Video Preview 1: Maiden Bay
Posted by Andy on Nov 8, 2009 in Video
Be sure to watch in HD!
More coming soon
Day 1: Cape Town
Posted by Andy on Nov 8, 2009 in Photo
Today we toured around Cape Town. We hit the Cape of Good Hope, we saw the penguins at Boulder Beach, and we spied some baboons on the side of the road. The weather was a little too crummy to hit Table Mountain, maybe later. We did see some amazing cliffs and hillsides, and we drove by the secluded beach leading to David Beckham’s private residence.
It appears the Oscar’s toy Muno stowed away and wanted his picture taken at most of our locations.
Click to see all the places he popped up.
When we got back to the hotel we visited the Harbor and had dinner at Balthezar’s. Which won best restaurant in Cape Town in 2005. I had the Lamb Burger (yum) and Maggie had the Beast Skewer, we’ll have to look up which animals were on there.
Tomorrow is the winelands.
We uploaded about 60 pics tonight. I’m working on video… I’ve made an update, there will now be new, separate albums for each day. To view today’s pics only, click here, but to see pics from all the days, divided up by day, click here (this single link will be updated, if you’re looking for something to bookmark)
We arrived in Africa!
Wow, I’ve never done 24 hours in confinement like that, but we’re done and at the hotel. We got hooked up on the web, did a video chat with Oscar (thank you Aunt Melissa and Uncle Todd) and got to hit the hotel bar to meet some of the other folks.
There are about 90 people total here, wow!
It’s wet and midnight, so I haven’t seen too much of real “Africa” yet, but we’re anxious to begin.
More soon
Where we are staying
Posted by Andy on Nov 3, 2009 in News
Some people have asked us about our hotels. The first half of the trip we’re in Cape Town, we’ll be staying in the Commodore Hotel.
Then on the second half we travel to the Pilanesberg National Park, and stay in the Bakubung Bush Lodge.
Click the links for more info.
Hey Mabel!
Posted by Andy on Nov 2, 2009 in News
Black Label!
According to Elliot, the recommended beverage on our trip is Black Label Beer.
They had a successful ad campaign back in the day where you’d say “Hey Mabel, Black Label!”
Here’s what Wikipedia has to say.
Thanks for the tip…I think.
Posted by Andy on Nov 1, 2009 in News
So I picked up this book at Borders, The Eyewitness Travel Top 10 Cape Town and the Winelands guide, and we’ve been thumbing through it, learning about the places we are visiting. What’s this? Page 106 has a handy chart… let’s see here:
Top 10 Things to Avoid
1. Road Hazards – no prob
2. The Sun – yup
3. Snakes – gotcha
4. Feeding Baboons – ok sure
5. HIV / AIDS – what?!
6. ATM Scams
7. Mugging
8. Weather Changes on the mountain
9. Swimming in Dangerous Conditions
10. Drunk Driving on Wine Routes
Hey, thanks for the tips!
Under Feeding the Baboons it says “Baboons fed by people perceive them as a source of food…” ok, cool. I will keep the Jerky to myself.
Under Avoiding AIDS it recommends using a condom. Am I going on Safari or to the prom?
I do love however that the tenth most dangerous activity that may befall me is drinking too much. No lion bites or Malaria on this list.
The “Big Five” explained
Posted by Andy on Oct 31, 2009 in News
I’ve been doing a lot of research and “Big Five” has been popping up. I snagged this from here…
“When you start researching an African safari, the term “Big Five” often crops up. The “Big 5″ refers to the Lion, Leopard, Rhino, Elephant and Cape Buffalo. Why not the hippo, gorilla or giraffe you may ask? Are they not large as well? How about the cheetah — that would be an animal you would probably like to see as much as a buffalo. Well, the term “big five” was actually coined by big game hunters (not safari tour operators). It refers to the difficulty in bagging these large animals, mostly due to their ferocity when cornered and shot at.”
Nerd Alert… here’s my gear!
Posted by Andy on Oct 31, 2009 in Photo
I’m almost all put together. I was getting anxious trying to round up new cameras, memory and spare batteries at the last minute.
Exhibit A
I can’t find the actual bracket that allows me to wear the helmetcam on my head, but it’s a waterproof video camera, so I can use it when we hang out with the penguins, and ride on the zipline.
AND believe it or not, I squeezed all of that into this mini Sony carrying case, which is only about 10″ wide.
And I didn’t even have to, because I can put a lot of the USB memory and card reader in my Laptop bag
I shouldn’t have any problems with battery usage, as long as the Outlet converters I picked up are the right ones. I’m bringing my old PC laptop (I’m anxious about my Macbook getting ripped off) and a bunch of blank CDs so I can keep the Camera Memory empty. I also grabbed a universal card reader, so if anyone else on the trip is running low, I could burn a disc for them.
The miracle of birth! (Africa style)
Posted by Andy on Oct 31, 2009 in Related
We could only be so lucky
(Once we actually get to Africa and I upload video, I’ll mark those Video Posts, so you can click and see all of the video posts at once… because we didn’t make this video, I’m not going to tag it as such.)
Toto could have won the contest…
Posted by Andy on Oct 30, 2009 in Related
In the middle of the night, I changed Maggie’s ringtone to Africa by Toto, so when I call she gets a little reminder… thus this song is stuck in her head. We decided to check out the original music video. Yikes! What in the world is this? What were they thinking? Actually, they could have won Elliot’s contest if they had submitted this video.
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