South Africa was quite different from my normal trips because I booked a guided tour to see it! Per my usual style, I did add on two extra days in the beginning to see Johannesburg and two extra days at the end to see more of Cape Town, but the 10 days in the middle were a lovely guided tour that included a bit of Johannesburg, a lot of the South African bush, including a national park, and a bit of Cape Town.
The first thing that pops up on the Internet when you Google South Africa—even before the animals—is concerns about safety, so on my first day in Johannesburg, I hung around the gentrified neighborhood my hotel was in to rest up and get my wits about me. I did happen across a nice bookstore and bought some books by women authors from Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, and of course, South Africa. My second day I went on the hop-on-hop-off bus, which went all around the suburbs, passing by the zoo, the Anglo-Boer War Memorial, and a lake, before heading to the downtown area. I was planning on hopping off to go up to the top floor of the Carlton Centre, but it turned out that it has been closed since the start of Covid. So I settled for seeing Gandhi Square, the Nelson Mandela bridge, some awesome street art, and Constitution Hill, which I took a guided tour of. Constitution Hill was a prison where Mandela spent of his time, along with many, many other prisoners, and it is now a museum and the home of the country’s Constitutional Court.
The next day it was off to Mziki Lodge, in the countryside, or bush, to try and see all the animals. Besides the big 5 (lion, leopard, elephant, rhino, and buffalo—named because they were considered dangerous and the hardest to hunt, which makes me immensely sad and hateful towards humanity) there were countless other animals to look out for. I quickly discovered two new favorites, the guinea fowl and the warthog, mainly because of how cute they are when running away (lol), and also saw many different varieties of antelope. (If I were a better tour guest, I would remember their names, but alas, I am not.) The first “big” animal we saw, straightaway, was the rhino. All in all, we saw almost all the rhinos in the park, which was around 15. At the lodge we did evening and morning game drives, when the temperatures were coolest, although in September it is still spring there so the temperatures weren’t that bad, with highs around 75F/23C.
The next day we saw giraffes and more rhinos, and of course, antelopes, wildebeest, and tons of birds. The third day we went to Pilanesberg National Park, where we had an immense amount of good fortune. Five minutes into the drive we saw a bunch of hippos in a small lake, and even though we only saw their heads, they made quite a bit of noise at each other! Then another five minutes after that, we ran into two lions doing a perimeter walk, and they walked right by the truck—close enough to touch. After continuing on our way, another guide radioed with the location of a leopard, the hardest animal to spot, and we raced over. After spotting a male leopard in a tree, we saw a female and a mature cub, and then the male crossed the road right in front of our truck! Our guide, who had been on more than 300 game drives, said she had only seen a leopard three times, and this was the closest sighting. After stopping for lunch, we headed back out and ran into a whole family of elephants, who, once again, walked right in front of the truck, close enough to touch. Not joking. The family included one baby and two adolescents, all adorable. We also saw more giraffes, zebras, and rhinos. So amazingly lucky.
After that, all that was left was the buffalo. The next morning, the rest of the group went to an add-on activity involving ‘walking with lions’ that I did not participate in (feel free to message me for details about why I didn’t) and I went on a solo game drive with one of the lodge’s guides. Luck was on my side, because we saw a buffalo cross the road in front of us and followed it to a small watering hole where it and a dozen other buffalos were having their morning drink. So that was the big 5 done! The next day it was off to Cradle Moon Lodge, which is a huge park that has animals roaming around, so it was not unusual to see zebras, antelope, monkeys, or even the stray peacock outside your window or on your terrace. 😉
The next morning I had my first hot air balloon experience, over the savannah at sunrise. It was beautiful, and the balloon itself was more much stable than I expected – I didn’t fell motion sick at all and was able to take lots of pictures and videos! That same day we went we went to the Cradle of Humankind Museum, which as you can guess from the name, documents the history of humankind from its beginnings up until the present day, and then to a monkey sanctuary where we saw half a dozen different types as we took a walk around the sanctuary.
Then all that was left was a bit of sight seeing in Soweto, a famous neighborhood of Johannesburg known for being where Mandela and Desmond Tutu both had houses. First we went to the Apartheid Museum, an absolute must see, then to Vilakazi street to visit Mandela’s house, which has been turned into a museum with a large focus on his second wife, Winnie.
And then it was on to Cape Town! I am so, so glad I spent an extra two days there, because it truly deserves all the hype. On the two days of the tour, we drove up and down each side of the coast (the area is shaped like an archipelago), stopped in a couple beach towns to get our toes wet in the Indian Ocean, went to the Cape of Good Hope and climbed up to the lighthouse, visited a winery, went up Table Mountain by cable car, saw the Bo-Kaap neighborhood that is known for its colorful houses, and saw the all animals the area had to offer! These included penguins (with a visit to one of the Cape’s penguin colonies), ostriches (seen at the Cape of Good Hope), baboons (walking calming down the high way between beach towns), seals (including a lost elephant seal from Antarctica!), and whales (on a day trip in Hermanus to go whale watching)!
It was truly a whirlwind, and I could go describe everything in much more detail, but this has already gone on for quite a bit! To finish off the trip, I used the last two days to museum hop and try different coffee shops. I went to the Castle of Good Hope, which houses different art collections and exhibitions; the District 6 museum, which was dedicated to a neighborhood from which the Black residents were kicked out during apartheid; the Iziko Slave Lodge, which focused on the history of slavery in the Cape in a building where the city’s enslaved people were kept; and finally I went to Robben Island by ferry, which is where Mandela spent the large majority of his prison time. Cape Town was majestic, and I 100% recommend renting a car when you go there, it will make seeing everything that much easier. South Africa is definitely among the best trips I have ever taken, and I say that realizing that I don’t really think about my trips that way! I don’t have a favorite place or trip; I love them all so so much.
