is a popular language spoken there. The city is nicknamed “the city of gold” due to lots of gold mining in the area. It is the largest city in the world that is not built on a river, lake, or coastline. The CBD (central business district) was busy, worn down, and very dirty. Our driver stated that there were a lot of drugs and homeless people in this area. He also stated that the police were easily bribed, which frustrated him. While we were in South Africa, there was a huge strike and uprising about immigrants, especially those from Zimbabwe, which are about 6 million people. About 70% are there illegally. About 5 million cross the borders into RSA each day and bribe the police at the border. The crime rate is very high in Johannesburg. South Africa’s unemployment rate is about 34% and a lot of them are younger people who just can’t find work. There were pockets of areas that were mainly from other African countries like Nigeria, which were considered unsafe and full of drug addicts and dealers. Our driver stated that most young Africans are not disciplined to get things done and to take pride in their country anymore, which was disheartening to hear.

Apartheid started in RSA in 1948 and was abolished in the early 1990’s. That wasn’t that long ago, people. Apartheid separated humans into four race groups: white, black, colored, and Indian. The government was white and the other races were pushed out of cities into their own neighborhoods in less desirable places. There were special laws in effect for each of the four race groups and there was very little intermingling of the races. Afrikaans was the language forced upon the people, and children in school had to learn in this language instead of their tribal languages. Afrikaans is mixture of Dutch, German, French, and English.

We spent time at the Apartheid Museum where we learned in quite a lot of detail about how awful it was to live in South Africa during the reign of Apartheid. We learned about Nelson Mandela and his 27 years of incarceration…then his rise to RSA’s first black president. We learned about Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his struggle for equality as well. The two of them lived in a black township outside of Johannesburg called Soweto, which houses about 2 million people. It is a completely black town to this day. As a white person, everyone knows you are a tourist. We toured Nelson Mandela’s family home, and down the street was Bishop Tutu’s family home – Vilakazi Street is the only street in the world where two Nobel Peace Prize winners have their homes. We also learned in great detail about the uprising in Johannesburg where students were shot at and killed in the melee. We visited the Hector Pieterson Memorial where a 12-year-old boy was killed in the 1976 anti-Apartheid uprisings. We actually arrived just a few days after the 50th year anniversary of that uprising. The Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto is the largest acute care hospital in the world with 3,400 beds on 173 acres. That being said, Soweto had trash everywhere. There were herds of goats who milled along the side of the road, eating the trash.

Munro Drive goes on a hill above the city of Johannesburg, and you can oversee the entire city. The smog was very thick everywhere. Johannesburg has the largest urban manmade forest in the world. It is very hard to get permission to cut down trees here. The house on the right was where Nelson and Winnie Mandela lived during his presidency.

This two photos of us are at Nelson Mandela’s family home in Soweto. The photo on the left – the tree was planted by Nelson Mandela. The umbilical cords of each of his children are buried under this Australian melaleuca tree.

These photos were taken at the Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum where a 12-year-old boy was shot during the student uprisings in June 1976.

We ended our day with a long walk through the Johannesburg botanical gardens. It really didn’t have many plants or trees there. It was a huge part with a lot of rolling hills and trails. It was like a giant dog park. There had to have been 50 dogs running around with their owners while we were walking around. The goose is an Egyptian goose and they are like the Canadian geese of Africa. They are everywhere and a nuisance. They are pretty though. The colorful towers are the Soweto towers. They are two decommissioned cooling towers with colorful murals on them. The area around the towers has extreme sports like bungee jumping and base jumping. I had to laugh because the fences surrounding this area had ads for burial tombstones.

O.R. Tambo International Airport – Johannesburg…the biggest and busiest airport in Africa.

I have moved 30 times in my 55 years. That is quite a bit. For many years that meant writing letters or paying for long distance phone calls. Even with how easy it is to keep in touch in these modern times, some people just don’t bother. I have relatives who don’t bother to stay in touch – even with my cancer diagnosis and us grieving our Joe’s life for the last four years. It is baffling to me, but I am a communicator and not everyone is. I have also learned that silence is also an answer and speaks more loudly than many statements. Those folks may wonder why they never hear from me anymore. I now refuse to hold space for people whom I carry the relationship on my shoulders. Although I miss many of these folks, they don’t miss me enough to reach out. It has been a BIG life lesson over the last several years. HOWEVER, we had a wonderful visit from three generations of a family we were good friends with when we lived in Bellevue, Nebraska.

Tanner was one of my Joe’s best friends in high school. He is such a good guy, and I am so proud of the man he has grown to be. Tanner was the groomsman who walked our Lily down the aisle at Joe and Michelle’s wedding. Tanner had known Lily since she was 5, so she was comfortable being paired up with him. Tanner’s parents, Mick & Kaysie, are friends of ours. For all the home football games, we would sit in the stands with them, cheering on the Bellevue West Thunderbirds. When Tanner and Megan got married, Rich and I double dated with Joe and Michelle to their wedding and we had such a wonderful time. Tanner and Megan have two girls – Charlie, who is almost 4 and Haley Jo (after our Joe) who is 14 months. So the four of them plus Tanner’s folks, all flew up here for 5 days of Montana fun! They arrived on the hottest day of the year so far (86) and left bundled up as a cold front blew in a day or two before they left. We had a great time driving around Glacier National Park…Polebridge…showing them the fire trucks at our station…and just relaxing and talking. It was like having family visit – because that is what I consider them….extended family. The day that Joe died, Lily and I were on our own at home. Rich and Tim were out of state. Rich contacted the parents who knew Joe the best and they came and sat with us throughout the day. Tanner, Megan, Mick, and Kaysie were all there. After four years, I was able to gather myself together enough to thank them for being there that day – on my worst day….and how much it meant to me. I will most likely never live to see grandchildren. Joe used to joke that he was my only hope for grandkids. It was nice to play surrogate to these girls for a few days. It was just so special. Tiring…goodness, I am not used to littles anymore!….but so wonderful. Here are some photos of our times together:

We had a special Memorial Day. We had been trying to go on a hot air balloon ride while Tim and Lily were both here since neither of them have been on a ride before. We had issues with weather and then scheduling changes between Tim and Lily. We got up very early so we could meet the pilot and his son at 0530. We hopped in their chase vehicle and rode with them where they released helium balloons in strategic locations so see how the weather and winds were acting. That being said, the winds were so still that we nearly landed right where we took off. The pilot, Casey, went much higher and we were able to catch some winds higher up that allowed us to move some. I want to explain a few of the photos….that IS a zebra. We landed near a farm in Whitefish that we knew had a buffalo and a zebra along with their horses. The zebra was not fond of the whooshing sound of the flames giving us lift (so we didn’t land in the pasture with the zebra). The zebra ended up going under the white fence and joining the horses (you can see the white fencing where the lower rail is missing. I think it allows the zebra to get away from the horses when he/she wants to. Lily got an awesome photo of the zebra going under the fence. Lily also got told about the history of hot air ballooning. We chose sparking pear cider instead of champagne. We all had a toast and Casey had Lily try and drink from a kneeling position after the toast. He “baptized” her with water as she attempted to drink her cider. It was pretty funny. We enjoyed the beautiful sunrise over the Flathead Valley. Lily then flew out to head back to her place in Kansas City. It was great having her here. Rich and I spent some time on our wooden glider seat out by Joe’s memorial tree. The weather was beautiful. We started the day seeing our breath at about 40 degrees and ended it at 85! Welcome to late spring in Montana….huge temperature swings. Enjoy the photos!

Yesterday, Rich, Lily, and I went to the southeastern part of Glacier National Park and did a couple of short hikes inside the Two Medicine Lake entrance to the park. It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining and it was in the upper 60’s and yet the peaks of the mountains were still layered in snow. The first place we went was a short hike to Aster Falls. (and yes, Lily and I carried bear spray and Rich carried his gun. No bears seen this trip.)

The next set of falls we went to were Running Eagle Falls. This was a very short, easy hike. The water was crystal clear with the colorful river rock on display. Some of these photos were of water a couple of feet deep…and yet everything was so very clear. Due to the extra rain and snow from the last couple of weeks, the falls have been really spectacular.

I forgot to post about the House of Mystery….a roadside staple on the way to Glacier National Park from our house. It claims to have 3 energy vortexes on the property. Lily felt she was being gas lit the people there – felt it was very cult-like. I, personally, got pretty nauseated by being in the tilted house (I think it was built at 18 degrees). It was different and we can say we experienced it…which is more than most locals can boast.