The tour is on! Catchup Sept 12-15 - South Africa

Day 2 - Sept 12 -  We had our welcome dinner last night and as usual lots of food, drinks, meeting the group of 30 and Nancy the tour director and ready set go.  And "go" is a good word because when I went to bed last night my stomach was a little "off", very full and "not quite right" so at 4am here comes the famous Traveler's Illness - not sure if it should be called Rhino Revenge here like Montezuma's Revenge in Mexico or Delhi Belly in India.  So Ross goes on city day tour and I decided a break would be good.  8 hours later all cured with my stash of cipro and immodium - works every time.  So by 5pm I was all good and on to the Steenberg Vineyards and Catherina's restaurant - more later.
It's later - Oct 16 and still catching up - this is the women's restroom door of Catherina's restaurant and she was definitely an interesting woman. 

This is the men's restroom door and I couldn't figure out why women got one head and men got 5.  So the story told by our restaurant guy - Catherina had 5 husbands, 4 died - one was stabbed by someone, one was killed in a hunting accident, one got sick and died and I can't remember the 4th cause of death but the 5th husband outlived her!!  He was a lucky guy!

And we did make it up the funicular to Table Mountain approximately 3500 feet and the first ascent was in 1503 - very rocky steep climb with no funicular at that time!  If you click on the photo you will see Ross with an eye patch type thing which our tour director Nancy, myself and Linda did ourselves - none of us nurses.  He had scratch eye thing and thought it might be the recurrence of an ingrown eyelash so we had a doctor stop by after we got back and it was not that but a little particle of something that Dr. Barker GP got out with a metal thing wrapped in cotton while I held a little flashlight to be his assistant.  So it was about $150 for that, $10 for a cab to the pharmacy and $18 for prescription antibiotic eye drops - figure that out.  It probably would have been a couple thousand dollars at home!  And it fixed the problem.

View was so beautiful from the top and we so lucked out with clear skies as on most days we couldn't even see the top which was supposed to be visible from our hotel.

See the eye patch!

It was spring in South Africa and beautiful flowers were growing out of solid rock!

This is the cable car of the funicular and it was huge and held at least 25 people and other supplies for the stores and restaurants at the top.

This was one of the views on the walk - words not necessary.

Linda and Dee - the strong ladies - did take the trail walk and it was so worth it but the guys decided to rest on a bench for a while.

The top is the light house and that's why it's called the Light House Keeper's Trail and no we did not climb all the way up to that.

I couldn't help but take a photo of this awesome old guy sitting with his cane and enjoying the beautiful view.

So this is a hot tourist spot and we had to stand in line to get our photo taken but it went pretty fast except for some people from "certain countries" who are crazy with selfies and self photos and don't care about a line behind them.  We were not those people!

Next stop Simons Town and Boulder Beach which is famous for hundreds of awesomely beautiful penguins and even though there were tourist crowds it was well worth it.

For some reason there was a military kind of thing there so not sure of the meaning behind that but the sign says No smoking, open flames, weapons or cameras but I thought it ok to take a photo of the sign!

This was our Lord Nelson Hotel and it was pretty dang awesome and of course a home for royalty and named after Lord Nelson who was the guy who beat Napoleon in the Battle of Trafalgar.  I always learn interesting things!

Back on our SA Airline plane heading for Skukuza Airport which is in the middle of Kruger National Park.

I love bathroom signs and this is the women's in the airport "terminal"

And pretty definitely the male room!

Inside of the Skukuza airport terminal and it's open to the outside air and pretty awesome.

Patio of the hotel where we could see herds of elephants drinking out of the river.

Wow - yes this was our room and it is out in the boonies but quite fancy for a "safari lodge"!

I looked out our patio window and there were animals all over the place and even a monkey on the patio and baboons on the railing.

Our guide and tracker and they check "scat" to track animals which means "poop"

These are called Impalas and I'm wondering if the Chevy Impala was named after these.  The guy said they are also nicknamed "Jafi" as there are so many and it means Just Another Frigging Impala - love it.

This sweet thing did not charge us and he definitely was coming our way.

Morning coffee mixed with a little cream and Amarula liqueur - pretty darn good.  And evening was Happy Hour which was also pretty darn good.

Cape buffalo - very interesting and hundreds all over the reserve.

And this is the morning coffee break as our morning tours were from 6-9am.

Our tracker Mr. Voster and guide Henry - awesome