This whole trip has been pretty much down on a shoestring budget - Airline Miles and Hotel Stay points. When we found we had enough American Airlines points to get tickets to come over to South Africa again, one of the things we decided like to do was go to a game reserve somewhere IF we could find a Marriott owned hotel at which we could use Irene's Marriott Points to pay for the hotel stay. We had kind of hoped to be able to stay in the Caprivi Strip of Namibia. Unfortunately, there were no Marriott owned hotels in the region. So, that was out. We found out the South Africa's Protea Hotel chain was now owned by Marriott so we checked for Protea Hotels on Game Reserves and B-I-N-G-O up popped the Hluhluwe Protea Hotel. Looking at the name of the hotel I could have mistaken it for somewhere in Hawaii, I thought to myself.
We decided that one portion of our trip would be a stay at the hotel. Getting the reservation was a little bit of a nightmare that I won't bother to relate to you. It dealt with Marriott just having purchased the Protea Hotel chain and there reservations systems not having been integrated yet ... calls to the hotel in South Africa .... Calls to Marriott Reservations .... Calls to the Hotel FROM Marriott Reservations .... yada, yada, yada. Finally though we got the reservation booked for a 5 night stay. PHEW!
It ends up that the word Hluhluwe was most definitely NOT Hawaiian - it is a Zulu word and it is kinda pronounces "Shalu-shaluwe." The Zulu language includes clicks and pops and other unique sounds in its words. "HL" - is a single "letter" of a kind of slur by forcing the "SH" sound UNDER the tongue as its said. You know how they say that Japanese people can't pronounce an "R" that ends up sounding like an "L" (so "fried rice" sounds like "flied lice") -- well all hopes of actually pronouncing the name correctly by our American tongue were fruitless. Ours tongues are trained from birth to pronounce the sounds we hear in our own language and clicks and pops and under the tongue slurs just ain't some of them.
We went to the park 3 days in a row. The first day we went with a guide in an 11 person "buckie" (as it's called here) to kind of get the lay of the land. The next 2 days we went out in our insured-to-the-gills Hertz rental Toyota RAV4.
The Hluhluwe-iMfolozi park is the oldest park in all of Africa. The land was set aside in 1895. (Kruger is the oldest NATIONAL park in South Africa. It was established in 1925.) The Hluhluwe-iMfolozi park has the highest concentration of Square-Lipped (or White Rhinoceros) in the world. San Diego Zoo got its white rhinos from there. Even Kruger national park got its white rhinos from there. In fact, virtually every zoo is "stocked" by white rhinos that come from this park complex.
We had the opportunity to see LOTS of rhinos. Some, much closer than it was comfortable to see them even. You can't imagine the size of these animals. On the adult rhinos there backs were HIGHER than the top of our Hertz owned Toyota RAV4. Somewhere between 5 to 6 feet (1.5-1.8 meters). They behinds are 4 feet wide (1.2 meters). Our RAV4 weighed ~ 3800 lbs (1725 kg) with us IN it. A fully grown male white rhino is 8500 lbs (3850 kg). You do NOT want to get one of them mad at you. AND, they are unfathomably fast. They run at about 25-30 mph (40-50 km/h).
We also saw:
Elephants:
Lions:
Cape Buffalo:
Impalas:
Nyalas:
Zebra:
Wildebeest (Gnus):
Giraffe:
Wart Hogs:
Vervet Monkey:
We landed in Cape Town, South Africa on Saturday, March 4th. Since then this has been Jim's Schedule:
Saturday Afternoon - Presented the gospel to Yasein and his wife Jessica.
Sunday Morning - Teach Sunday Morning Bible Class on the subject "Christians Resolving Conflict"
Sunday Morning Worship - Preach a Sermon on the subject "Forgiving as God has forgiven you"
MONDAY - Day off
Tuesday Evening - Teach a class to men entitled "Full of the Holy Spirit and Wisdom - Acts 6:3"
Wednesday Night - Teach adult class on "Laborers together with God - 1 Corinthians 3:9
Thursday Night - Teach 2 John at Cape Bible School
Friday Night - Teach a class to 6th Grade and Up and all Adults on the subject "Families in God's Family"
Sunday Morning I taught a lesson on "The Hope of the Resurrection"
Tomorrow I will teach a lesson on "Bringing Hope to the Hopeless"
Then, on Wednesday night "Families, the Hope for the church's Future.
Saturday I teach "3rd John" at Cape Bible School and then
On Sunday I will preach in the morning on "Yes, You Can (Teach others about Jesus)"
So, in 15 days, I will have taught 12 lessons and sermons.
Irene for her part has done:
A Lesson on "Can Christ Be Seen in Me."
A Lesson on "Techniques for teaching people about Jesus"
Tomorrow she has an appointment to speak to a lady about the Gospel of Christ.
She's also spoke with one lady about breast cancer.
So, yes we are staying busy. This IS a working "vacation."
Cape Town, South Africa is widely regarded as one of the 2 or 3 most beautiful cities in the world. Others usually mentioned are Rio de Janeiro and, well .... nowhere else.
What makes Cape Town so appealing to the eye is Table Mountain sitting regally above the city. The city and it suburbs wrap around the base of this soaring, flat-topped almost 2 mile (3 kilometers) long mountain. Its lower portion is made of granite and its upper portion made of sandstone and some limestone. It "dresses" for every occasion: Sometimes it is clear as a bell and stands tall and proud over the city at its base:
Rarely, it is seen wearing its "petticoat" as it is below - a band of clouds right at the transition from the granite base to the steep sandstone face of the mountain. I took these pictures on my daily walks. Peter Manuel said it isn't often that he's seen it with the "petticoat" on and he's in his early 80s.
For "special guests" (which is anybody if you are here during the transition to the rainy season), the mountain will also puts on its finest "tablecloth," The weather from the eastern side of the mountain stacks up against the easter face and, coming across its flat top begins to spill down over its western face.
The fact is that the mountain NEVER loses its awe-inspiring grandeur. Every day it looks different -- its color changing due to the mixture of sun, clouds, time of day and season and the weather at any one time.
Also, as one goes from the western suburbs through the city to the eastern suburbs the mountain also changes in appearance. The picture below is from "the Waterfront" a shopping mall right in Cape Town. It sits on what was one of the older wharfs along the harbor. It gives you a sense of the size and type of city Cape Town is. It is largest port in Africa. It is a "first world" city (with 2nd world wi-fi service unfortunately).
We left McAllen, Texas on the 1st of March to fly to Cape Town, South Africa (Suid Afrika is the Afrikaans spelling of that). It was a longer journey than usual. We flew from McAllen to Dalla-Fort Worth to Chicago to Madrid, Spain to Johannesburg, South Africa to Cape Town, South Africa.
When you fly to South Africa you always have to fly to somewhere else first. Since it is 8,600 miles (one way) from the McAllen to Capetown there isn't any commercial jet that can fly that far without refueling and they can't be refueled in mid-air like a military aircraft can 😱. So, you typically end up going through somewhere in Europe. Also, virtually all trans-Atlantic flights from the US to Europe leave in the afternoon and fly through the night and land in the morning the next day. Then, since, even when you get to Europe (Rome is the closest "big" European city) you have go AT LEAST another 4800 miles to get to Johannesburg. Ed is at an elevation of 2188 feet AND it was March 1st, so the temperature was 36 degrees when we landed. Of course we are heading to South Africa where it is Summer (Southern Hemisphere), so we only have only one summer clothes with us and NOT coats, gloves, etc. Forget exotic, its freezing out here. We just rented a room in the Transit Hotel in the airport and slept for 5 hours and then worked our way over to the gate for our flight that would be leaving in another 9 hours. (On the up-side between the flight over and our mega-layover in Madrid, I did get to watch the whole final season of Rizzoli and Isles).
When we arrived in Johannesburg, because we had "purchased" our tickets using our American Airlines frequent flier points, we had to wait the whole day in Johannesburg and fly out the next day (Saturday, March 4th) to Cape Town. So, we were in transit a total of 80 hours - 3 days, 8 hours. That sets a "personal worst" for ME!
