What an adventure it's been! I don't even know where to start!! How about from the beginning (uh oh, here we go, right? No no....I'm going to do a short synopsis of the last couple of weeks, I promise!!). The journey here was quite lengthy... flew Chicago to London, spent the night at a friend's, then flew London to Doha, Qatar (which, by the way, Qatar Airways is awesome!), then Qatar to Johannesburg and finally Johannesburg to Port Elizabeth. Phew!!! 3475923857329 hours later, right?
Since arrival it's been pretty much non-stop World Cup action. Not only in actually attending the games (I've seen 5!!), but also in viewing. We have some ringleaders in our group (which has ranged from 3-8), who have done a great job of combining World Cup stuff with sightseeing. In
Port Elizabeth we saw Chile vs. Switzerland. I have to say, Chile had a pretty good representation. I still have "chi chi chi, le le le, Chi-le, Chi-le ringing in my ears, and "ole ole ole ole.... Chi-le, Chi-le." Here's a pict of them after a goal, crazy!
From Port Elizabeth we drove along the famous "Garden route" through some amazing scenery of valleys, hills, and mountains to Cape Town. Included in this was a 216m bungee jump off a bridge! This is the bridge we jumped off.... yes, holy crap!
Yipeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!! It was sooooooooooooooooooo fun and such an adrenaline rush! Here is a video of me jumping, taken by my friend who was smartly on the sidelines. hehe.
It was also funny doing it with a bunch of 1st timers, my friend Char and I are old pro's but still got a kick out of it.
Cape Town is a fun beach town, with the well-known waterfront being pretty similiar to Navy Pier (for those of you from Chicago!), sorry, a little cheesy, but really beautiful. Mind you it's winter here, so it's been chilly (40's to 70's), but I imagine the summer in Cape Town to be fantastic. Also is the famous Table Mountain, which is contention of being a World Heritage Site. There we saw Netherlands vs. Cameroon, which had a great array of orange in support of Netherlands as there are many Dutch here because the Dutch colonized South Africa hundreds of years ago and even Afrikans language is similiar to Dutch, although locals say it is more similiar to Finnish. Below is a pict of the Fan Fest, watching another game (see all that orange?.... the Netherlands sure represented!)
Anyhoo, we went to a cool Fan Fest to "pre-party" before the game. I guess the Fan Fests in Germany for the 2006 World Cup were out of this world, but here overall it's been fun. Basically the host cities have a huge screen to watch the games and/or there are concerts, an area to just hang out and interact with fans. They are very festive and I most enjoyed seeing how people get dressed up... some crazy get-ups! From Port Elizabeth we went through the famous "garden route" of South Africa to Cape Town, staying at super cute B&B's, the below picture is at sunrise and literally, I took it from the bed!
The Garden Route is well known for it's beautiful scenery of hills, lakes, and forestry... and of course of the many wine villages, including Stallenbach (even there you could do wine tasting and have the World Cup on TV!). South Africa is very well known for it's wine, and the wineries we went to were great, we tasted some special wines with grapes specific to South Africa, so that was pretty cool.
We did a lot of driving, and it was definitely interesting driving on the opposite side of the road with the stick shift on the other side! Below is a typical picture of the famous Table Mountain in Cape Town, a cloud hovering over it! Next to it is the flower of South Africa, the protea, it's at taken at Kristenboch Botanical Gardens.
From Cape Town we took a flight to Johannesburg where the World Cup excitement had picked up because of successes and eliminations and the beginning of quarter finals. We went to Soccer City which is an AWESOMELY huge and beautiful stadium (fits 95,000 people!), and saw Argentina vs. Mexico. So I had tickets at the 500 level and my friends had tickets at the 100 level pretty much 4 rows out from the field. I went down with them to check it out and by some miracle, the gods really much have been watching over me, no one came and I pretty much got a front row seat to the game! I can't even begin to say how AMAZING it was to be so close!
Lionel Messi and Diego Maradona (the now coach and former superstar Argentenian player) were literally just a few hundred yards from us!!! It DEFINITELY gave me a new perspective on the athleticism, agility and endurance required to play soccer and also made the game soo much fun because we were right in the action! And even better that Argentina won (unfortunately, they later had a horrible loss to Germany). The next day came the Brazil vs. Chile game, and hey, I don't need to say how fun those Brazilians are!!!
Although we had 500 level seats (haha!) we were mid-field and got a nice view of the game. And of course, watching Brazil is pretty cool. It was an upset that they later lost to Netherlands, wah wah. Again, as you see, non-stop World Cup action! It literally gets exhausting, I don't think I've watched this much soccer in my life!!! A lot of anxiety watching the games too.
The next 3 nights/4 days we went to a private reserve near Kruger Park (www.idube.com), at a super nice lodge. Here's our little bungalow:
Basically we arranged a private reserve because we get more freedom to roam around the park and supposedly see more (I think we did). Well, I have to say that the safari was not only a highlight of the trip, but also a highlight of my travel life! It was so serene to be literally within feet of wild animals. We saw the "Big 5," Africa's greatest wildest animals, within 2 days - elephants, leopards, lions,rhino, and buffalo. Then later we saw giraffe's, wild dogs (which I guess is pretty rare), jackel's, and of course there were monkeys and bamboons.
We particularly had a close encounter with a leopard, not including the one from the picture above which literally almost brushed up against the safari truck, which was a little scary, but sooo cool once we were away from danger's way. It was also nice to stay in one place for more than 1 days and also to be away from cell phones and technology. The lodge was super nice and there were impala's (similiar to deer) and kudu's roaming freely around. Of course there we managed to watch one soccer game on TV, but the safari was conveniently arranged around their rest break so that we didn't have to miss too many games.
Here's a pict of your South Africa World Cup 2010 group (with our 2 safari guides):
Then we went back to Jburg and immediately went to be what was to be one of the most exciting games of the World Cup (for me, just to witness it. I'm writing this a little bit later (oops) and people are still talking about it) - Ghana vs. Uruguay. So Ghana was the last of the African teams to make it this far and as you can imagine, the support was 90% in favor of Ghana. This is the only game which I really had to wear ear plugs, which we had been warned to bring. In case you haven't seen a game and thus don't know about the vuvuzela's, it is a plastic blowing horn that are used at sporting events and very traditional and typical to Africa for sporting events, particularly soccer (I last heard that they were banning it from rugby games). There has been intense criticism of the vuvuzela's because it is soo loud and the players say they can't hear each other and the constant buzz can get intense, but alas, it is part of the experience and I really didn't mind. Anyway, back to the game - it was just so crazy! Just a great, well-played game that not only went to overtime, but also penalty kicks. You could cut a knife through the tension at the stadium. When Ghana got a penalty kick in, the crowd just erupted, vuvuzuela's and cheering everywhere. When Uruguay did.... I think I heard a handful of claps? THEN, the keeper saved Ghana's ball, which was devastating. But THEN the next Uruguay player TOTALLY missed the penalty, and my gawd, there was soooooo much excitement (they are back in!), BUT then the next Ghana player's ball hit the ball right at the goalie, and hence - no goal! Nooooooo!
I almost died AND the whole stadium went silent. Uruguay then of course got the penalty kick and game over. Man.... I can't even describe the intensity there, everyone was just soooo devastated. And again, there was one group of a couple hundred people that were supporting Uruguay (which I later rooted for in the semi's, but not this game) that were cheering, but other than that, practically silence. It was sooo upsetting that they lost... and that they missed soo many penalties! What the? That was definitely the craziest match I went to. I almost had 5 different heart attacks. But then again, later came the losses of Brazil and Argentina. All and all, I have to give credit to South Africa for doing such an amazing job with the World Cup, it's been totally safe and although soccer is not a popular sport here (rugby is), they really have embraced it - there are a ton of viewing areas, every bar and restaurant has games playing, and it's just been so fun to be in such an international atmosphere. Every country, as little as Paraguay has had supporters and I'm just amazed at how far people have come to see their country. The atmosphere is just festive and fun and everyone is having a good time, including me!
Overall, my impression of South Africa is that it is a beautiful country with amazingly friendly and easy going people. We have been impressed how helpful everyone has been, and again, how the country has embraced the World Cup. As a lot of tourists have been concerned about safety, they really have stepped up their game and everything has run smoothly. I myself could have had some situations go another way, but everything worked out!
So now.... my friends have all gone home and now I'm in Jburg settling up my visa to Ghana. Then I go to Zimbabwe to see Victoria Falls (woo hooo!), then back to South Africa and around, then off to Ghana. Again, although I said "I'll keep this short," heheh, I'll try my best to keep things entertaining!!!
