argh, sorry for the not-turned pics to lazy to change and upload all over again :(

Haha, so the airline we booked our joburg tickets with went bankrupt and our tickets where canceled.. the sms to say so came two minuts after we arrived at the airport.. so back to gill and abi we go, to spend another two wonderful days with them. At our second attempt with Mango we finally got to Joburg, where we were picked up by one of my uncles workers and brought to his farm in Middleburg. He took us on a little tour around his farm on a little 4x After spending a night on his farm, he generously lent us one of his bakkies and we could start making our way up to Zim, stopping over at Haenetsburg, where some family friends have and Eco Dairy farm for a night. The next day, off to Zim..

we arranged to be picked up in messina (close to the boarder) at 14.30, we left early because there where a lot of road works the previous day, so we did not want to be late for vannessa. Arrived in messina at about 13.00 and vanessa still had to to quite a shopping trip in louis trichart. We passed by louis trichart and descidet messina would be similar, so we would push on to messina and have lunch there.. messina was nothing like LT.. We kind of had the feeling we where thrown into the deepest, darkest place of africa.. not a single white person, and drawing money was enough to make me think my final hour had come.. plus i could not take j with because the bakkie owen has lent us is more something like a transporter.. its a single cab and has a very shallow loading ramp (?) and owen did not have any couver, so we have just wrapped all your luggage in a ground sheet and tied it down as good as possible.. my neck is saw from constantly looking back to check that nobody has jumped for a ride and taken advantage of all(!) our possessions.. the cap is pretty small, not much space for luggage.. but its a car nonetheless, and is running really nicely, so we arent complaining..its actually quite cool driving around in a truck, gives a "we dont take shit" impression ;) only problem is that one of us must stay with the car at all times, explains why I wondered of drawing money on my own. 




Oh, and i went into the superspa in Mussina to by a bottle of coke and a sanwich for jacob.. I ended up only coming back to the car an hour later.. the reason why it took so long is because the spar had two walls (walls, not rows) FULL of polonly in every shape and size.. plus two friges with polony, a stand with freshly cut polony, a freezer with polony and a dealer with polony hidden in the inside of his jacked and in his pants (just jocking).. but really, i have never seen so much polony in my life.. finaly i found and single, lonely little sandwich that was not stuffed with polony, which i grabbed and went towards the counter.. if you think aldi on a saturday is bad, you have not been in messina..the line was so long, i could not evan see the till.. after waiting for a good 20 mins with crying babys, glaring men and shouting women, the lady at the till gave up and dissapeared and we all had to go and stand in a new line.. that till lady was possible doped out of her mind, as slow as she was examining each polony sliding over the counter, so i moved on the the next line.. after finaly having payed, one then has to stand in line to get to an armed security guy, who takes your slip ans checkes that all the items in the trolly have been payed for.. takes quite some time, going through three trollies of polonly per person.. so finaly i made it out of the spar, finding poor jacob whos nerves where completely on end and he was worried silly, thinking I had been kidnapped or something..

The boarder crossing was much less exhausting as expected, thanks to Digby (who is known to climb through windows to jump a cue) and Vanessa's experience with crossings. Arrived at their farm after dark and had a wonderful dinner at their camp, built for hunters and clients that come to their farm. Have ended up having all our meals at the camp, very good meals and a great atmosphere, camp fires, gin'n'toniks, and hyenas calling in the distance. Went for a couple of game drives the last few days, quite a nice change to the game parks we have been at, for we can get out and walk around at any time, and the game is actually wild, does not just stand next to your car chewing away with the nonchalant "hello?" look on its face.. its quite a challenge to get a nice view of them.. which makes it especially special to spot something. Vanessa took us to a nearby waterhole, where we sat for two hours not making a sound, to view game coming down to drink.. To beautiful to describe in words.. saw Impala, Kudu (male, female and young), Waterbuck (male and female), Bushbuck, Nyala, and Warthog.. Having wonderful sunsets in the bush with sundowners, good food, lots of game and a fantastic pool to chill in and overlook the Limpopo. Even saw a leopard ru

Hi everyone,

Just a quick one before we have to give up internet for a while again

We have been enjoying our stay in Pietermaritzburg a lot, have been doing so much! Hiking into nearby forests, taking dogs for walks, taking a day outings into the midlands, which can be described as lots and lots of green rolling hills sprinkled here and there with various little art and craft shops, goat farms, caffes, and restaurants. Gill even organized a riding lesson at the stables she rides at for us. A really nice experience with idiot-proof horses ;)

Over the whole of the weekend we celebrated J’s 21st birthday, starting of with 21 pancakes in bed, a trip into the Tala game reserve, a picknick at an African waterwhole, and a really fun braai with a couple of Abis friends in the evening, partying till late at night.. or early in the morning? Next morning Gill took us all to Durban, to spend the day on the beach and in Ushaka Marin world, which is a waterpark combined with a huge Aquarium. Spent the day watching dolphin shows, swimming and chilling, having lunch at Moyos restaurant and ending the day with cocktails at the pier. 

Have once again being packing all through the night and organizing the next part of our trip. From here we are flying to Johannesburg and being picked up by my Uncle to spend a few days on his farm north from Pretoria. As of there we are going to make our way up to Zimbabwe, where we are going to be until March, 9th. Then we will be rushing back to Pretoria to celebrate my friends 21st birthday there on the 10th. We will be staying in Pretoria for a while after that, visiting Kruger in-between and getting ready to fly back to Germany on April, the 4th :(

Xx b&j

Hi everyone,

So after we left cape town, we arrived in a very hot and humid Durban.. forgot what humidity felt like.. exhausting.. we were picked up to go and spent a long weekend with my aunt and uncle at a holiday resort in Saint Lucia. After we arrived at Saint Lucia, my uncle invited us on a boat ride down the river, which is famous for its Hippos, Crocks and magnificent bird life. We saw Hippos in all groups and sizes, even brand new born babys.. A group of hippos is called a pod of hippos, by the way..

The next tow days it rained.. so we spent them in near by game reserves.. The first one, (I can’t remember the names, sorry) was more of a nature reserve than a game reserve, so we where incredibly lucky to sight a leopard in its full glory.. Anybody who has been to kruger a couple of times knows how lucky we were. Other than the leopard, our game viewing was rather scarce. A few bookies, lots of rino, and a handful of lion quite far away (explains the bad quality of pics, most of them were taken on full zoom)

On our last evening we went out for pizzas and the girls and j decided to walk back from the restaurant, owen following in the car. After a few minutes of walking, owen came charging up from behind yelling “ get in the car, get in the car, here’s something you have never seen before” And he was right.. there, in the centre of the town, was a female hippo grazing peacefully on the lawns.. She formed possible the biggest tourist attraction, which she was not to impressed with. Somewhere along the line she decided that she had enough and started glaring at the vehicles crowded around her. Quite a funny thing to see, the way five cars jump into action by a tiny little hick up of hers.. Luckily she did not feel like going into any more aggressive actions than hickupping every now and then.

So now we’re in Pietermaritzburg, the town my aunt stays in, until next Monday.

Xx b&j

​​Hi everyone, 

one last post before we leave cape town :( Since the last post we basically have been catching up on admin (organizing a visa extension for j, I will not even begin to explain how fu*cked up and frustrating it all is..-.-) and trying to do all the things we have not had enough of yet.. starting with: surfing ;) 
Chelsea, the daughter of mike (our new cousin, so to say;) made the wonderful decision to give us one of her old surfboards.. for real! Its old and has a few battle wounds and its so, so much shorter that the longboards we have been used to, so it is quite a battle to catch waves and try and not fall off.. but practice seems to make perfect.. slowly though.. between surfing, we have been strolling through town, taking a few walks and hikes up hills and mountains with our host family and celebrating Hannahs (daughter of andries and gaby) 24st birthday. We all went to one of the Kirstenbosh gardens open air concert on Sunday, which was fantastic, such a nice vibe with everyone chilling, picnicking or dancing..

On monday we took a little or rather long drive to Stellenbosch, one of the Universities near Cape Town. Beautiful little student-town, pretty houses and stunning little botanical garden with koi fish, bonsai trees and indigenous plants. That evening, Chealsea took us up to chapmanspeak and a secret cave mostly only locals know about for sun downers. Nice sunset, pretty cool cave.. 

The next day we spent exploring some beaches (Llandudno, Camps Bay) which look very much like beaches along the cote d'azure.. clear water, white beaches, white rocks etc. Freezing water.. made that experiance myself after bravely jumping in and thinking "this is not too cold" but wondering why on earth my toes feel like I smashed them against some rock.. only after a few seconds I realized my lungs seemed to be gasping for air, and that it was not "not too cold", but "so freaking cold you cant even feel it anymore" yeesh

had lunch at "El Burro", an amazing Mexican restaurant at green point that brings more food than you can ever eat for only 3,50euros. Stuffed to the point of pain, we rolled back home to cook supper for our host family.

Today we spent our last day surfing for one last time and meeting up with Frog and Mike for tea/lunch. After that we took a drive up to Bloubergstrand where we had a fantastic view of table mountain. 
We spoiled ourselves to a little tourist activity and took to cable way up table mountain (half price tickets after 18.00;).. We kind of jumped the cue though and earned some seriously dirty looks from vicious tourists.. that all spoke Afrikaans..? We pretended to be dumb tourists that "just wanted to get a look at se tafelberg from se upper side". 

In the gondle that takes you up the mountain and rotates 360* while going up, a voice sounds out from all around "Dear lady's and gentlemen, welcome to the table mountain cable way.." Once we reached the top and hand a wonderful 360* view and tourists going nearly hysterical at the site of a bunch of dassies, squealing "look, look, squirrels!!" and J and I muttering "dassies, you idiot" the almighty voice sounds out again:" dear lady's and gentlemen, we have reached the top station. Please mind your step when leaving the gondle.. etc.. etc.. And please check that you keep your return ticket in a safe place, if you loose it, its a loong walk down.. - pause - and that is not a squirrel, it's a dassie" I think the tourists might have been offended by my donkey-like laugh.. (For anyone who does not know what a dassie is.. its a indigenous type of rock rabbit that lives in Africa, although it looks nothing like a rabbit, nor a squirrel.. more like a oversized guinea pig..) 

Anyway, table mountain great, beautiful sunset with proseco (thanks mom) and an amazing view of cape town by night. We have spent the evenig packing our bags for our flight tomorrow, very hear-sore of leaving .. 

until we encounter internet again, 

xx b&j

p.s.: Please forgive any spelling or grammar mistakes, yes, I am talking to you, porcie 1 and procie 2, it is 1.38 in the morning and I have not had supper. Over and out or should I say "finish und klaar!"

Hi everyone.. time has been to short and internet to scarce to have written sooner..

so we have been in cape town for about 2 weeks now, which seems a lot shorter.. and longer.. somehow.. thinking about leaving on the 16th gives me the uneasy feeling and urge that I should be somewhere doing something, not wasting time with eating, sleeping and mailing.. but I think we have been using our time as good as possible..

So after having hiked up table mountain, we used the next day to go and check out some beaches.. Our hosts daughter, Katrin, took us to Muizenberg beach, the hot spot of beginners when it comes to surfing.. nice long, clean waves that break far out at sea and are strong enough to carry you all the way back to shore.. water was so much colder than up the cost, but as warm as a bath water compared to the water on the Atlantic side of cape town.. we spent the day swimming and snoozing, and took a drive up to simonstown where we had another swim at the boulders beach. Beautiful blue-turquoise water and with huge, white boulders scattered on the beach and in the water (see pics).

The next day we headed of packed and stacked with maps and tourist information to go and conquer the city.. until we noticed that our tire was flat as a pancake and had to be replaced.. sigh.. well now we have our very own first tire.. one milestone towards an own car ;) although, as the dad has pointed out, a car might cost a little more than 40euros..

Never mind, of we go to conquer the town with a brand new tire! Thinking back, the only thing we really saw was Greenmarket square.. A very big and colorful -yes, lets face it- tourist market.. Took ages to get there and find parking.. and cape town at mid day is indescribably hot and loud and busy.. And it seems that all cars have their hooters connected with their gas-pedal.. it is actually worrying when they stop hooting at you, because then you know you must really have done something horribly wrong.. well well

Off to our next "adventure".. to cut a long story short, and to spare all the horrible details, jacobs credit card was stolen while drawing money buy a huge motorbike helmet wearing mountain of a guy who basically pushed in from behind, and somehow managing to get hold of jacobs card and slip it into his pocket before we noticed.. blabla, we actually wanted to spend to the day at the pool, instead of running through town trying to block cards and report to police etc.. sigh..

At least the next day was a success. Tasha from our fist day in cape town took us to Clifton beach with a few friends of hers.. this is where we come to the Atlantic water experience.. you literary can not even walk along the water line because your feet get so cold it is to painful to carry on walking.. Although Jacob was brave enough to jump into the water and claims that if you wait long enough your body goes so numb you cant feel the cold anymore.. have not tried this theory yet.. Sadly the wind was so strong we escaped to the waterfront to go watch a movie and have a German beer at the "Paulaner" beer garden.. After that we all went out to some local clubs and could experience how capetonians like to party till the sun comes up.. 

Tired and hung over, we made our way the next day to Kommertjie, where our next host, D's brother Mike, his wonderful partner Frog, her mother, three very happy, sociable cats, a chameleon called "think more" and a handful of fish live in a beautiful little house right on the edge of a river.

Uncle Mike roused us the next day at 5.30 in the morning (we volunteered, dont' worry;) to take us to a huge flee market hold somewhere in town where he bargains and buys odd pits and pieces from traders for frog and his shop in town, called Froggat&Frost.. We visited F&F after mike was satisfied with the treasures he found (I also got myself a little something, even managed to bargain with the seller and get it a whole R 2 cheaper;) Love the shop, love the french farmhouse style(?) and presentation of items.. Contributed to the braai that evening with a Bavarian potato salad everyone enjoyed, or where polite enough to act as if they enjoyed it;)

Next day Mike and Frog packed up a picknick and took us out to cape point where we saw humongous baboons and a dolphin that I bet must have been a whale.. nice relaxing sunday afternoon chilling, sleeping and reading at one of the picknickspots on cape point

Next day.. Monday morning i think.., j and I headed out for our fist try on some Cape town waves.. Nice surfing, J has decided to upgrade from long boards to a slightly shorter version, a mix between a long and a short board..After that we went to check out some Cape town malls, including the Canal walk.. Huge and overwhelming, that's all I can say.. came back empty handed..

The last two days we have been surfing, swimming, having lunch at the Brass Bell and walking around Kalk bay, a beautiful little harbor-town filled with secret little garden shops, old book shops and vintage style stores. We are back in Kenilworth now, after having a nice evening out with Mike and Frog. So now its back to planing tourist activities.. somehow we feel we have not seen enough touristy stuff in cape town yet..

Hope you enjoyed the report,

xx b&j