Author: Ashman

Excellent Food, Animals, Scenery, and Incredibly Nice People

I wish I was back there. I think I fell in love with Africa. The magnificent food, the amazing animals, the wonderful people. The mind-blowing thing is that there is absolutely no one there, especially when we were with Tarry (coming up later). We saw quite literally no one for five days except ourselves. Did you know that Namibia has more seals than people? Every step I took, and not only for Namibia but for the rest of Africa, a new incredible sight greeted me. Every step I took, an animal awaited me. Every step I took, I got closer and closer to that delicious food. Even the camp food was absolutely delicious, from sandwiches to apple crumble, from pork fillet to something making me long to go back.

The second our plane touched down in Windhoek (capital of Namibia) we were launched into our three week-long safari. The first animal we saw was a warthog, which I have had a soft spot for since, even if it is in the Ugly Five (Warthog, Marabou Stork, Spotted Hyena, Lappet-Faced Vulture and Blue Wildebeest).

The first stop in Namibia was Windhoek, but only to shop up and grab a 4×4. The next day we woke up and started shopping for the following drive through Namibia. We got everything from tissue paper to a speaker, snacks to lunch. After that day, we drove eight-and-a-half hours (that’s right, incredibly long right?) to our first lodge/camp of the trip, Wolwedans Private Camp. What we found out was that in Namibia they pronounce w as v, so more like Volvedans, and Vindhoek. A lot of places have a W in them, and we often got told we were pronouncing it wrongly. But let us continue.

When we arrived, I didn’t know we were in the ‘private camp’ which is like an open air house just for us. We had a cook and a butler, and I had my own ‘tent’ which is code for a luxurious pavilion complete with a stargazing deck and windows made of canvas and mesh. You can decide between sleeping with the windows rolled up or down, which we thought was amazing: we had never been somewhere this wild and wonderful. The private camp also had a ‘cold tub’ which is a hot tub that is cold – quite refreshing in the heat. Oh, and the good food was another example of good food in Africa.

While we were here we saw Oryx. I didn’t know what they were until we got here. We saw thousands of them. We also saw Burchell’s zebras, ostriches, and various insects and arachnids. My favourite animal that was here was the Dancing White Lady, a white spider that makes a trapdoor-type web inside the light-rust coloured sand. They are the size of my palm. I’ve got a photo somewhere in our vast collection of photos that I will include.

The next place our trip took us was a place called Sussus Dune Lodge, and in my opinion it was not the best, but if you are planning to go, apparently the Sossusvlei Desert Lodge, which is very close by, is excellent. We were supposed to go there, but it was full. But anyway, it was actually fun when we climbed the second biggest roving dune on the planet (biggest roving dune is Dune 7, also in Namibia), in the oldest desert in the world, which is the second driest desert in the world.

We had to wake up at 5:30am to beat the sun’s heat – once the sun came up it was scorching hot. We started climbing the near vertical dune diagonally, then mummy and I went up the rest by the ridge (dada and the girls went back down). It was so much fun, and on my left there was an incredible, almost vertical, drop to a pure white clay and salt pan. It was like walking on a side of an incredibly large volcano crater. Once we got to the top, we slid down! Except it was more of a run than a slide down, because the sand wasn’t packed firm enough. However, a few years ago, in the Atacama desert, first place for driest desert on earth, dada, Nicky, and I quite literally rolled down a pretty much vertical sand dune used by daredevil sand-boarders. I got my undies full of sand, and when I took my pants off, the bath at the lodge got clogged up! But that was a long time ago, in 2012, and not in Namibia nor this trip. Back to the nearer past. It was lots of fun – but without the sand-in-undies experience.

The next place was actually a town.  That’s right, a town after a week in the middle of nowhere. It was quite interesting transitioning from gravel roads to tarmac, then dunes to houses, and a civilisation of seals to a civilisation of people. Swakopmund, or in short, Swakop. We spent two nights here in a good hotel right by the ocean, called The Strand.

On the first day we went out onto the water in a boat, and we all really enjoyed it. We took the boat from Walvis Bay, a 20 minute drive from Swakop. We got there and headed to the Mola Mola office. A Mola Mola is a sunfish, if you were wondering. We met the captain, Jacques, and headed out to the tip of a peninsula to see the lighthouse, seals, and a nearby pelican colony. Just as we were leaving we found ‘Necklace’, a rescued seal now very friendly with people – she was saved from a fishing net, leaving her with a mark around her neck, thus her name. She actually jumped onto the boat, and then Jacque got some fish from the storage compartment, and showed us how Necklace eats – if you throw the fish at her tail first, she’ll flip it so it goes head-first. Amazing, eh? Seals do it so the spines on the body and tail don’t cut them. So then we got ‘Lady Gaga’ on board – a Pelican. We also fed her some fish, and once she had flown away, we opened up the taps. Or rather, I opened up the taps. I had heaps of fun navigating, steering, etc. It really is fun to drive things. When we got to the lighthouse, an overpowering smell of salty wee and poo came (it’s the only way to describe it)! There was just so many seals, so many. You could think the ocean and sand was brown/black. And the lighthouse, in the midst of the Cape Fur Seals was like a chessboard. We learnt that black and white lighthouses are surrounded by more than one side of ocean. After the lighthouse, we went to one of the main breeding grounds for pelicans. We had lunch at sea before we headed back to dock.

While at Swakop, we went on a ‘Living Deserts’ Tour, which is a tour were they take you out to the dunes, and look for small animals. We looked for a dune gecko, another Dancing White Lady, and a beetle that plays dead as a survival tactic. And finally, can you guess? No, not a million dollars, but a Peringuey’s adder about to give birth. A Peringuey’s adder is a small and venomous sand-coloured snake, able to kill anything that is small, like a lizard, by hiding in the sand with only its eyes sticking out. Our guide, Douglas, was saying that a birthing is so rare to see that almost nobody except an Ophiologist would see, and even then, it is only when they stumble across one. It was absolutely incredibly brilliantly wonderful. We saw the baby shed its ‘birthing sac’, a translucent white sac that makes giving birth a lot smoother. The mother was about to deliver another, but as we had disturbed it, it hid in the sand and did not give birth with us there. After that we went dune climbing in the truck. We reversed away from the dune, then went full throttle up the dune.

 

The next day we flew to Sesfontein, to endure some of the best days of the trip…

 

13 September 2016

You should know by now that I love food. And since mummy is the best cook in the world, I have good food thrice a day. But since Canada has such a vast selection of dim sum, which we have not had for such a long time, I have been stuffing my face. One brekky in Toronto I had three charsiu baos, two bowls of porridge, about three fried fritters, and much more. I’m sorry, but unfortunately I cannot talk about food anymore or I will drool all over this computer (not that I have drooling problems).

Anyway, so Toronto was lots of fun, but incredibly hot. Everyday the temperature reached above 30 degrees celsius. We spent most of our time walking  around, while Nicky spent most of her time with Amalia (Nicky’s best friend that flew over from Mexico just to see her). My favourite part of Toronto was The Royal Ontario Museum, or ROM. It was really interesting. My favourite part of the ROM was the Chihuly Exhibit (an amazing exhibit from an American glass sculptor, Dale Chihuly). I will attach some pictures. The glass was so detailed.

And Muskoka was even more fun. I slept on the top bunk of one out of five bedrooms. We spent our time in Muskoka with Anna, Mummy’s friend from university, Brent, her husband, and their children, Elliot, age 6, Grace age 9 and when we got to Kitchener (their home) she turned 10. Like always, mummy made good food, but so did Anna, and Dada and Brent on the barbie (BBQ). We had a bonfire pit, and we made a fire three times, the first with Nicky and Grace putting on an ‘advertisements show’, which was hilarious – they kept on arguing on how to pronounce it. Grace said advertisement like adver-ties-ment, and Nicky said adver-tis-ment. And the second bonfire roasting marshmallows, and the third cooking hot dogs. And for the first time ever, Mummy made her own fire, and I made the first one I have ever done without help. But my favourite part was tubing. Since I am shorter then an adult, who let their legs hang of the back of the tube, I have to kneel or sit. I decided on kneeling, the only downside with this is that when you are going at a decent speed (eg. 15+ mph), it feels like 1000 people are pummelling your knees and shins, if you kneel. I reached a top speed of 22 mph, which is a fair bit of speed. Except dada went around 28 mph! When I was going at this speed, I was so afraid I was going to fall off when I was at 22 mph for an incredible (to me) 90 seconds! The only person to actually fall off the tube was Brent, but he did it because his knees were feeling raw from skimming the lake at 25 mph! Tubing was just so fun, and the boat we rented was also brilliant. 7 people capacity, 150 horsepower, and lots of fun! Oh, and by the way, if you have a good look in one of the photos of me tubing, you will see that I have my thumbs up, which means “Go Faster”. This is going at about 3-5 mph. I had a lot of fun in Muskoka, and not just tubing but pretty much everything – like fishing, where nobody except Nesi caught one, and it was smaller than the bait! But also doing nothing, which we haven’t done for a while.

Next up was wonderfully hot and relaxing Kitchener. To be honest, I expected and was looking forward to Kitchener so that I could, actually, read Harry Potter 6 again – last time I read it was two and a half years ago. And I knew Grace is a keen reader, so I assumed that they did have the series. But anyway, Kitchener was great. My favourite part was being in the basement doing stuff like 3-D printing and making a circuit with Brent. On his 3-D printer we first printed two rubber-band powered rockets, then a whistle, which didn’t turn out at all. It didn’t even make a sound, and it was suppose to be 118 on the scale of sound! Thats louder then an accelerating motorbike! But instead it was as quiet as a library for a single mouse who can’t talk but only blow air. In Kitchener I also really liked the park. Quite a nice park it was, except that everybody had their phones out playing Pokemon Go! It was quite interesting actually, watching everybody on their phones. At one point I saw a group of people playing it on their bikes! And another thing that I liked was when Anna and Brent went out and came back an hour later on Grace’s birthday with a cat! Grace renamed it Cleo.

Oh, I almost forgot, we went to Niagra Falls while in Kitchener! It was quite fun, we went on one of the boats that goes right in the middle of the Horseshoe. Luckily I remembered to bring my waterproof camera, as well as my good camera. It was really  nice going to Niagra, but personally I prefer the waterfalls in Iguasu and Iceland, but this would be in the top five. Oh, and the article on Iceland will come out very soon, I just have to add some stuff.

When we left  Kitchener for Toronto we were looking forward to going up the CN tower for lunch! When we arrived at the Delta Hotel we got into shirts and dresses and headed literally across the street and up. You should know that the CN tower is 553 metres high, and the Restaurant, which rotates very slowly (72 min=one round), and is about 350 metres high. When you go down three flights of stairs, you reach the glass floor, which, when you are standing on, it feels like you are falling and makes your hands go a bit tinglish. And you are afraid that you will fall, even if the floor can hold four Orcas.

The eastern part of Canada was really fun, it was the first time I have been to Canada (other than in mummy’s womb). It was a really good first experience. And I come to my conclusion: I am going to enjoy every other part of Canada except for the fact that we have to do school. And to Ma and Pa: I am incredibly excited because you are coming over in 6 days from today.

Signing off,

Ash

25th – 31st May, 2016

Segera Retreat, Laikipia, Rift Valley, Kenya

If you like food, go to Segera. That is it. Full stop, the end. Oh, also if you like everything else, like animals, planes (they have the plane that is in the movie Out of Africa in their aircraft hanger), croquet, swimming, and everything else that is fun. Did I also say making beaded anythings?

Segera is an awesome place. We all agreed this place has the best food of all time. The chef is called Elizabeth, and my favourite meal here is the Peking duck. Nice crispy  skin. Nice tender meat. Makes my mouth water because it is so good. Anyway, enough with the food, it is making me hungry.

The property is really big, the land is about 50,000 acres, with the lodge in the middle. All the villas are hidden from each other, which is a 2-story huge house/villa, with a private pool as well. The main building has two floors. The lower floor is where you eat brekky, the higher level being the ‘Explorer’s Lounge’, a place with heaps of stuff from the past, including a German bible from 1730 about 1 cubit long. The main pool is where you can play croquet, and make your own pizza. We made pizza twice, and it was great.

Now to the animals. Big cats are often seen here, so  you would expect good sightings. In 6 days we saw 2 cheetahs, 11 lions, and 1 African Wild Cat. The 2 guides we had, Elvis and David, were really good. David was the ‘veteran’ of the lodge: he had already finished his guide training, which can take longer than 10 years. In total, we saw 52 Lions in Africa, which  is pretty incredible, considering  they are so rare.

While we were there, we had the most exciting quiz and treasure hunt. The quiz had 101 questions about nature, and Nicky and I got 99/101. The treasure hunt was fantastic, it consisted of 13 clues, spread out across the huge lodge, and the 13th clue led you to treasure. Our treasure was an ‘I love Kenya pin,’ pencil, notepad, and Elizabeth’s chocolate chip biscuits. It was great fun.

You can have picnics by one of the 4 rivers that runs through segera, visit a waterfall, do archery like the Masai warriors do, and so much more.

They had this building dedicated to the ‘4 C s’, called the C4C room. The C’s stand for Community, Culture, Conservation, and Commerce. This is like a sort of Museum, with a lot of cow tails and the skeleton of a Patas monkey, of which there are only 12 left in Segera. The room is also where we made the beaded anythings. And the room is nice to go to after a hot afternoon (it is cool in there).

This was the last stop in Africa, so it was a little bit sad, but Segera was a great way to leave Africa.

Ta Ta,

I will be writing about San Sebastian next week.

Ashman

We needed some off time so mummy got a recommendation: Grootbos. The place with Great whites, shrubs and trees, and Xbox. The most unusual mix.

Grootbos is an awesome place. Grootbos is an Afrikaans word that translates to Big bush. The staff are so kid-friendly, sorry, the whole place is so kid friendly. The drive was a bit boring, apart from the beautiful scenery along the ocean road. We took the ocean road there and the slightly shorter one through the mountains to get back home. The first day, the day we drove to Grootbos (2 h 30m-3h), was a particularly relaxing day, and we had a nice lunch outside. In the afternoon we had a 1 and a half hours 4×4 drive around the reserve and Fynbos. Fynbos is another Afrikaans word that translates to little bush. The guide talked to us about the plants, and the ecosystems etc. We got to the room just before dinner, and guess what? It had an Xbox 360!

The next day we spent a wonderful lunch on the beach, we played around in the freezing water (4 degrees celsius-max 20 degrees celsius), played with a ball they packed and ate great food. In the afternoon I played xbox. Too bad mummy is feeling sick. Steak and chips in front of the movieTurbo, about this snail who falls in a racing car’s engine and accidentally gulps down nitrous oxide. The result is winning the Indy 500.

Mummy is still incredibly sick. We were supposed to go cage diving with the great whites, but we didn’t go with mummy throwing up throughout the night. Oh, and it’s daddy’s birthday today! We went to the stables about 3 times, just to check on the rabbits and brush the horses and scratch the pigs. Yummy pork belly for lunch. I played xbox with Nicky most of the time in the afternoon.

Today we went shark diving. We saw maybe 5 sharks reaching a maximum of 5 meters many times. But I threw up on the boat, so enough talk about that. We drove home the shorter route through the mountains, and I am still a bit sick after that ride.

Sunday MA arrived! Lots of fun! Picking platter for lunch, presents after lunch. I got Pictionary and Pokemon! Really good pulls. Afternoon relaxing, Sausages and Chook for dinner.

And on the day before we went to Grootbos we climbed Lion’s Head! Wonderful experience. We did it in about 4 h 27 m (up and down), and we will try and beat if we go up again. Nesi climbed all the way by herself!

Really wonderful week, with ma arriving and Grootbos and all the barbecues daddy has cooked so far have been awesome.

Signing off for now,

Ash

Nicky was the only kid there that went cage diving that day