Last Day

Our last day we stayed at a nice hotel near the airport which has an aeronautics theme (I have to see if this a work tax write off). We went to the Ghana game. The entire stadium was rooting for them which was great. Ghana was the better team and should have won but Uraguay used their hands to blantly stop a goal in the last minute and Ghana failed to convert the penalty and then lost on penalties. Excellent game unfortuate ending. We are al ready to come home ans see our dogs again. Apparently the hotel realized this when they made our bed.


We are off to the airport and will be back on the 4th!

Wine @ Dine

The morning after the game, we found it still raining, but clearing around noon. However, both our trip booked for Robbin Island, and Alex & Vanessa's shark diving were canceled because of high winds. All was still good- we all took the opportunity to visit museums, ride the lift up to the top of Table Mountain





and find good game for dinner! The mountain is the fabulous backdrop for the city of Capetown- the cleanest city we've visited. For dinner, we partook in salmon tartar on a parmesian cracker, beef tartar, duck confit, rare kudu medallions,


wildebeest medallions,


chocolate/orange mousse, & spiced creme brulee. YUM!!! Still, our third and last night in Capetown we had a similar dinner of game after wine tasting all day... Our driver picked us up @ 9 am at the Ashanti Lodge (the hip hostile were we were staying). We drove about 45 minutes to wine county


and started the tasting at 6 different & all wonderful wineries.


First winery was the Goats Do Roam wine


What a day- even more special because this time, Greg was not responsible for driving!!!


The next morning we got up and caught the flight back to Joberg for the Quarterfinal game between Ghana and Uraguay!!!

Location:Capetown

Wine @ Dine

The morning after the game, we found it still raining, but clearing around noon. However, both our trip booked for Robbin Island, and Alex & Vanessa's shark diving were canceled because of high winds. All was still good- we all took the opportunity to visit museums, ride the lift up to the top of Table Mountain





and find good game for dinner! The mountain is the fabulous backdrop for the city of Capetown- the cleanest city we've visited. For dinner, we partook in salmon tartar on a parmesian cracker, beef tartar, duck confit, rare kudu medallions,


wildebeest medallions,


chocolate/orange mousse, & spiced creme brulee. YUM!!! Still, our third and last night in Capetown we had a similar dinner of game after wine tasting all day... Our driver picked us up @ 9 am at the Ashanti Lodge (the hip hostile were we were staying). We drove about 45 minutes to wine county


and started the tasting at 6 different & all wonderful wineries.


First winery was the Goats Do Roam wine


What a day- even more special because this time, Greg was not responsible for driving!!!


The next morning we got up and caught the flight back to Joberg for the Quarterfinal game between Ghana and Uraguay!!!

Location:Capetown

Round of 16 Trilogy

Returning from the safari we had 3 games on 3 nights in 3 cities! All in the round of 16 stage.
Argentina vs Mexico was first in Johannesburg.


It had promise to be a good game but Argentina took control early and with the help of a bad call Mexico never had a chance. It was a fun environment however. We got home at midnight and packed our bags and left for the airport at 3:30am to catch an early flight to Durban.

We got into Durban and got a ride to our lodging for the night. It was suppose to be a luxury safari type tent nut istead we found a plain generic tent that was blowing away in the wind. A major rip-off fortunately the wind forced them to move us into a cabin which was marginally better than the Netherlands vs Slovakia was at 4:00 and the stadium


was amazing.


The game was rather average with neither team showing much. Netherlands won 2-0.


Durban had a nice fanfest from which you could watch the game while on the beach. That day though the wind was so bad it was blowing sand so we couldn't enjoy it.

Next morning we flew to Cape Town for Spain vs Portugal.


The hostel we booked ended up being very nice. The stadium was brand new and very nice.


The game was very slow neither team doing much Spain won 1-0.

Safari - Day 3

We awoke again early for a game drive. Our one missing animal on our list was giraffe. Gavin looked hard, we followed a cheetah for bit seeing him up close.





Then as we were heading back we found 2 pregnant giraffes hanging out - our safari was complete!





We packed up and started our 5 hour drive back to JoBurg to get to our evening game.

Safari - Day 2

We were awaken early by our guide to do a bush walk through the reserve. We saw a few animals such as a civet and worthog. But more interesting was our guide showing us different tracks a signs animals leave. For example signs of a leopard kill of a worthog





the previos night!
After a nice breakfast we were free to relax during the day, sit out on our tent's porch and watch animals at the nearby water hole, sleep etc.
At 3:30 we drove to the other end of the reserve and did another game drive. This time we saw rhinos, elephants,






sleeping lions,











herd of buffaloes,





zebras






all within 20 feet! A very fun and fullfilling ride.





We finished the day again with dinner and watching to our dismay the US loss to Ghana. Had the US won , we had tickets to their next game!

Safari- Day 1

We got up early to hit the road from Joburg to Kruger Park in NW S Africa. This was a 5 hour drive, but well worth it! As we neared the Kwa Mbili Reserve, we were stopped by a gang of about 6 baboons crossing the road! What a site!!! As we got through the gate, we came upon 2 African buffalo just hanging out on the side under the trees. Both of these sitings made us very excited and hungry for more...
when we entered our "camp" we were greeted by Lucy and Eddie-the receptionist and Busan guide who took our bags and got us oriented to the property- rules and safety issues. We would have animals free-roming through the grounds!! Our "tents" were fantastic with mosquito nets over the beds, sherry on a table in case of a needs for a night cap before bed, and a large, separate open ceiling bathroom with a nice toilet, shower, and sink.





We soon had lunch, rested, and hopped on the truck for our evening animal tour.
Obviously, there are no guaratees as to what we may see- however we were not dissapointed. We were specifically tracking a lioness with her cub with Eddie, and our ranger guide, Gavin. We did not see this lioness, but saw a different lion couple- the male with a dark mane.


After Sundowners ( our favorite time!)


we continued the search in the dark and found a single male lion waking up for his nightly hunt. We were about 10 feet away watching when he gave a mighty roar - very impressive.
We fished the night with a great dinner around fireside and drinks at the bar watching soccer

Location:Kwa Mbilli

Cradle of Humankind

Cradle of Humankind is a world heritage location where some the very first "human" remains have been found. Human is in quotes as some of the remains are before are current species' time. While you cam visit the caves where the remains were found we were told there wasn't much to see. The museum however does a great job of tracing the history and displaying some of the fossils. The area is about 45 min outside of JoBurg.

Cheetah Reserve

Today was cheetah reserve day. About 2 hours north just outside Pretoria is a park where they rehabilitate cheetahs and do research.


On the day we went we were fortunate that they were also running the cheetahs. They had the cheetahs running free chasing a lure for about 200m just 5 feet away from us. Then we were able to pet one that was lying on a table!


After that the normal tour started where we saw more cheetah, ostrich, hyena, vultures, wild dogs.


Albino Honey Beaver



Ostrich about 2 feet from our faces!


Wild dogs eating - we looked for Pablo and Kibbe!


Cheetahs being fed


Monkeys eating extra feed

We finished the day by driving into Pretoria and watching some soccer games.

Soccer matches

Spain vs Honduras- we had great seats 5 rows back just beyond the penalty box and was fun being so close to the action.


Ellis Park is an older stadium in the city and the seats are smaller and facilloties


not quite as nice as Soccer City but you are closer to the field.

Germany vs Ghana - a fun game with all Africans rooting for Ghana as the African team with a chance to advance. We were at the very last row top deck bit still had a good view of the game. Germany won it was an exciting game and based on Serbia vs Australia result Ghana still advanced so everyone was happy at the end.

Italy vs Slovakia - We had great seat at midfield and the game was surprising. Italy had the most fans by far and needed at least a tie to advance. However they came out flat and Slovakia had a 1-0 lead at half which increases to 2-0. With 10 min to go Italy finally woke up And the scoring as follows: 2-1, 3-1, then 3-2. Italy and France (last world cup finalists) both packed their bags.

Alexandra Township

Our tour today was with Abby and his driver, Lucky. He took the four of us on a tour of his township, Alexandra.




One of our first stops was to buy some worms to eat. Cristina's face says all you need to know.




Here you see some of the illegal shacks that go up. Some people are friendly to white people some are very suspicous still.






Here is where Nelson Mandela first lived on his own before Soweto.







Here is our guide and his children.






FIFA has made a big effort to reach out to the townships with soccer clinics and tickets to the games.






School children in uniforms.






What cut of meat did you say you wanted?






Our guides






We finished with lunch with the locals.