Day 3: Zebras are assholes

After a solid breakfast of sausage, mushrooms, bacon and eggs (no fried tomato nor veggies… this is my kinda place!) I set off for Letaba camp, where I was to have lunch. A short way after the entrance, I made a left turn to go north on a bumpy side road. I drove and drove and drove, but nothing was to be seen, except for the ubiquitous impalas, of course.

I had almost given up when I suddenly spotted a huge ellie to my left; I had almost passed him, they're that difficult to spot even though they're giants. He was busy doing absolutely nothing, so I grabbed the opportunity to stop and take a couple of pics. After a few seconds he grew agitated, but I soon realized he wasn't angry with me. Some piece of grass had caught his attention and now he was busy stomping the hell out of it; he didn't so much as glance in my direction.

Ellie standing perfectly at ease.


Ellie giving me the "You lookin' at me?"-look.


A little farther down the road I saw another ellie at a waterhole and when I hit the main, paved road, I watched (and heard) a small family cheerfully molesting every plant they could lay their trunks on. The sad fact of the matter is that in some areas, Kruger simply has too many elephants. The vegetation can't cope with the constant onslaught of too many pachyderms, so it dies off.

Sometimes you gotta reach even if you're big. Like, really HUGE.


"Ahhhh, got the water"


Video of the ellie family cheerfully molesting the local vegetation.


A teeny tiny ellie baby.


Sho, sho cute.


I took a few more detours down dusty side roads, but there was little action; I did see about a dozen hippos frolicking in an artificial dam, and a wildebeest nearly ran into the road in front of me, but quickly decided otherwise as a ton of metal & blubber bore down on him. I settled in for lunch at Letaba and had fun watching a blue starling skid around on a slippery table, picking up the crumbs from the previous customer.

Video of frolicking hippos.


Picture of frolicking hippos.


They look so peaceful... and they are, right up until the moment they'll trample & maul you for coming too close to their babies.


Arty-farty picture of trees reflected on a still lake.


Blue starling on ice.


Lunch was a very good bacon & beef burger. While devouring it, I watched a small group of zebras bullying a couple of impalas. They left a large plume of dust in their wake and were at it for some time, so they must have had great fun. I imagine it was somewhat less amusing for the impala. This behavior confirmed what I saw down south last year, when a single zebra'd had great fun in repeatedly chasing some poor impalas away from a watering hole. There's a pattern here: Zebras are assholes, pure and simple. I guess it should be expected, after all the mane of their offspring is almost ginger in color.

After lunch, I went on yet more dusty side roads. The first animal I saw was a herd of waterbuck. They're quite fluffy to look at and especially the young 'uns were very cute. I think they thought they had the riverbank to themselves, because they looked mighty skeptical when I first arrived, but they were soon ignoring me. Later on, I also had some luck; a flock of baboons, a zebra foal, some more hippos and a large herd of giraffes all made an appearance, but the day was sadly devoid of big cats. A stop at a lookout point was rewarded with nice views of the African sunset and I did get in a pic of giraffes contoured against the sky but otherwise nothing.

Waterbucks judging me silently.


Video of waterbucks. Dey be cute.


The boss of the baboon flock was leading his group right outside the gates to Letaba camp. These cheeky little rascals will at times wreak havoc on the guest houses if allowed.


Zebra foal.


These plants are as good looking as they are poisonous. Do not touch!


Giraffes against the sky.


Video of a giraffe crossing the road.


Goofy McGoof.




On the bright side, I managed to save ZAR2.900 (app. $200). As I was checking in at Olifants, I overheard a woman saying to the receptionist that she'd had a Wildcard (the annual card that gives you unlimited access) but had lost it. Could he check her ID and see if he found it? A lightbulb come on over my head. I'd bought a Wildcard in late July last year, but as the rules back then clearly stated that you had to convert your receipt into an actual plastic card within two months and I had forgotten to, I was fully prepared to cough up the cash for a new one. Now, I asked my own receptionist if he could look.

He searched the system for my name, my passport number, perhaps my grandfather's school. Sweet nuffin'. As a last attempt, I told him I'd bought it at Satara Camp in late July. Silence, as he once again asked the great big machine for an answer. Finally, he found the receipt. Even upside down, I could read the numbers, which clearly indicated that I'd bought a card. He nodded and said everything was in order, but as their printer wasn't working properly, I'd have to come back to get a receipt in the morning. O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! I'd like to think my savings corresponded to a new children's school, or perhaps a small hospital wing, but sadly it would probably have gone straight into the ANC's private corruption fund. Most things do nowadays.

A lovely baobab tree. There's a few of them this far north.


Later, I had a highly forgettable African venison stew for dinner. It had some kind of unpronounceable Afrikaaner name and was as inedible, but the evening was saved when I ordered Cape Malva pudding for dessert. It turned out to be some kind of sweet bread pudding with yummy ice cream, almost as soft and fluffy as my beloved soft-serve.

Belly full, I tucked in for the night. Or so I thought. However, my Kraut neighbors had other plans. They were talking loudly, playing music, making noise with cutlery and bottles and generally being a nuisance as I lay trying to sleep, having taken half a pill of Zopiclone. The clock was ticking ever closer to the camp-wide cut off at 10PM*, when I was ready to get out and give them a real seeing to. But they wouldn't even give me that satisfaction. Right before 10, the music stopped, and I heard them packing away their stuff. At 10:01PM you could have heard a pin drop outside. Krauts; sore losers since 1945.

*[The camp-wide all-quiet policy does in fact begin at 9:30, so I could have cussed them out anyway. Verdamt!]

Day 2: Flying to Hoedspruit

I landed in Johannesburg around 10am Wednesday after yet another sleepless night on an airplane and had about two and a half hours to reach my connecting flight to Hoedspruit. See, since my initial ticket to South Africa had been so cheap, I had decided to splurge on a connecting flight instead of doing the long, slow drive over to Kruger.

In the arrival hall, I managed to look just lost enough that some airport employee sidled up to me and asked if he could help. This was my third time here, so by now I was getting used to how things worked. However, I was tired from a long flight so instead of telling him to fuck the fuck off, I graciously allowed him to take control of my luggage cart and to show me the Vodaphone store where I purchased no less than 20gigabyte of data capacity (and 110R worth of talk time) all to be used in 30 days.

I paid for this privilege with money made from the sale of various items from the estate of my late father; stuff I was entitled to half the proceeds of, but which I had no hand in actually selling, so it felt like free money. This tells you all you need to know about my insight into economics.

Anyways, I left him with a small fortune and pressed on to my gate. Here, the board first said there was to be a 25-minute delay, then a 90 minute-delay. When we had waited for about half an hour, the doors out to the buses opened and we were herded onto one (they can't even get their delays right in this country). Soon thereafter, we were on our plane to Hoedspruit (and again I eminently jumped the queue to be among the first to enter the plane). A quick one-hour flight later and we landed, seemingly in the middle of the wild. I counted no less than four families of warthogs grazing along the runway and the terminal was a fairly small collection of buildings.



I soon got my suitcase and then my car from AVIS and was on my way north towards Phalaborwa. Now, I don't know about you, but personally, I get a tingle up the old leg when I'm driving down the road and see a triangular warning sign, but instead of the usual moose or deer of my native Norway, there's a hippo or an elephant. I really need to get one of those to put up at work… I reached Phalaborwa without any excitement besides a couple of wrong turns solely due to missing road signs. As in, the metal pole was there, but the sign on top was gone.

My place for the night turned out to be a nice house with several rooms; mine was at the end of a hallway and sported a bathtub and a fridge. I asked my host for a restaurant recommendation and she even called ahead to book a table for me at the Bushveld Terrace Hotel. Dinner turned out to be a return to the food orgy of my first visit to South Africa two years ago. A 300g slab of grilled beef with camembert cheese on top and cranberry juice, with the meat so tender and juicy it was pure heaven. In fact, it was so good that I even ate all my veggies, and let me tell you, that's not a common occurrence.

Day 1: Paris, mon amour [sarcasm alert]

On the 1st of January, I made the decision that I wanted my summer holidays 2019 to once again be spent in South Africa, more specifically in the Kruger Park. I left Norway 12:30 on a Tuesday*, with the unenjoyable prospect of a long layover in Paris, France. At Oslo, I joined in the, for me, unusual tactic of rampant line-jumping, as I passed several groups of dithering pensioners and families with children before presenting myself at the ticket control.

I was among the first to hit my seat and managed to fill up the overhead compartment with my stuff, because I AM ENTITLED. I got my divine punishment a little later, when the fucking snail eaters engaged in several games of musical chairs, trying to decide who should sit next to whom and I had to get up a couple of times before the excitement died down and everybody had finally found a seat tolerable to them.

When landing in Paris, the frogs were not up to the task of keeping me correctly informed. I landed shortly before 3PM and after navigating such simple stupidities as a hallway that was blocked with string, where people were expected to simply walk around a set of stairs only to come out on the other side of said string, negating its purpose in the first place, I checked the fancy, schmancy machine they had at the entrance to the terminal. It said unequivocally that my flight to Johannesburg was to leave from gate L-45.

Ever the obedient traveler, I trudged through half a terminal and settled in for the long, dark teatime of the soul. Half past ten PM I went to the bathroom and upon coming back, I happened to glance at my gate. There, in bright letters, it said "Santiago de Chile". WTF? So, I enquired from the woman at the gate who could tell me that Johannesburg was at L-26 and had been for HOURS. I hastily grabbed all my stuff and started moving as fast as my sluggish body would allow, back through half the terminal, around the goddamn tax free bullshit that has fucked up the structure of just about every airport I've ever been to and then finally, fucking finally the last slog over to L-26.

Here, the lines were (GASP!) well organized, so I didn't get to sneak as much as I had wanted, but reward came when the usual game of chairs began and instead of being squeezed in between some teenage punk and an old hag, I suddenly found myself in an aisle seat with the middle seat unoccupied and a rather attractive lady at the window. Not that this did me much good in the end; she promptly fell asleep while I drifted between stupendous boredom and trying, oh trying to just for fuck's sake get a teensie weensie bit of a nap. Nah.

[*As with my most recent travel blogging, I am posting retrospectively. These lines are written in mid-July.]

Scotland VI: Edinburgh

Tuesday, I ordered my first Uber, which was a nice, clean, pleasant experience that cost us less than a taxi would. We were dropped off at the roundabout just downhill of Edinburgh Castle and slowly made it the last, few yards up to the ticket lines that had already formed. We didn't have to wait long before they started letting people in and the next couple of hours were spent showing the yanks around Edinburgh's nicest piece of real estate. We started out with breakfast at a cafe. As per usual, a bird bullied me out of my sandwich. Well, it was a big seagull and he had a sharp beak so what was I supposed to do?

Eyeing me.


Eating my breakfast.


He gave me the evil eye before flying off without so much as a "thank you". *sniffles*


I have no idea who lives in that little house there, but I would murder him/her to take over.


Nice views.


We ended up in the Great Hall, where the roof, made from Norwegian Wood, was the only original thing left.


Lovely fireplace.


We even attended a half-hour long presentation by a guy who knew just about everything there was to know about medieval instruments and music. He was funny to boot and I think we all wanted the presentation to last longer. Ever the adventurous, we then took a stroll a little ways down the Royal Mile, stopping to look at a big guy dressed up as a Pictish warrior, who allowed himself to be photographed with people for a donation to some anti-cancer thingy. He turned out to be a history teacher with quite the background, he even showed us pics on his phone of when he'd been partying with Lemmy from Motörhead, who had been a friend of his.


Outside a place called Frankenstein, I was caught by the scruff of my neck.


Next door was The Elephant House, one of several places where J. K. Rowling sat and wrote the Harry Potter books.


The next day, the yanks flew down to London for a couple of days of much needed me-free sightseeing, while I flew home to a cold, grey, bleak Norway. Meh. I had prearranged a wheelchair from the boarding area to the airplane for this boarding and here, they're loading me onto this infernal contraption like some piece of cargo. Which in so many ways I guess I was. This was the only pic I got in before I was told that taking photos was strictly verboten.


Me in the cabin before departure. Me leaving Scotland. Me sad.


Me home in Norway. Now me really sad.

Scotland V: Pitlochry to Edinburgh

Monday, we were supposed to go to Edinburgh, but I still had a few places I just HAD to show the yanks. We first went north again, to lovely Loch Tummel and of course, Queen's View.


After that, I drove along the lake, making a left at Tummel Bridge and then drove back east and then south over a nice stretch of highland-ish territory. We also made a quick detour to take pics of the Fortingall Yew. Of special interest to me were the stones set into the ground, which described several real, scientific breakthroughs in the history of mankind, with little religious mumbo-jumbo. And this was in a presbyterian, Church of Scotland graveyard, mind you.


We then drove south through some more lovely scenery, for example the little beach resort at Kenmore and we also stopped to buy some stuff from a lady who had converted a room in her house to show off carvings made from animal bones and horns; everything from deer to cows. I bought some whistles for my landlady's kids and a nice little knife for her. The yanks were also spending too much money in there (as indeed they did the whole trip). We finally ended up at my intended destination; the landing site for the boat over to Inchmahome Priory. I knew my US peeps loved trees, and they had them some nice ones over there. I've posted pics of these before, but they are truly something to behold:





You can squint and see several faces in this tree.


It was like this when I got there, I swear! I don't need to go on a diet!


We ended it off with a good, but somewhat overpriced dinner at the Lake of Menteith Hotel before driving to Edinburgh.

Scotland IV: Drumnadrochit to Pitlochry

The next day was also long, but with less distance traveled. We started off with me going to Inverness Infirmary to get my cast removed, as it was chafing the skin of my foot. I first had to take an x-ray and the radiologist spent the whole time talking about how much she would love to go to Norway. The doctor was a young woman of Chinese persuasion who had never even heard of Monty Python, so my "tis barely a scratch" t-shirt was wasted on her. After I was pronounced fit for fight, we took a drive to Culloden. Later, I made a couple of wrong turns down around Aviemore and we suddenly found ourselves outside Grantown on Spey, on this peaceful single lane road with a stream running to our right. There were a few clouds in the sky but otherwise just a lovely, crisp spring day.


After a while, we came across this lady training a sheepdog, with a flock of sheep running around in a field. We stopped, and Albie had a chat with her and took a gazillion pics.


Views towards the Grampians. This is a very, very pretty part of a very, very pretty country.


We then drove through postcard upon postcard down to Pitlochry, where we had another grand dinner at a restaurant called Victoria's.

Scotland III: Staffin to Drumnadrochit

Saturday, we set out on a long ass drive from Staffin, almost at the northern end of Skye, to Drumnadrochit, south of Inverness. We started out with an early, early drive up the hill to Quiraing, but the sunrise, which had been so spectacular in 2016 was nowhere to be seen.

I was more dead than alive.


Driving out, we saw this lamb had made herself comfy.


A bit south of Portree, they had a herd of Shaggy Coos, and several cars and a small tourist bus were parked to take pics and even pet them.


Here, she's scratching herself with her horn. I petted her and probably gave her fleas.


Over on the mainland, I drove roughly the same route I'd taken in 2018 before my stomach knocked me out. Somewhere south of Dundonnell, there's a small layby where I took a took a couple of pics. Very cozy up there, by the stream.

Scotland II: Mallaig to Staffin

The next morning, we set figurative sails for the Isle of Skye, which is clearly visible from Mallaig.


We had two episodes of brief entertainment; first when Albie had to puke at the side of the road (they claimed it was because of my driving, I blamed her being a delicate flower) and then having to go back to fetch her purse, which she had conventiently left on the boat. We then drove north to Broadford, before making a sharp left to go west. After a little while we came across this very picturesque church ruin, I believe it is called Kilchrist. This may sound like a weird name for a church until you find out that the prefix kil can either mean "servant of" or "church". Both make sense, I guess.


Nice graveyard.


The beautiful Hills of Cuillin. I believe this particular mountain is called Bla Bheinn (Blue Mountain) and is a part of the range called the Black Cuillins.


View towards The Old Man of Storr. The particular place where this photo was taken is rapidly becoming a place of zen for me.


We ended the evening with a grand dinner at the Uig hotel, then drove back to our AirBnB cottage, sometimes making brief detours up or down a road to see if we could get a better view of the sunset, but alas, it was cloudy.

Scotland I: Callander to Mallaig

In April, I had arranged for a non-paid position chauffeuring two yanks around Scotland. Yes, mah San Diego crew, who I'd been driving all across southern Norway were once again in Europe, but this time not to darken my towels but those of the Scots.

Since my ankle was still in a cast, we had, after much back and forth, been able to arrange for a car with handicap controls (the yanks had decided not to brave lefthand traffic this time either). I was expecting something like the handicap cars you will see in Norway, with hand controls on the wheel, but alas it was not to be. We actually talked to the guy who installed our system, he made a living installing these things all over Scotland and seemed happy as a clam; I know I would have been in his position.

Anyway, the actual handicap system was a laughably primitive contraption. It consisted of two thin, metal rods attached to the brake and the gas pedal respectively and at the top, near the wheel they were attached to a small plastic handle. It had a hole in for the brake so that one could perform that operation without revving the engine at the same time. When we arrived at our car, we just stared at it and laughed; it looked like (and felt like) something out of a steampunk novel; some mad alternative reality where you'd still have to pump steam to get the vehicle up to speed.

We first set course for Stirling. Along the way I pointed out the Kelpies, which duly impressed the yanks and I also made a quick stop at Bannockburn to show them the memorial and to talk a little bit about the country's uneasy and complex history with its southern neighbor. We then went up to the castle, where we spent a good, long time strolling around while I talked and talked (I'm sensing a theme here) and they took pics.

After Stirling, it was a quick trip up to lovely Callander where we spent an incredible Wednesday evening at the weekly singalong at the Old Rectory Inn with the guys from the band Pure Malt. I think the yanks thoroughly enjoyed themselves, I know I did. The only tragedy came the next morning, when Court and I ordered haggis for our breakfast and poor Albie lost her appetite due to the smell.

Yours truly attempting to navigate 21st century technology. It usually ends in tears.


After breakfast (this diary is written in late June, but backdated) we set course for Mallaig, where there's a ferry connection to Skye. However, our first stop was literally right up the road at the Mill, a rest stop for busloads of tourists to the Trossachs who all pour out in the shop's parking lot for a stretch, a cup of coffee and hopefully to buy something from the well stocked souvenir shop. I quickly went in and came out with a couple of small bags of veggies for the lovely little hairballs that grace the adjacent field; yes I'm talking about the shaggy coos!

Wantses.


Nom, nom.


Moooooore!


Carrots, which contain more sugar than animals normally get, is like chocolate to humans so that was a big favorite but she was so, so gentle in taking the food from my hand. The yanks took pictures and after a couple of minutes a busload of tourists from various places showed up. It was time to move on. We then drove through the outer edge of the Trossachs and up to the Falls of Dochart. Here, I got my first disappointment as the lovely stream did not meet with approval from her Highness, who thought them "ok, but not pictureworthy". Well, I never! We pressed on and they started gawping at the scenery when we reached the area just above Tyndrum, where the real Highlands begin. We even stopped a couple of times along the A-82, at Loch Tulla and at Kings House Hotel to take pics.

Some lovely mountains.


The A-82, in particular the distance between Tyndrum and Glencoe, is one of my favoritestest roads in world.


As usual, there was a herd of deer hanging out at the Kings House Hotel. Spring is the season the bucks shed their antlers, which often causes some of them to look retarded mid-process.


The mighty mountains to the west of the hotel.


We then drove down the long single-lane road to Loch Etive, accompanied by more oohing and aahing from the 'muricans. After an overpriced lunch at the hotel, we drove on towards Glencoe. We dutifully stopped to take pics at the Meeting of the Three Waters and I talked about Monty Python's Holy Grail movie, which was partially shot in this area and about the Massacre of 1692.


Later, we also stopped at Glenfinnan, where I talked a bit about the uprising of 1745 and about what an airhead Bonnie Prince Charlie was.


Close to Mallaig, we took a detour off to Loch Morar. I was completely new to this particular area so it came as a nice surprise to me too that there was a lovely body of water here. We passed some sheep along the way and had a couple of hairy meetings with other drivers; as is usual with single lane roads, the locals tend to drive like maniacs.


Lovely lake.