Trip report: South Africa

[Unknown98]

tl;dr: South Africa is stunning and everyone should go. 



I decided to go to South Africa earlier this year. So I saved my money, took extra hours at work and then put in for 3 weeks vacation and said peace out. Africa in general has always been on my list and I'd seen pictures/shows about cape town and all it has to offer and it didn't disappoint. 

At the time I booked, Emirates had the cheapest fares from Houston at $1250 RT. But now I see KLM has fares for $850 RT. Oh well. 

Since I was going with emirates I decided to do the Dubai stopover and see a little bit of Dubai before I went to Cape Town. It was cool and I'm glad I went but I don't have any desire to go back. Outbound flight was IAH-DXB on the A380. Nice plane, quiet too. But 15 hours is far too long to be stuck in an airplane with other members of the public. Watching deadpool, deadpool 2, and the entire season of AP Bio only to realize your not even halfway there is a horrendous feeling.

Bastakiya or Old Dubai:




Did a desert Safari with Platinum Heritage, by far the best part of Dubai:


Falconry


Initiation


Dinner at a traditional Bedouin camp


And the obligatory Burj Khalifa




If I had more than 2 days I probably would have went to Abu Dhabi and checked out the F1 track and Ferrari World, or maybe a day trip to Al Ain.


Flight #2 was DXB-CPT on a 777-300ER, much louder aircraft but Spotify and headphones fixed that. Hard to enjoy the flight when the guy next to you takes up 1.5 seats... but I made it.

Day 1 I went up to Signal Hill and watched the sunset, simply amazing








Day 2 we went to the Cape of Good Hope, Hout Bay, Simon's Town/Boulders Beach

Hout Bay


Happy Feet


Biking thru Cape Point







Day 3 I climbed Table Mountain, explored Bo-Kaap and Climbed Lion's Head that evening







Me being a model and not knowing what to do with my thumb


Lions Head hike


Wally's Cave


Insane irish guy


Route to the top




Cool sign


Overlooking sea point and robben island




Day 4 took a trip to Stellenbosch, Franschhoek and Paarl



doggo


Day 5 went to Robben Island, Kirstenbosch and camps bay



Nelson Mandela's Cell


Camp's Bay




Kirstenbosch canopy walk



The next part of the trip was 3 nights in Kruger Park. Flight #3 was CPT-MQP on an Avro RJ85.





My tent:


Tons of cool animals:
















Stayed at a camp called Pretoriuskop, they served breakfast and dinner for us every night. Nothing beat sitting around the campfire at night exchanging stories and drinking black label while you could hear animals in the distance. 

Flight #4 was a short hop to Johannesburg on an E170 



Then I caught my connection to George, a Kulula 737-800. Got the standard Europcar livery. But I did see "Flying 102" at the gate in Jo'burg.




Got my rental car and made the terrifying drive, at night, on the wrong side of the road to Knysna. 

View from my airbnb:


Knysna Heads




caves


a bridge


Me being artistic on the bridge for instagram


A boat, named Tsitsikamma after Tsitsikamma national park. Didn't get a chance to go there unfortunately.


And finally made the short hop from GRJ back to Cape Town on an ERJ 140 (I think) where I had a 6 hour layover, and then back to Dubai and on to IAH again. Needing to go West but watching the plane fly East is soul crushing. Next time definitely going through Europe instead. Or better yet might give Delta's ATL-JNB a try if it isn't still $2000 RT.




Emirates was nice, food was pretty good for plane food although towards the end I was getting tired of it. Free alcohol though. All my flights within South Africa with the exception of Kulula were with Airlink, nice airline no complaints there. They had good sandwiches lol.

Any questions feel free to ask. The drought in Cape Town didn't detract from the trip at all, just had to be conscious of water usage but water availability was never an issue. Met lots of interesting people and made a few friends. If you get the chance I would definitely go, for me it was totally worth it.