Run With Them or Fear Them

Zambezi: 9 Days with the NyamiNyami

2011-12-16T11:05:00.000-04:00

0430 wakeup. adrenaline pumping
0700 ride Gautrain to airport with kayaks. adrenaline pumping
0800 checkin at airline- no luggage, just kayaks- luckily they only weigh one boat and assume both weigh the same- they chose a carbon fiber boat which weighs 5kg less than mine does. adrenaline pumping
From zambezi
1020 takeoff. adrenaline pumping
1230 land. adrenaline pumping
1330 leave for first paddle. adrenaline flowing like a river- some might say like the Zambezi
1415 @ river. adrenaline all pumped out, none left.

On arrival at the Zambezi, the idea of easing into things was never an option. In order to exit the first eddy, the only choice is a Class 5 ferry across a wave train. The wave train ends abruptly as it crashes into a flat rock face and makes a huge boil, earning it the name The Boiling Pot. So the Zambezi is a bit intimidating from the get-go.

For some reason, despite many of the rapids having names, they are collectively referred to by numbers (so all cultures and dialects can fear them equally).

With such huge volumes of water going over the falls and gushing down the canyons, a relatively clean "flushing" type river has resulted, and it is a kayaker's dream. For the majority of the rapids (and I did test this theory many times), you can flip over anywhere and still end up at the bottom of the rapid in a relatively short amount of time and having hit virtually 0 rocks on your way through. The key to this tried and tested gameplan is waiting and a bombproof roll.. and according to one of our porters, a proper paddler must also gain the favor of the famed NyamiNyami:

The Tonga people believe that Nyaminyami is responsible for bringing water to their crops and fish for them to eat. Nyaminyami (literally meat meat) would show himself during the dry season and allow meat to be cut from his body during times of need.

During the construction of the Kariba dam, thousands of Tonga people had to be relocated. The tribes people were not happy about this and the elders called upon their Great Spirits for help.

In 1957 and 1958, the Zambezi received the worst flood in 1000 years, so severe that the spill gates were increased from four to six. Legend has it that Nyaminyami is trapped above teh dam wall and his wife is now trapped below. Believing in the 'God' of the Zambezi River should bring you good fortune and safe passage.

.. the Nyaminyami also sticks its tongue out..

Paddling the Zambezi was a completely different type of water than I've ever experienced before. There was never an option to "power through" or make your own line. The 'big-water' type of paddling meant that the river was going to do whatever it wanted, and the only option was to work with the river and not against it.

From Kayak, Raft

In the end, after 7 days, I barely had any pictures because I'd spent the whole trip clawing my way through and feeling lucky to escape in one piece.. only memories from this trip

The river is really only a warmup. The walk out of the gorge is where they separate the boys from the porters. The gorge is about 100m high (330ft) and the path out is almost straight up for the whole km or however long it is. In many cases, switchbacks were not possible and ladders were built to ferry the paddlers up the steep walls. Of all the influences Africa has on a daily life, I was never so thankful for cheap labor.

From Kayak, Raft

The porters get paid by the boat, so carrying 2 boats, as Mukuma is in this photo is double the pay. Incidentally, Mukuma always beat me out of the gorge- ascending the ladders in around 8min with 2 boats on his shoulders while it took me a good 15min with just my gear.

Luckily, the next important characteristic of Africa flared when we got to the Limo waiting at the top, complete with cooler full of beer.

From Kayak, Raft

During the first 7 days in Zambia, I was on the river every day and by the end I was exhausted. Actually by the 5th day I was exhausted and started shortening my runs. By the last day of paddling, I even swam at number 7. bootie beers followed on the booze cruise that night..

From Booze Cruise

When I was at Vic Falls (Zim side) in Jan 2010, I saw the falls from the opposite side of the gorge, eye level with the lip. On this trip I got the opportunity to see the falls from below as well as from the edge, and both gave me a new respect/fear of water.

From below, we paddled up into the "minus" rapids (count backwards from rapid no 1) and walked on the rocks at the base of the falls. On the way to where we jumped out of our boats, I got caught in a whirlpool, flipped over, and amid hyperventilating and freaking out, I managed to roll back up and paddle like crazy to safety. This was by far the scariest part of my entire trip.

if you click this image, it will take you to the video which is much more impressive. note the updraft from the waterfall pushing 'rain' out at us

From Vic Falls, Devil's Boiling Pot, Negative Rapids

And then we walked/swam across the top lip of the falls, 50m from the edge, until we got to the devil's boiling pot- a jacuzzi type hole in the rock next to the edge of the 107m drop. so we jumped in

From Vic Falls, Devil's Boiling Pot, Negative Rapids

and then I had to get my tongue photo..

From Vic Falls, Devil's Boiling Pot, Negative Rapids

have no fear mother dear, i wasn't quite so adventurous this time..

From Vic Falls, Devil's Boiling Pot, Negative Rapids

so remember, if you've learned nothing else from this blog:

From zambezi

and always:

From zambezi

My Brain

2011-09-13T15:21:00.000-03:00

2 days ago I went kayaking and after running a waterfall and subsequently being flipped over, somehow I managed a double tap with 2 successive rocks on the back of my head. hard. the first concussion i remember having and now 2 days later i still have a headache. All is well, been to the doc and was told nothing serious, but they did give me a copy of the CT scans of my brain.. soo i made a movie:

Published Author

2011-09-07T14:58:00.001-03:00

I am now a published and presented author. I am published in a limited circulation conference journal and presented to a limited viewing audience (both limited to the 120 people who attended..).

Earlier this year, I received an email chain which had started with the management of my company on the US side, gone to the mgmt of the company on the South African side, and as all shit does, rolled downhill and right into my mailbox. One thing lead to another and my abstract to the 2011 Iron Ore and Manganese Ore Metallurgy Conference was accepted. Then I was revising my paper submission from the airplane while I flew back to the States for a family reunion. Then I was writing my bio after a few pints in a pub in Slovenia. And that all brought me to today.

Today was the 3rd day of the conference and the day I presented. Today I sat quietly for 3 hours in a room of 120 people, all at least 10 years older than me, all more experienced and knowledgeable than me, all waiting to rip me to shreds! They didn't actually rip me to shreds, and the presentation did go quite well, but my stress level was well above healthy limits. It didn't help 20min into my presentation when I realized what that weird box with the lightbulb was on the podium. It was the box that meant I was out of time, and it stayed lit for the last 5 minutes of my talk, like a little mosquito that wouldn't quit buzzing in my ear while I was trying to do very important business. Needless to say that when it was all over, I smiled pretty, answered a few questions, and promptly walked through the audience, out the door, and 'breathed the free air.' So it's over, my name is on a paper published in a hard bound textbook, and I never what to mention it again.

Soca of Slovenia

2011-08-04T08:48:00.114-03:00

Dobradan, Pivo, Prosim. After a total of 5 days in Slovenia, those three words are all the Slovenian I learned (mostly because everyone also spoke english or german). Can you guess what they mean? Good day, Beer, Please. what more do you need?

The Soca River in Western Slovenia at the foot of the Julian Alps is one of the most beautiful rivers I have ever seen. The Emerald River, as it is locally known, is true to its name and the waters are an emerald shade of crystal clear glacial melt.

From Bovec - Che Soca

Jolene and I flew into the capital Ljubljana from Paris for a 5 day stint on our way back to Africa from the States. Ljubljana itself looked just like any other EU city as far as I was concerned and I was more than ready to escape when the bus arrived to take us on the 4 1/2hr trip over the mountains into the valley of Bovec, home to the Soca River. The word that comes to my mind when riding through the countryside of Slovenia was green. Everything everywhere was green. From the architecture of the houses you can tell that they have more than a dusting of snow in the winters, but summer is summer and the sun cleaned all that right up.

yes i know i look like a retarded monkey. that's auto-timers for ya

From Bovec - Che Soca

With an hour left to go and just 30km on the map, I thought we were sure to arrive in Bovec a bit early, but my estimates were quickly dashed when I saw the mountain in front of us. For the first 3 hours of the drive, we had been travelling on main roads through valleys in the Alps, but we had managed to snake around the lowlands and had not climbed any peaks. The road into Bovec was different. These last 30km took us straight up and over a mountain range on a narrow switchback road. On the first turn, we saw a sign with a number 1 and an elevation.

I quickly understood what 1 meant on teh second turn when we saw a number 2. then a 3. 4. 5... by the time we'd gone over the top and down the other side, we had passed 49 switchbacks, but we were in Bovec.

From Bovec - Che Soca

A friend from Germany, Falk, and another from South Africa, De Wet, met us in Che Soca, a town best described as an adventure hamlet in the alps. Driving into town, we saw hikers, downhill mountain bikers, kayakers, a glyder, and all kinds of other adventure sports. But we had come for the river, and shortly found that we weren't alone. Prijion Kajak Schule in Che Soca welcomed us with a beer and hot food before we'd even had time to put our bags down.

From Bovec - Che Soca

We rented boats and full gear for 30 euros/day and had 2 excellent days of paddling despite the unseasonably low water levels. despite being low water, it was still roughly 8 degrees C, though we quickly ignored that with the first sights of the water.

From Bovec - Che Soca

The pictures don't do it justice but they do more than I can do to describe it. The water, along with the rest of the Bovec Valley, was totally unpolluted and no one wasted time with water bottles- flip over, take a drink, roll back up. that was the A-B-C's to taking a drink on the Soca.

After carrying both my boat and then Jolene's down about a kilometer trail down into the gourge, I was too tired to follow. Probably the first time in my life I didn't jump off the rock into the water, sorry to let you down mom

From Bovec - Che Soca

On the second day, De Wet and Falky got a bit over confident and took the Duo down the slalom racing run (normally used on the easier sections for training) and even managed a roll seen in the video above.

From Bovec - Che Soca

The food was another thing that Slovenia had right- it was thick, stuck to your ribs, and made you sleepy- three marks of greatness.

From Bovec - Che Soca

After Soca, we said goodbye to Falk and De Wet and headed to Bled, the poster child town for Slovenia. Bled was a town centered on one of 2 lakes in Western Slovenia and is famous for Castle Bled and a church built on the small island in the lake.

From Bled

Castle Bled, to say the least, was a disappointment as it had been turned into a money making disgrace. The castle has been around since the 11th century and has been passed around between church figures and the Hapsburg Empire. After paying the 8 euro entry fee, you pass the moat and drawbridge mentioned in the guidebook (even I thought they were sized for a smurf).

From Bled

There is one section of the castle which has been converted to a museum, though the only conclusions I could draw were that nobody knew much of the early inhabitants

From Bled

the label on this sword, for example, reads "..the oldest bronze find in Bled is a sword that was thrown into the lake as part of some ritual".. interesting.
The winery had also been turned into a gift shop, with the prized Castle Bled wine, being sold in one of 12 bottles featuring the zodiac symbols (remember the Castle was inhabited by the Bishop of Brixen.. must have been a different sect of Christianity). The cashier in the gift shop wore a monk's habit and his 'squire' referred to him in the italian 'Padre'. A special place.

From Bled

In total, the castle had 5 places which would avail you of your money in addition to the official Castle Bled gift shop and only 1 semi-historical room. If you ever go, I recommend the view over the lake.

The 2011 World Rowing Championships will be held on Lake Bled at the end of the month, and the locals were all preparing for it for a while. From the pic below, taken outside our room at the Bledec Hostel, they even started cleaning a few years ago- mattresses last cleaned Nov 2005, "Because the guest has the right to optimal hygiene"

From Bled

Final thoughts: Fly into Salzburg, Austria and drive over the Alps- Soca is the emerald jewel of Europe!!

From Bovec - Che Soca

Lake-O-Lympics 2011

2011-07-30T07:58:00.003-03:00

After last year's disgrace against the herd of 10-year-olds who destroyed us, Team Alexander had something to prove this year, and to jump right to it, prove something we did. The much coveted Mountaineer Trophy now rests on our mantle (my mom is holding the trophy).

From Lake O-Lympics 2011

In total there were 13 of us sleeping in the cabin and another couple on the lawn and it turned out as a crazy weekend.
We had entries in every event his year, Styler was even crazy enough to wake up at 6am to start it off with fishing. We followed that with a full 10 person entry into the 5km race, and that was the beginning of the end for the competition. The domination continued through the rest of the afternoon and into the night- it was a day that would be talked about for Lake-O-Lympics to come- stories told about it, songs will be written, and babies named after it.

From Lake O-Lympics 2011

A new event was even created which is yet to be officially entered into the schedule of the day's events and as it still lacks a name I'll use the list of materials and the following picture to describe it:
1 pickup truck
1 keg
1 shit-eatin-grin

From Lake O-Lympics 2011

The winner is the one with foam coming out their nose

From Lake O-Lympics 2011

In honor of the victory of the day, they threw a party for us with a band and the whole shabang- complete with 4 gallons of clear liquid in mason jars which was allegedly transferred from the trunk of one car to the trunk of another on the State line. cinnamon was this year's flavor and probably accounted for all 4 gallons disappearing

From Lake O-Lympics 2011

What would a weekend at the lake be without a hike onto private property (strictly for educational purposes)

From Lake O-Lympics 2011

Just as Patrick checked for gnomes inside the windmill we were forced into a casual scadaddle down the hillside because a security guard decided to ruin our lesson for the day

From Lake O-Lympics 2011

And then they finished the weekend with a photo I'd like to name "Bro-Out", which prompted everyone else to turn and walk away.

Strike Season is Upon Us

2011-07-14T05:37:00.002-03:00

My very first strike season! I've been in SA almost 3 winters but this is the first Strike Season that everyone has come out to play. 2009 I probably didn't realize what was going on, 2010 was the world cup so all the strikers were too busy partying it up to realize they'd missed their holiday, but now for 2011 it's in full swing.

A month ago things got off to a slow start with a strike at my mine in the Kalahari- the rent-a-strikers from the Unions came in and did their duty every morning to disrupt the non-union members from going in to work, and by 10 o'clock they had worked their maximum allowable union hours and went off to town to enjoy the holidays. The mine hired some security but within a few weeks everything was over.

PIC
And here I thought the riot trucks were only used for show in the Apartheid museum

NUMSA, the National Union of Metalworkers SA started a strike of their own last week and now another one of my projects in Witbank has strikers in front of the gate, the fabrication shops have been broken into and offices destroyed, and now it's progressed to a petrol strike as well. We're 2 days into the petrol strike and the pumps are closing- in another few days people will have an excuse not to go to work because they don't have transportation.

They start out dancing around like a giant line dance, which is what I saw at the gates of the mines

then everyone not on strike goes home because they know what follows dancing

I wrote the above a few weeks ago, and to summarize the results, nobody from my office got to skip work, though most of the fabrication shops/mines/etc. closed down completely. The strike went on for a couple weeks, but the police started escorting fuel trucks in the wee hours of the morning, so the world kept turning on my side.

The result of the strike was a 10% increase for the workers. The news said the strike cost the economy 7 billion of rands. The original offer to the workers who went on strike was 4.1%, however before NUMSA left the negotiating table it was up to 7%, so they effectively went on strike for a couple weeks for a 3% increase.

so with my quick calcs, they ended up losing ZAR 1,152.00 ($158) on the year by going on strike for a 2 weeks. which means a 2 week holiday cost them ZAR 1,152.00.
All of that basically means that for a skilled worker's position at ZAR 99000/yr ($13,600), they're still not moving far from the townships, but as with everything there's never any good solutions, so we'll just have to wait for next season to see what happens next

this was in interesting account of the strike from the other side of the negotiating table, SEIFSA
http://www.seifsa.co.za/default.php?id=1257

Knysna "The Marathon is Half Full" Race

2011-07-08T04:42:00.025-03:00

So here I sit on the porch of a no-electricity cottage, high on the cliffs in the indigenous forests of the knysna woods, with the sun rising in the east and a troop of baboons moving across the cliffs on the west. We’ve been in Knysna for 3 days and for 3 days I’ve seen the sun rise. Today’s sunrise, however, was different to any other I’ve ever seen- today I witnessed (mostly audibly) a baboon fight! Every so often I hear a screetch from 2 rival baboons and a set of trees shake and a fairy loses its wings. The reason this was special wasn’t the screaming. Screeching baboons have become normal to me in South Africa. This was special because I actually saw the fight. To be fair I saw the aftermath of the losing side of the fight, but it was close, and all the buildup I’ve given in the past paragraph won’t be wasted. Imagine a screech, a cry, shuffle, then a baboon cartwheeling down a near vertical cliff face and a cloud of dust following to a clump of trees at the bottom- apparently they were playing King of the Mountain and that was the loser being thrown off the mountain.

So here I sit at 7am with the sun rising in the east and a baboon circus show in the west, and me in a no-electricity cabin perched on the edge of the gorge rim.

But we weren’t in Knysna for the baboons- 2 days ago marked the 28^th running of the Knysna Forest Marathon and this year we ran it. We ran the half marathon to be exact, but it was still a challenge. Knysna is special because the first half is on sand roads through the Knysna woods in the mountains overlooking the harbor, the second half is on paved roads on the flat along the edge of the harbor, and the middle bit is a 3 kilometer horizontal distance with 230m of vertical descent. There is relatively no uphill on the entire run, deceiving newbies of the ease for a Personal Best. 230m across 3km is a slope of 1:13. I know because I just calculated it now, 2 days after the race. During the race I spent all 3 of those kilometers wondering who in their right mind would make a 1:13 slope downhill run on cobblestoned roads across 3km, then expect runners to handle another 8km of flat before the finish. Obviously they were in better shape than me.

From Knysna 21km 2011

My time for the 28^th annual Knysna 21km was 1:51:35, roughly 45s slower than my time for the Two Oceans ½ marathon in the end of April.

This has also been my first trip to the South Coast and I must say I like it down here. I’m not sure what people do for a living that doesn't involve tourism, but I like it here- seems like a good place to take up sailing. The weather is nicer than Cape Town but they don’t seem to get the waves/storms that CT gets so it gives off that kit-home-retirement-village-for-millionaires vibe. It’s a good thing we stayed out of town a bit.

Back at baboon-land, we’ve rented a cottage on the bluff on a vegetable/ex-cattle farm owned by a friend of a friend. As you can see, the view from the cottage is mediocre at best. The real gem in the cottage’s crown is at the bottom of the rivine.

A 3km dirt track, cut into the side of the mountain, takes you to a meadow, rock beach, and finally a gloriously clear and fridgedly cold stream.

From Knysna 21km 2011

The 3km might be up and down the canyon, but we had a good sense of humor about the hill, especially after yesterday's 21km.

From Knysna 21km 2011

Best of all, there’s no one around to be blinded by the sun’s reflection on my white butt.

From Knysna 21km 2011

Then we had a WHALE of a time in Plett on our way back to the airport

From Knysna 21km 2011

And the winner is..

2011-06-10T03:30:00.000-03:00

"Its a golden-orb web spider, gets its name from its web. It has venom, but not enough to kill you, the 'teeth' are pretty strong and might scar you, give you some blisters and a funky wound for a day or so. "

http://www.google.co.za/search?um=1&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENZA265&biw=1680&bih=989&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=golden+orb+web+spiders&oq=golden+orb+web+spiders&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=-1307687380058l-1307687380058l0l0l0l0l0l0l0l0l0l

and it only cost a chocolate chip cookie

Kyk Hier - SPIDER

2011-06-09T11:00:00.000-03:00

in completely unrelated news, check out this crazy looking spider I saw in the Kalahari last month

whoever correctly identifies this and determines how quickly its bite would kill the average human wins a cookie

Aliwal Raggie Dive

2011-06-04T10:40:00.015-03:00

Last weekend Wes and I flew down to Durban for a shark dive- it's been about a year since I went diving and over 2 years since I've been in the water with the sharks, so this was long overdue.

From Aliwal Scuba June 2011

yes sharks swim in groups in mindless circles like in the movies. I can count 5 in that photo alone.

From Aliwal Scuba June 2011

The Ragged tooth sharks are sorta like a clown. A clown has a smile painted on his face and is stuck like that. The Raggies seem to be missing lips or any way to close their mouths, so they are permanently snarling and looking like they're ready to eat you.

From Aliwal Scuba June 2011

Also saw a pair of eels and.. what do you think this next picture is?

From Aliwal Scuba June 2011

An Octopus- they've got a beak or teeth or something like that.. It was in a small hole in the coral and I heard mom's voice saying "don't stick your hand in that hole, you don't know what could be in there!" .. so I stuck my hand in the hole and an octopus suction cup grabbed me! It was about the size of a gerbil, so no worries, but was a weird feeling, like the life was about to be sucked out of me.. I yanked my hand back like a little girl.. Anywho, still have all my fingers and most of my toes

CheatFest 2011

2011-05-06T15:07:00.001-03:00

From Cheat River Festival 2011

My trip home had the good fortune to fall on the same weekend as the Cheat River Festival and downriver race. This year's race set a new record for entrents- 173 entered, 160 showed up. There were even kid's outdoor clubs from DC who showed up with 15 passenger vans and trailors full of boats.

From Cheat River Festival 2011

With a mass start from the Albright bridge, it was chaos trying to paddle for the first 100m, but the packs quickly spread out- Wildwaser boats in front, long plastic ract boats next, and then a bunch of playboaters trailing behind. With the race starting at 5pm and 10 miles long, around 6 i found myself paddling alone in the no-man's land between the long plastic boats and playboats with rainclouds coming in and night a few hours away.

From Cheat River Festival 2011

paddle paddle paddle.

From Cheat River Festival 2011

The Cheat river is mostly class 4-5 water, but at 3ft they were mostly class 4 with Colleseum being a goo class 5- sadly i missed someone in a Dagger Green Boat (11'9" long) doing cartwheels (not intentional). I managed to cross the line at 1:38.13 which was a long time to paddle. I'd be lying if i said i paddled the whole way- i probably made it until that realization that i was all alone with rain coming on near dark and decided to stop trying to combine enjoying the river with racing and change over to just screwing around. No swims, no rolls, no podiums, but was nice to be on home turf

From Cheat River Festival 2011

When we got out at the takeout, they had a schoolbus, flatbed truck, and keg of beer waiting. somehow they managed to fit 63 boats on one flatbed truck and another 63 paddlers in one schoolbus

From Cheat River Festival 2011

Pics are a bit misty from 63 paddlers in a schoolbus in wet gear, breathing heaivily, and beering

There was a BBQ after the race and when i went to get a burger, the girl said this:

"Hello sir, have you ever ben to West Virginia before?"

"Hello mam, yes I have, how about yourself?"

Then this happened:

Jeff, the guy who taught me to paddle 8 years ago asked me if I always had such an accent? The conversation went as usual, he asked if i had paddled the zambezi yet, i would say i'm not that cool, then he would say "yeah." He did have to ask me to repeat myself every time i talked, and after 2-3 minutes he'd had enough and must have decided he couldn't understand me, so he just got up and walked away. i still maintain i have no accent.

End.

Random thought from CheatFest Weekend:
while at petrol station across the street from a Wendy's, i posed the question as to why the smell of grease is so stangely appealing, especially when the food doesn't een taste so good. Dad postulated that it is an instinct ingrained into every human 100's of thousands of years ago. the smell of hot grease would lead early humans to cooked food (dead animals) after a forest fire. maybe early humans even started forest fires to cook their dinner?
-perhaps prehistoric man liked his meat extra crispy?

Two Oceans 2011

2011-04-23T08:14:00.062-03:00

Two Oceans Marathon, "The World's Most Beautiful Race", and my first go at a 21km since last September.

I flew down to Cape Town Thursday night with Murray, Lindsay, Lynn, Craig, Kerry, Ryan, Barry, Robyn, and a baby. they told me that since I have the mutant ability to hold a baby without it crying, this picture will make me irresistible- let's put the theory to the test shall we:

When we went to registration, they gave us race packs with giveaways from teh sponsors. Among other things, each of the 14000 odd participants received a can of sardines for extra energy. imagine 21km of running with sardines in your stomach. yum.

Race morning. 10 people. 2 bedroom flat. 1 general bathroom. 1 bathroom in the baby room. 345am. With no one willing to wake the sleeping tyrant @ 3am, the toilet seat in the one remaining bathroom never felt the cold porcelain of neglect. Also at 3am, I observed the 'serious' runner's prerace rituals. right down to spiffy running socks. i looked at my own feet and noticed my socks didn't even match.

In my limited experience, the mark of a good race is in the toilets. If you can drop a deuce and wipe your butt before the race, it's a good one.
If you stand in line for 20 minutes for the one portable toilet in sight only to realize there's no toilet paper left, you don't wear underwear with running shorts, so you've got no choice but to run 21km with a stinky bum, well that's a poorly organized event.
If you stand behind 1 person, then get cut off before your turn only to realize the guy who cut you off is carrying cleaning supplies and fresh toilet paper, then that's a well organized event. Suffice it to say that by the end, I may have smelled like many things, but poo was not one of them.

In true SA form, the first 1km down the main street was in the dark because the lamp posts were out.

During the run, a voice inside my head kept yelling "slow down, you don't know what you've gotten yourself into." I listened the first half, but afte rthe top of Southern Cross hill (12km/21km), I turned a deaf ear and started running. the first 11km to the bottom of southern cross in 1 hour, 6:06/km to the top, then as far as my standards are concerned i absolutely destroyed the rest of the run. At the top of southern cross is a banked turn where you also change from uphill to downhill. As i crested teis turn, I made 2 chates. First, I started passing everyone in front of me (note the fast people had long since left me in the dust). 2nd, i started annihilating my right knee. So now i'm back to the Physio.

I went out shooting for a 1:56:48- my time from the only other 21km i have ever done. I finished in 1:50:48.

http://admin.twooceansmarathon.org.za/ResultCertificate.aspx?EntryCode=196498

and just in case some time in the next 20 years they get rid of the old race results, i've made a PDF copy of the page for posterity sake:

NUMBER TWO - Shigella -

2011-04-20T16:27:00.001-03:00

Why is it that intestinal diseases all have names that are so much fun to say.. the latest is Shigella- almost sounds like it should be the name of the Tokoloshi's wife or something..

this time around i've got a more exciting video to share- a spanish music video about an intestinal disease that gives you diarrhea! what more could one ask for eh?

(if you can't see video, try http://youtu.be/-whqv64N2bg)

Once again, the doc in SA had me diagnosed in about 5 minutes. Much to Dad's chagrin, the cure for this one was another quick and easy- no suppositories or topical creams for me- a 3 day z-pak of anitbiotics and I'm all set

I am slightly curious if I really am the only paddler having these experiences.. the doc reckoned it was common after being in the rivers.. maybe I'm just the only one vocal about it

Old Man Beard

2011-03-28T14:16:00.003-03:00

Aahahahahahahahaha.

ahahahahaha.
ahahahaha
..

ahahahah. I can't look at you. ahahahaa. I've never seen you like this! Why do you do this? why do you want to be like an old man?? it's too soon boet! ahahahahahaahah

at this point, Chylot literally fell onto the couch and couldn't control herself with laughter. then she started crying.

more laughter.

in the end, Chylot covered her eyes with both hands so she could talk to me. I had come back to the flat to pay Chylot for the month. When i explained this, she stuck out one hand and kept her eyes covered with the other.

From Sabie XFest March 2011

.. i didn't think my beard looked that bad..

Sabie XFest 2011

2011-03-26T16:41:00.025-03:00

Sabie X-Fest 2011 was a Mtn Bike, Trail Run, and Kayak weekend run by Induna Adventures on in and around the Sabie River and this year was a great competition.

Sponsors. Everyone should have a sponsor. A friend of mine is sponsored by companies he doesn't even know about. He's a kayaker. Seemingly unbeknown to him, one of his sponsors is Merrel. Just before the 5k trail run, someone handed him a nice new pair of Merrel trail shoes. This for a guy who has a permanent injury in his foot and did nto in teh past, does not currently, nor will he ever be running. So he let me wear them.

The race went through the orchards on teh farm roads and with all the rain it was like running 5km up a slip-n-slide of mud, then slipping down the other side.

I don't know that i've ever really won anything in a race before, and technically speaking this weekend was no exception because by the time i was presented with my 2nd place prize for the 5k trail run, the money in the envelope had walked away, buuut pride is better than cold hard cash any day eh?

On to the meat of the day- the Kayak Sprints

From Sabie XFest March 2011

Despite this photo being part of the my final head to head race, the next photo was my glorious recovery and footsteps to victory. This one also bumped me into instant fame with the Induna website-http://indunaadventures.com/blog/?p=240

From Sabie XFest March 2011

Supersport was there throughout the day and Hannes, with his schoolboy charm, was the favorite. The camera guy also seemed to pay special attention to him as well..

From Sabie XFest March 2011

I call this look Blue Steel before the Syphon Falls final event in next photo

From Sabie XFest March 2011

Overnight on the Mutale

2011-03-20T15:18:00.062-03:00

Normally I write a blog a day, week, or month later when the pics fall together and I get bored one day after work. This time around I’m writing Day 1 of the Mutale adventure from the mutale. About 5m from the mutale.

Again, normally at the end of a trip, usually on the shuttle back from the takeout, I have my epiphanical moment of how lucky I am to be here in South Africa, in an absolutely amazing part of the earth largely unchanged by man, with friends doing something I love. Today that epiphany came 20 min into the shuttle to the putin while 7 people (plus driver), 7 boats, and all the gear piled into the back of a land cruiser and set off into the unknown (for us at least).

The Mutale is a river North West of Kruger National Park that passes through a narrow canyon on its way to the wild blue. Very remote, the tar road ends long before the end of our 9 hr drive from Joburg to the banks of our thoroughfare through the bush.

The water itself isn’t difficult, but the atmosphere and remoteness makes this a must paddle for anyone looking for a multi-day (provided crocs aren’t a problem – we saw one about 1m long (nose sticking out of water in pic to side) in the first 10 minutes today, but after that not a croc was seen anywhere besides our imaginations).

As per standard issue on any SA ww excusion, Fluid is the name on the side of every boat on the river. Having everyone from the experienced, the recently Famous and Fearless, down to the beginner, every obstacle was met with a smile.

From Mutale March 2011

For the end of Day 1, we have a bed of sand next to the river, belly of dehydrated mince/pasta, bag from a box-o-wine, and a blanket of stars.

From Mutale March 2011

I had brief inspiration to be more colourful and verbose with my writing; however writing the words “blanket of stars” has cured me of this, so Day 2 will include no such references.

From Mutale March 2011

The moon rose like the sun that night and was so bright that I took this picture at 2am with no flash.

From Mutale March 2011

Day 2- it appears we overshot the Day 1 section and only had about 2 hours paddle with another hour’s faffing and we were to the takeout.

From Mutale March 2011

“Formation” is the tile of the pic above. The crocs weren’t a problem upriver with the moving water, but as the gorge gave way to flatter terrain with less gradient, the Captain Planet style “Formation” was a common cry.

We made it back safe and sound to Tsula Camp- the term ‘camp’ is applied loosely as this Green Designed Camp has tent palaces erected on decks cantilevered 5m high over the floodplain of the Mutale.

From Mutale March 2011

Off to the Shebeen!

From Mutale March 2011

I wasn’t the horrible tourist filming the local here.. https://picasaweb.google.com/jolenefisher/Mutale2011?authkey=Gv1sRgCJWGxuWex8HQAw&feat=content_notification#5587250191742875250
but that was only because I didn't bring my camera. This guy went on for 10 minutes nonstop and probably kept it up the rest of the night.

From Mutale March 2011

We had sundowners on the bank of the river and played spot the Baobab- we counted 11 of the old giants across the river. Contrary to popular believe (i.e. Lion King), Baobabs are not hollow inside. I admit that I fell for this trick when someone convinced me it was true and climbed to the top of one. Fail.

Then Pierre and Ryan went swimming.

From Mutale March 2011

Then they remembered the Crocs.

From Mutale March 2011

On a side note here, if anyone knows of a plant (or bug?) that lives in NW Kruger (I’m told it is a savannah region), but a plant wich has some kind of tiny itchy nettles, please let me know so I don’t stumble through it again. On the way down to the river, I must have walked through something and my whole left side starting itching the rest of the night.

The downside to staying in such a nice camp is that I’m sitting in my underwear outside in a camp chair while everyone sleeps watching the sunrise and the “dun dun-dun dun dun- dun dun dun,” of the blackberry alarm has started firing off roll call across the camp for the rest of the guests. There’s a university cultural awareness or ecology group with a seemingly random assortment of students out here which will be doing homestays with Venda families in the area. After eavesdropping on their intro lecture last night, I’m confident the students will take a lot out of the experience.

From Mutale March 2011

P.P.S

For any of you curious about the movements of my bowels, A for the SA Doc’s Giardia diagnosis/treatment. With a $40 total bill including doc’s visit and meds, I’m all sorted and back to solid pooing again.

MUTALETIONS

2011-03-20T02:48:00.008-03:00

Doctor's Diagnosis- Deepest Darkest Africa vs. First World

2011-03-01T08:06:00.018-04:00

Well it took 2 1/2 years, but mommy's fears have finally come true- I caught an African Disease!

A couple months ago I went to Egypt just before Christmas and while I was there I ate everything in sight including the street food and hookah bar teas and lemon squashes.

Pharoah's Revenge, The Cairo Two-Step, Mummy's Tummy, whatever you want to call it, I had it when I got back to the States. I went to the doctor in the Pittsburgh and to be colourful, I can tell you he made me shit in a jar. Then told me the lab results were negative and it must be in my head.

2 months later, I decided those first world doctors don't know jack and went to the doctor here. Turns out it wasn't in my head, it was in my lower intestines.

Giardia. Here I thought I'd lost 4kg from all the exercise and it was really thanks to that guy^^^. The Doc gave me a quick prescription and for good measure also told me that I should probably de-worm myself after all my "adventures", but not to worry and keep up the good work. I love Africa.

After finding that picture above, I started thinking about a bunch of giardia dancing around inside me and then looked for an animation (looks like he's got disco fever eh?). If I could cut and past I would, but you've gotta click for yourself cuz this one was awesome- http://www.biology.ualberta.ca/parasites/parpub/animate/giardia.htm

Blyde X-Fest 2011: 3 Riviers, 3 Great Days, 1 Big Party

2011-02-28T11:16:00.114-04:00

What's not to say? Last weekend was the Blyde X-Fest extravaganza that everyone has been raving about for the past year. For my very first Blyde, I've got to go with the slogan of Ride'Em Hard, Put'Em Up Wet because it was 4 days of absolute co-hooting craziness. I skipped out of work at 2 on a Thursday and didn't make it back to Joburg until 0715 the following monday morning. they liked my choice of music for the car as well:

Friday we ran the U2 section of the Upper Sabie. For all the hype people had been spitting for the past week, the Sabie was more of a tame circus lion than a Mufasa. Maybe more like a bunch of small circus lions with pools in between- I was told later it was low water and Mufasa would roar if it rains.

Pools or no pools, sometimes even a tame lion bites- fortunately this time it bit Pierre instead of me:

There was a bit more excitement before the day ended, though this was a death on the maiden voyage for Lloyd's paddle (not exactly sure why it's always Lloyd in the photos, but he seems to be in stupid situations quite often, and yes mom, Lloyd is a man not a woman)

From Blyde X-Fest, Sabie, Oliphants 2011

Saturday was it. Off at a kayaker's 0530 (0645) we piled in the land cruiser for an hour's shuttle to the putin and 40+ kayakers converged on the Blyde Rivier Canyon takin names and kickin ass. The canyon itself is a largely untouched and access restricted canyon which I'm told by an undisclosed source is the largest 'green' canyon in the world

From Blyde X-Fest, Sabie, Oliphants 2011

I may have stuffed up every aspect of the Canyon involved in the races, but I did it upsidedown and showing the fishes my pearly whites- no matter which direction I started the runs, I finished smiling.

From Blyde X-Fest, Sabie, Oliphants 2011

After the river we had another kayak themed competition- The Infamous Kayak Ramp.. Dun Dun Duuuun

I'm not exactly sure how the idea for the kayak ramp made it from a drunken campfire brainstorming session to fabricating a 4m ramp complete with idlers, but kudos to whoever remember the designs in the morning light, it was a blast.

Saturday night brought the X out of X-Fest. After the winners were applauded and bootie beers were dished out, a sacrifice was made to the kayak gods and a perfectly good Fluid Detox was converted into a beer funnel. I made an attempt to refrain this time around, but the pull of John Denver's Country Roads was like a gravitational field pulling me into the funnel- there was no point in fighting. From that point the lights went out, bottles were tipped back, and bare feet met a beer-soaked concrete floor. Rain rolled in trapping the willing participants until the wee hours of the morning and when it finally came time to crawl into bed, many tent flaps were left open exposing straggling appendages which didn't make it inside before passing out.

Day 3 was on the Oliphants river which was intended to be a tame day to get over the hangovers from the night's adventures. The day got exciting before we got to the river- I had my first hello with a snake. I woke up in teh morning, rolled out the tent, and strolled into the dorms to drop a deuce. No sooner had I dropped trou and took a seat than a small black snake crawled out right between my legs and stopped. Had I not been in the act, I would have shat myself ( we have a poster on the wall at site showing the venomous snakes of SA. the infamous black mamba is one of them. as a results, all black snakes are now black mambas).
Seconds. Minutes. We'll skip hours and just go to 'Days went by.' Then he slithered a bit further and I chased him back through the hole in the cinder blocks behind the toilet. I feel no shame in saying I grabbed the only weapon available (a broom) to accomplish this.
Then we went paddling

Aside from some brief carnage on the first rapid, it was an easy day on the river and would have been by far the safest section of the weekend; however we met a hippo half way through which put a little speed bump in the mix.

From Blyde X-Fest, Sabie, Oliphants 2011

On a side note, I still haven't had any swims in the new boat. I haven't even thought about swimming in the new boat. I'm going to nickname her a good strong American farmgirl name like Dorthy because she'll never let me down

I've typed the phrase "it was a great day on the river" 3 or 4 times in writing this, but that pretty much sums up the entire weekend- one of the best I've had on the continent.

Alles Gevinden

2011-02-20T12:04:00.116-04:00

I wish I had a picture of the day I unwrapped my new boat but I don't. If I did, it would look much like this, just substitute a kayak for the air rifle.

.. I tried to find Ralphie unwrapping the air rifle, but decided that the old man's leg lamp was a better fit

For the duration of my South African paddling career I have been mooching gear/boats from anyone willing to trust me, and this has lead to me paddling a different boat every weekend. The Medium Fluid Solo (in orange of course) is the first boat that fit. And it fits good. After about 9 months of mooching gear/boats off all the charitable souls in the country, I've finally bought one of my own- almost like Pinocchio becoming a real boy!

The Solo is one of the biggest boats I've ever paddled and it's been eaten by the hole there

From Ash_Kayak_2011-02-19

In preparation for Blyde X-Fest next weekend, we went to Clarens for a few runs down the Ash- the river created by the Lesotho Highlands Water Project Outflow (South Africa needed water, Lesotho had water, now SA pipes water down the mtns and it comes out outside the town of Clarens).

The last time I ran the Ash was in a playboat the river made me it's bitch. That's the technical way of putting things.

This time around 2 amazing days on the river and no booties (for me at least). Favorite rapid of the day was Bridge Rapid. If you do it wrong, you end up either upsidedown (Lloyd) or spinning a 360 (my first run). If you do it right and 'go with the flow' as they say- almost like skiing moguls and bouncing from side to side (second run).

click - it's a video

From Ash_Kayak_2011-02-19

The big guys did some product testing on the 000001 serial number that just came out the mold Thursday night (I was there)- the Big Bang- which is basically a Fluid Solo for the extra fatties- seen below, i call this shot B^3 for the Big Bang in Bridge

From Ash_Kayak_2011-02-19

The only downside was no waterfalls. I've had something in my head about waterfalls for some time, and it started with the last time I was on the Ash getting worked. I didn't run the waterfall for no good reason, and up until Thrombi a couple weeks ago I've been letting myself off the hook. For the past I've had the solution to my problems in my head, which basically involved running the waterfall, preferably first of the group.

Previously I mentioned the Lesotho Highlands Water Project Outflow. Under normal circumstances, and currently, I think hydropower is awesome. Hydropower ruins many rivers for kayaking, but it's still awesome. Hydropower is not awesome when it ruins a river for kayaking, but doesn't produce any power for lack of operation. This was the case. A diversion channel had been cut in the river to redirect water to a small scale hydropower station. The hydropower station was not in operation, so the water continued to flow through the diversion channel and back into the main river. Directly below the waterfall. Making anyone successfully running the waterfall get bashed into rock/root/mud on the left bank.

From Ash_Kayak_2011-02-19

After day 1, I hitchhiked the 10km back up to the putin to get the car- technically it may not be hitching if I walked along the road waving R20 ($2.30) to get the car to stop, but I'll take it- farmers are nice people and this dude's wife even made him give me change because it was such a short drive. I love South Africa.

So I haven't killed the Ash-waterfall thing in the back of my mind, but I had a great weekend and I'm pumped for Blyde.

Continuing with my exploration of the new camera, Lloyd helped me with the multiple frames per second feature- for some reason he thinks it's good luck to paddle in his boxers

From Ash_Kayak_2011-02-19

Beware the Tokoloshe

2011-02-18T02:56:00.048-04:00

Gather round the campfire boys and girls, it's time the story of The Tokoloshe.

The Tokoloshe is a boogie man type monster in Zulu culture who comes in the night. Though no one has ever seen the Tokolosh, but the mischevious little guy is blamed for anything and everything that goes wrong after dark. This can include anything from stealing the month's wages to mysterious deaths in the night to impregnating young virgins with a penis so long he slings it over his shoulder to walk

To avoid the Tokolosh, the bed is raised on bricks to keep the sleeper out of reach of the Tokolosh.

I took one English course in my 4 years of university taught by Jeffery blah blah blah, but the important part of the story is that the subject of the class was Teratology- officially it's the study of abnormalities, etc., but for the semester we called it the study of monsters. Lacking the inspiration to write like a normal person, I spent the semester debunking every myth and legend ole Jeff could throw at me. Jeff's final words to me were good riddance.

To continue my teratological trend and return from my tangent, the myth of raising the bed will now be explained. Raising the bed has scientific reasons for saving lives. The standard living quarters for Zulu people are round rondable huts with a central fireplace and poor ventilation. A fire left burning for the night fills the hut with C02, which is heavier than air and sinks. Sleeping on the ground (with the CO2) can lead to carbon dioxide poisoning which could leave the victim without any marks or evidence of cause of death, but death all the same. A bed placed on bricks will put the sleeper into more breathable air and voila, put your bed on bricks and the Tokoloshe won't get ya.

All of this was relevant after last weekend- every bed in the house we stayed at outside Clarens (and there were about 15 beds) were up on blocks. Despite this, the first night the Tokoloshe got me all the same- somehow I managed to sleep with a full multiplug extension cord under my back and woke up the next day walking like igor or the hunchback.

From Ash_Kayak_2011-02-19

Thrombosis & the Bootie Beer. No Escape.

2011-02-05T14:35:00.103-04:00

For the first time in my kayaking career I had the smallest boat. With playboating, this is a good thing because the larger the paddler/boat ratio, the easier it is to do sweet sweet tricks (to date I have only done 4 sweet sweet tricks in my lifetime). In creekboating, the desireable paddler/boat ratio is the opposite. So when surrounded by 20 more experienced paddlers in creekboats, I was slightly concerned on day one on the Thrombi river in Natal when I was the only one not in a creek boat- that's me standing in the middle, and that little yellow thing is the boat i was paddling..

From Thrombi Kayaking

The end of the day one leads to me drinking another bootie beer out of an even more siff boot. Even worse than this, I was thinking about the boat far too much and lost all confidence, electing to trail behind another paddler and follow them through the rapid. Further stupidity. One of the biggest things about whitewater kayaking for me is that when you're on the river it's a one way street and there's no brake. The only option is to take it as it comes and go with the flow (this was a pun. completely intentional. and i take the credit/glory for it). Putting myself in the ski-school line through the rapids changed all that and when we got to the waterfall the first day I had lost the fight before I even got out of my boat to scout it. The falls were nice, clean, soft landing, and on teh safe side of things and I literally threw my boat off the cliff and jumped into the pool below. This was only the half way point for day one and it left me mentally incompetent for the rest of the day.

As we got off the river, the people who had run the shuttle for us were waiting and I had a moment of confusion. They drove a land cruiser, the kids were barefoot, everyone had a beer, but I could understand them- they were speaking English rather than Afrikaans. That night we had a braai with everyone from the river and the driver of the cruiser threw a cooler onto the porch and explained that his sheep was sleeping inside and I should let him out. It was a full slaughtered sheep in the cooler. I think the highlight of the night was when someone threw a kidney on the grill thinking it was a chop. When it hit the grill, someone made a joke and the guy who brought the meat grabbed it (completely raw), took a bite out of it, and explained that dinner was ready. Sheep farmers from Natal are rough.

From Thrombi Kayaking

Day 2 and my head was in no better condition than the day before. I paddled a different boat, a creek boat to be exact, and more importantly took a deep breath and let the water push me whereever it wanted me to go. No follow the leader, no lines to make, no oops i missed it. Just push through whatever comes up. And no worries. What took 2 hours the first day we breezed through in 45 minutes the second and I was smiling the whole time. At this point, Thrombi was far and away my favorite river of South Africa. The end of day 2 was the waterfall. As we came around the bend, this time I went into it without giving myself an option to run or not. Despite almost going over perfectly sideways, a quick sweep stroke brought me right just as I crested teh top of the falls and I was off the falls and the monkey was off my back.

From Thrombi Kayaking

Pierre had no such luck with his second run- his boat got eaten by an overhang on the left side of the falls and was never seen or heard from again. We waiting about half an hour for it to come out and it never did. Pierre came out about 5 seconds after going over the falls; however he popped up about 5m downstream and with no boat.

From Thrombi Kayaking

I wish I'd taken a picture of the walk out from the bottom, but from this photo you can see where we came from. The walk took about 20 minutes and was an uphill non-stop trudge with an ancient battleship on my shoulders (the creekboat I paddled was probably 10 years old and about twice as heavy as current models).

From Thrombi Kayaking

Both to show what a true bootie beer looks like and to test out the HD video on my new camera (which I wisely did not paddle with), here is a video of the guy who lost his boat in the falls and went swimming.

From Thrombi Kayaking

USA to RSA & Triathlon & Bootie Beer

2011-02-01T01:50:00.058-04:00

A month and a half of processing at teh consulate and in the end my work visa was denied because I didn't have an SA police clearance. Knowing a SA police clearance takes 2 months to process, I began my response by freaking out. Luckily, they let me come back on a business visitor visa for 90 days while it processed. At this point I was like a postman- "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night" was going to keep me from boarding that plane.

I got off the plane at 8pm Friday night, ran a off road triathlon in Buffelsport at 7am saturday morning, 8km in joburg sunday morning, then 2 trips down the vaal on sunday afternoon.

The triathlon was a 400m swim, 17km mtn bike, and 6.3km run. I finished with a time of 224.37, but after the 2 hr mark I had less than nothing left in the tank and walked about half the run- what I get for a month and a half of sitting on my butt.

I've missed all the big flood waters on the Vaal, but it was still in flood stage at 1500m3/s so away we go. Everything was going hunky dory and I even managed a few cartwheels in the Nemesis, but this was not to last. I caught the tail of last rapid, Gatsien, flipped, and after 3 roll attempts I pulled my skirt and went for a swim. I haven't swum for at least a year and this was a looong swim- probably the better part of a km pulling my boat into the flooded trees. When I finally hit dirt it was like a castaway washing up on shore. To use the south african terminology, I was MILKED.

NOTE: I have not gone bald. pic stolen from google

That night I took my punishment on the chin, or rather all down my shirt, with a bootie beer- at the bar that night I drank a beer out of a kayak bootie someone had worn that day on the river.

LAXing: Victim of the Visa

2011-01-18T14:19:00.154-04:00

Friday around 530pm I had a revelation and realized that I was letting myself become a victim of my visa situation and it needed to end. 10 minutes later I was booked on the next flight the LA- 5am Saturday morning I was out of the snow and into 85F with sunny skies. Cassie seemed to have similar sentiments on life so I had a partner in crime for the weekend.

2 years is a long time to go without Mexican food and Playalitos filled in the massive void in my stomach with enchiladas rancheros and a big margarita- the best part about the whole meal was that Playalitos is on Hermosa beach and Hermosa beach is where Baywatch was filmed! Regardless of the fact that filming stopped 9 years ago, it still made lunch that much sweeter.

check the grill

First stop- Hollywood Boulevard and the Chinese Cinema

For the record, that's John Wayne. I stood in the footsteps of John Wayne. My fist was in the same imprint as John Wayne.

From Hollywood Blvd we made 2 wise decisions. The first was 3x4xlocos and 3 tickets to the Hollywood Homes tour. Needless to say this was a recipe for success and after seeing the houses of Dracula, Charlize Theron (for any South Africans out there, I did clarify the pronunciation of Theron and the origins thereof, though nobody understood what I was talking about), Morpheus from the Matrix, The Beckhams, Cruises, Bob Barker, Meg Ryan, Ben Stiller, Jackie Chan, and the Tree Lindsay Lohan crashed into.. the second one

One might think that this famous tree was the crown jewel of the cruise, but no, there was more. Michael Jackson's final residence. People still spray-paint his face on the walls outside and drop off flowers- I'm sure the new renters feel loved

The tour finished on Rodeo drive. Anyone planning a trip to LA in the near future should invite Cassie because she didn't get to experience the wonders of Rodeo Drive. Not at all. Vacationing with 2 guys has it's drawbacks

From the tour we went North to a place called Duke's (sadly not related to John Wayne) for more Enchiladas- this time enchiladas pescadas and what I can only assume were more margaritas because on the way home I saw fit to moon a guy in a ferarri while sitting in stop/go traffic getting back into town.

Day 3. Remnants from Day 2- a Challenge was accepted and a hand was shaken. The following picture explains it all.

And this next picture explains how drinking just over half gallon in 50 minutes will lead you to a short walk on a long beach and then straight into a strategically placed toilet to reverse teh process in 3 quick seconds . I did break my record from high school of 4.5 glasses, though that has an * next to it in the books because I did that in about 10 minutes- what can I say, with age comes maturity and with maturity comes patience (8 glasses to a gallon).

In 4 days on the beach I saw dolphin playing off the shore every day, no seagulls pooped on me, and I even got to go running in the mornings with all the plastic housewives of the rich and famous- ahh California.. how I miss Africa! Send me back!

Lost Horizon vs Lake O Woods

2011-01-02T09:56:00.058-04:00

Anyone who remembers the Lost Horizon book/film from 1937 remembers when they are hiking in the Himalayas in a snowstorm and end up going through a cave to the other side of the mountains and find themselves in Shangri La- the temperature is now tropical, the grass is green, water flowing, and birds singing, beautiful maidens frolicking naked in a waterfall.. Maybe I remember it differently than most. Regardless, when I went down to the lake this past weekend it was like opposite day (the 'lake' is a lake up in the Appalachian mountains in what resembles a big volcano cone that has been flooded).

I went over the mountain and the temperature dropped 15F, there was still snow, my teeth started chattering, the road was iced, the lake was half ice half slush, and there was no one in site.

Mattie and I went for a hike below the lake's dam which is the only side of the lake with a narrow valley/stream and a bunch of pine trees, meaning it is out of the sun and subtract another 5 degrees. No bear prints or anything exciting- loads of deer, some field mice, a couple raccoon prints, and a mushroom blowing its nose, but nothing that could eat me.

I read the instruction book on the new camera last night so I was playing around with that more than anything. The coolest feature so far was the HD video- I prepared a sample for your viewing pleasure:

I spent the rest of the day trying to keep warm and scavenge food in the cabin. Normally when i go to the lake the thought of bringing food wouldn't cross my mind because mom is there and she feeds me. No such luck and i ended up eating the remains of last year's smores (marshmallows and chocolate.. on saltines) i found in the freezer with some peppermint schnapps. the schnapps helped more than the fire

p.s. mom posted some new rules on the wall of the toilet in the basement- nothing to do with last summer i'm sure..

The Alexander Family Christmas Card

2010-12-25T10:40:00.001-04:00

Happy holidays 2010 to all.

Hope everyone has had a great year.

Even though we keep in touch with many of you throughout the year,

we look forward to hearing from you so here is our “year in review”.

We started the year with a big trip for Dan, James and me to South Africa to visit Scott and see the country. And see the country we did, from game drives, riding elephants and petting lions and riding a helicopter over Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe to visiting the Cape of Good Hope, visiting wineries and hiking on Table Mountain in Capetown. It was a great way to start to the year!

Dan is still at NIOSH. Things have been reorganized (again) and he is now assigned to an explosive group to concentrate on better understanding coal dust explosions and prevention. Research there seems to change emphasis when there is another mine accident.

In February, I started a new job with UPMC Rx Partners. We serve long term care and hospice patients. It has been a great move. I am working three days a week, no holidays or Sundays and only an occasional Saturday. It is an 8 hour day with a lunch break, I get to sit down for part of the job and no customer headaches. I feel extremely lucky to have found this job given today’s tight job market.

James finally found a house that he liked in Cassville, between Morgantown and the plant where he works, and was able to take advantage of the tax break for first time buyers, closing in June. It is a nice two bedroom house with an enclosed sun porch/office and most importantly a huge detached two car garage and workshop. He is very happy with his investment.

Scott is still in South Africa but was home for two weeks the end of July and will be home again at Christmas. He will probably be there at least until the end of 2011 when the project he is working on should be complete. He has not decided what he wants to do after that.

Dan’s mom Jeanette continues to enjoy living close by at Country Meadows and Dan’s brother Pat surprised us with a visit on his way to the Annapolis boat show in October.

We are still enjoying our lake house and having friends and relatives visit. When old friends Richard and Teresa Doerr decided to visit from Florida, Dan organized a reunion for coworkers from the Consol slurry days 25 years ago. We had over 30 old friends on a perfect day at the lake on July 3^rd .

While Scott was here in July, we had a mini family reunion with my sister Patty and daughter Emily, mom,& brother Butch. If any other family members would like to join us this summer, July 23rd/24th will be the date for our 2011 family reunion. Let me know if you are interested and I will send more information. We also hosted many of Scott’s friends the last weekend of July during the lake’s annual Lake O’Lympics. Although the Alexander cottage got lots of ribbons, we did not win the coveted trophy for the cottage with most participants. Darn. Maybe next year..

We drove to Atlanta for Thanksgiving, stopping in Beckley to pick up mom. James flew down just for the day and we enjoyed Patty’s cooking and visiting with them.

Dan is planning to meet Scott in Cairo, Egypt on December 14^th to view the pyramids and Luxor then they will fly here December 21^st. Merry Christmas!! Dan and Anna

The Caganer

2010-12-24T20:31:00.000-04:00

The Caganer, or Christmas Pooper, is a brilliant invention by the people of Catalonia. The statue is part of the traditional nativity scene and could symbolize a number of things- it seems unclear what the exact reason is, but that's not stopping anyone from putting a dude taking a dump in close proximity to baby Jesus.

The Caganer could symbolize fertility. this seemed like a bit of a stretch to me, but poop = fertilizer so i guess that works.

An alternate explanation is that this is an equality message about kings, peasants, etc. Some people say that everyone puts their pants on one leg at a time, but the Catalan message seems to be that Everybody Poops.

I still have no clue what either of these things has to do with Christmas, but you can be that next year there will be a Caganer in mom's nativity

I also read something about using a log to symbolize the poop.

First they put a face on one end and covering with a blanket. Next send the children out to beat it with sticks. last take the blanket off and the parents are supposed to hide candy under the blanket.

I've got no clue how to explain that one so we'll just call it a Christmas mystery

Making a Caganer of famous people has also caught on and is supposed to be flattering to be Caganerized..

It only took 2 years for Obama to break into the celebrity pooping market

6 pages of December 22nd Holiday People Watching

2010-12-22T17:22:00.095-04:00

Over the course of a 5 hour layover in JFK during the holiday season I managed to entertain myself by watching 6 pages in my journal worth of crazy people.

My experience with JFK is limited to one trip where i was confused beyond belief and almost didn't make my flight because the airport is a maze and designed to thwart terrorists through shear exhaustion rather than catching them before tehy board the planes.
This trip was no different. I got off an Egyptair flight in terminal 4 and waited 45 minutes to claim my bags in customs. Then I left customs and rechecked my bags at an egyptair desk. Then I waited another 20 minutes at a Delta desk to get a boarding pass (my connection).
"Go to gate 23C terminal 2"
"what terminal am i in?"
"4"
Next i had to walk out of security, upstairs, ride the metro 2 stops, follow sign downstairs, follow sign into parking lot, follow signs through parking lot, follow sign under highway, follow sign across another highway crosswalk, follow sign downstairs and across curbside dropoff, and finally follow sign into a new security queue and wait another 45 minutes to get into terminal 2. At this point i actually asked a security guard what just happened and how i was supposed to have made it from my plane to my new gate. apparently i hadn't made 1 wrong turn, and a time of approx 2 hours to TRANSFER within the same airport is actually pretty quick..

While in security, i saw a guy who looked like he was about 30 (Subject A). He was wearing a license plate on a shiny chrome chain around his neck.

While sitting in my new terminal, a drunk guy (Subject B) stumbled into a chair next to me and proceeded to eat a Wendy's burger. 1/2 way through the patty fell onto his lap. it sat there for about 15 seconds while he munched, then fell to the floor. He was not aware and continued eating a pattyless burger while he had a glob of mayonnaise on his stomach. I think he realized he should go, so he stood up and went to find the toilet, leaving his backpack at the seat. En route, he fell into an indian on a pay phone who had her back to him and screamed at the top of her lungs when he hit her. This being an airport, everyone within a 10 mile radius stopped and starred, but modern airport decorum prevented anyone from helping. She turned around and tried to ignore him as he patted her on the back and told her she was ok, then continued merrily on his way. While all of this was happening, a guy sitting next to the lonely backpack reported a suspicious bag to security who carted it off to the bomb squad in teh basement.

When i first sat down, a somewhat attractive girl kept looking at me with those 'how you doin' eyes (note she was wearing on of those gucci pajama suits- i couldn't see if the feet were attached), so i couldn't help but smile back- my other option was to laugh because she happened to be sitting at the departures for Paris. I've never wondered why the rest of the world gets the stereotypes of Americans they do.

Shortly after Subject B went to the bathroom, I glanced back at Sleepover Barbie. She was wrist deep in her nasal cavity, then having found what she was looking for, looked at it, realized there were people all around and this wasn't PC, casually ran her hand through her hair to save her treasure for later.

At this point, Subject B emerged from the toilet with a big grin on his face and started teh excitement all over again. He tried to board his plane for Berlin with his friends (hadn't noticed his backpack was kidnapped by the police). This is when security caught up with him, and a holiday was not in teh cards for him this Christmas. He even tried crying but it was a hot woman cop and they don't take no shit from no one. Soon 3 more coppers joined the party and forced him to sit down so he didn't hurt himself. The cops then proceeded to tease him for 1/2 hour while his friends said 'happy Christmas' and boarded the plane anyway. A paramedic finally arrived and they strapped him to a gurney with seatblets. The medic and police then sat around discussing in detail how disappointed they were that he didn't try and escape and there was no blood- the holidays are so boring. I hope this guy appreciates the amount of time these cops/EMS have wasted on the whole ordeal- they've essentially given him 1.5 hours and an ambulance ride to sober up before the BAC test at the hospital for his court case..

So a few hours of entertainment and I was finally on the last leg of the trip

Egypt: 5 Days by the Nile

2010-12-15T18:21:00.329-04:00

5 days by the Nile in Cairo and Egypt sounded like a good way to jump out of work a week early and as my Old Man works for Big Brother, Dad met up for the trip

The trip began in Cairo with a day visiting the Egyptian museum and some old churches in Old Cairo. The Egyptian museum was a huge repository for anything dug up in Egypt and there was everything from the actual mummies to the sarcophagus and burial tomb of Tutankhamen. I'm not sure if the death mask we saw was the real death mask Tutankhamen was buried with because someone said it was on a world tour, but i'm going to pretend because it was impressive- a huge hunking mass of gold. then another. then another. 3 coffins like those little russian dolls, one inside the other. outside that there were another 3 sarcophagus.
The rest of teh museum was full of 3-4000(?) years of artifacts and it looked like they were running out of room to put things- our guide, Noha, told us there was a basement piled with more with nowhere to display them.

Some thoughts from the egyptian museum
-after the first 10 minutes it was like groundhog day walking through there- every room looked the same and there was no escape. Noha (012-3933581) noticed this and by the end she would use my name when talking about stuff any time she caught me not paying attention- like someone smacking me with a wooden spoon
-got the impression the first pharoah's mom tried reverse psychology with 'get busy living or get busy dying' and it failed. miserably. the next 30-40 centuries were spent preparing for funerals
-dwarves are highly praised for their hard work and any woman would be proud (see pride on her face) to be married to one

-cartouches were like name tags for kings and are seen all over the place. reading a cartouche is designed to confuse the hell out of you. you can read it left to right, right to left, top to bottom, inside to outside.. from what i gather, the name is written to give preference to the king over any symbol used in spelling his name- i.e. if there's a bird in his name, you put the bird on the bottom of the cartouche because you wouldn't want it shitting on his head

From Egyptian Holiday 2010

-black and gold are the symbol for death. i mentioned to Noha that she had a gold wedding ring and didn't she think that was ironic. she rebutted with the fact that the wedding ring originated in egypt and symbolizes eternity because the is no beginning or end.. I considered asking if this meant you're screwed for all eternity, but Noha scared me a little too much

Our next stop was the Citadel of Saladin in Old Cairo.

From Egyptian Holiday 2010

Noha used this opportunity to give us a brief overview of Islam while we sat in the mosque. She explained that the word Islam means to submit to the will of God. I sat I listened quietly but decided Islam was not for me. Dad decided to argue science. By the end, Dad also was not converted but he did submit to the will of Noha and agreed to disagree by learning to keep his mouth shut.

From Egyptian Holiday 2010

We went to a few other churches this day but I didn't come for churches. I cam for pyramids, sand dunes, baba genouch, pigeon, and that unique acrid third world smell. This smell was an interesting discovery- Dad viewed it as a thick haze of human waste which made him sick. I realized that the combination of garbage, raw sewage, and body odor all stirred together with a nice hot sun smells oddly sweet and homey to me now

That night we had dinner at a place called Falfell in Giza just on the outside of the Great Pyramid. I had something called Bessar, which i thought was a falafel but turned out to be some kind of green pastey thing with fried onions on top and was amazing. The main course is shown in the picture above- Stuffed Pigeon! Reference blog entry from 7 January 2007 when i was "shite on" by a pigeon in Covent Garden. Revenge tasted like Thanksgiving Turkey.

This is a pic of an entrepreneurial Egyptian's pigeon castle- they live in teh holes but the inside has a walkway, so the owner can grab them at night before they can get away. Not a bad idea, but experience tells me that pigeons poop and it's probably best that pooping also remains someone else's problem, so I'll live the pigeon castles to the Egyptains.

As I finished with the Pigeon, the owner walked over to Dad and I and convinced us to go to the night market down the street. The night market proved to be a perfume parlor in the basement of the building behind the restaurant which with a full belly and one beer down, we promptly fell into (Dad's a light weight). In the true egyptain custom, we had mint tea while Karam tried to convince us that his perfume would do everything from make you healthy to keep things spicy in the bedroom. His secret was that his perfume is all natural oils- no alcohol additives like storebought perfume because it is made by Muslims. I won't tell you who bought some, but being doused with many different strains of his magical elixors, one of us walked up the stairs from his basement dungeon smelling like 5 different women from cheap brothel and carrying a box of oily goo. All respectable like of course.

From there things got interesting. I'm not at liberty to say what happened and I'll take it to my grave, but I will say that we didn't get back from the hospital until 2am because Dad is stupid.

Day 2 was to be more exciting than D1. Saqqara was the very first pyramid and is also known as the Step Pyramid- see pic below

Everyone has theories about how the pyramids were built, but I'm convinced it was elephants. lots of elephants. Those blocks weigh upwards of 15T/piece.

From Egyptian Holiday 2010

In addition to seeing Saqqara, we also became famous by posing with the Observer Reporter newspaper from back in Pittsburgh- according to Dad, they will post our pic in teh newspaper now!

Saqqara was also where baksheesh hit us. We'd had limited experience the day before, and I'm used to tipping car guards, etc., but Egyptians have this whole tipping thing down to a horrible, miserable, artful science. A guy will stand in the most photogenic spot, knowing that people will want to take a picture there, then when you catch him in the picture he'll accost you until you pay him for taking his picture. If you're dumb enough to let him put his head scarf on you, well then you're pretty much going to give him the deed to your house in exchange

From Egyptian Holiday 2010

If i knew Arabic i would have swore at him (my Dad for encouraging this). Some people think the buzz words to know in a foreign language are 'doctor' or 'toilet' or 'food'. I disagree. I can mime pretty well, but there's no substitute for the effect of a good swear word. not one.

On to the Great Pyramids of Giza

From Egyptian Holiday 2010

there are 3 pyramids which you see in all the pictures of Egypt. Up until this trip, I didn't really think any more pyramids even existed. Noha explained that there were a few hundred pyramids all over the west bank but these 3 were just the biggest and best preserved- and what luck, you can even go inside through the robber's entrance. The robber's entrance was cut into the side of the pyramid about 5m from the base, so you must climb up to get in. they've cut stairs into the blocks and in an effort to further impress the size of the blocks, I noted each block was equivalent to 5 stairs

Normally when in a cave/mine or engulfed in some fashion by the earth, the temperature drops down to 50F. This time instead of going down into the pyramid, we went up. Up to within 15m of the top of the 146m pyramid and there was an eery, hot, and musty feeling in the crypt, compounded by the fact that when i started knocking on walls trying to find a secret passage I realized that every wall in every direction was solid granite blocks, 5 steps high.

From Egyptian Holiday 2010

The whole way up the nile we saw houses that were half finished and that seemed to have many different decorators. Our next guide explained that this was one big family and that the original builder starts the next level for his children, then leaves it for them to finish when they get married. All of Egypt was building 5 story shells, then only finishing the first floor. I'd be curious to see if the whole house was finished in 20 years, but then shouldn't there be some that are finished now?

From Egyptian Holiday 2010

I also admired whoever had the idea to put 2 subwoofers on a vespa- if this was a budweiser commercial, someone would be saying "We salute you Mr Vespa Subwoofer Man"

Before we jumped the train for Luxor, we had tea at a hookah bar outside the train station. This was only significant because it was another opportunity for mint tea and to be "shite on" by another pigeon. If this wasn't Karma slapping me in the face I don't know what is. Day 1 I eat a pigeon for dinner. Day 2 his cousin poops on me.
Our driver tried to explain to me that this means I will get lots of money, new clothes, and the "ladies will find you irresistible" but any girl attracted to a guy covered in pigeon shit is not the girl for me. I passed on the pigeon for the rest of the trip.

Day 3 we woke on the train in Luxor. By we I mean I woke up, Dad didn't sleep much. For my first overland train journey outside Europe, I was hooked. Willie Nelson had it right with the City of New Orleans:

Mothers with their babes asleep,
Are rockin' to the gentle beat
And the rhythm of the rails is all they feel.

I slept from the moment my head hit the pillow until the sun came up.  Best night's sleep of the entire trip.

When we got to Luxor we went to the temple of Karnak and then later to Luxor temple.
The temple of Karnak is supposed to be one of the largest palace complexes, but the answer to the Egyptian question was also revealed inside- a mud brick wall was still partially standing next to the limestone palace walls- this is thought the be a ramp used to bring bricks up to the wall. Questions answered.

From Egyptian Holiday 2010

After Luxor temple on Day 3, I wrote the following in my notebook: "if i see another temple i will scream"
Day 4 I wrote the following: "I screamed"

Day 4 we went to the Valley of the Kings (no photos again). There were 63 tombs in the valley of the kings. 62 have been found so far, with only Tutankhamen's tomb untouched by thieves. Apparently Tutankhamen didn't really do anythign special aside from being 9 when he took the throne, then dying at 19. The reason everyone knows his name, aside from the fact that it's fun to say, is that his tomb was untouched and everyone else's was empty. End of story.

And now for the only authentic looking picture I took the entire trip

From Egyptian Holiday 2010

This was taken at some Queen's burial preparation temple outside the Valley of the Kings. The story goes that she really pissed her son off, the rightful Pharaoh. so he had her killed and destroyed the majority of her temple, and didn't let her be buried in her tomb in teh valley of the Kings- basically damning her for all eternity.

Dad tried to hire a 'racing felucca' but ended up with something closer to a tug boat. I wrote the Luxor/Karnak/Valley of Kings bit on an hour's cruise thinking this is just like how Gilligan's Island started out when I heard dad getting an Arabic lesson from our cross eyed captain- I realized this was nothing like Gilligan's Island- the professor would never have got on this boat.

From Egyptian Holiday 2010

Onward to the SNOWS OF PITTSBURGH

World Aids Day

2010-12-04T09:52:00.001-04:00

Wednesday was world Aids day and the mine I'm working on was no exception. A braai was organized in the middle of the mine complete with a stage, tent, and sound system. Everyone from the laborers to the boss man arrived and started looking around wondering what happens next- including the organizers. After 15 minutes of talking to your neighbor and condoms were passed out, someone had to say something, so a few people took turns. All of them could speak english, I could understand them, but I'm not sure if I heard one coherent sentence the entire time. Then a Christian choir got on stage to indoctrinate Christianity into the masses, and they sang (in zulu or xhosa or tswana) and started dancing. This was a bit exciting because the stage that was erected wasn't meant for dancing and the important poeple (mine manager, director, etc) were seated on the stage. When the dancing started, the whole stage bounced and these dudes had to hold on to their chairs to stay upright. Then the stage started sagging and they jumped off.

The event also had a big circus tent set up over the stage and central seating area in the middle of the flat sandfilled desert. 15 minutes before the thing started, a storm was coming in and they decided to take the tent down so it wouldn't fly away. They left the 'poles' in the ground. These poles were 2m x 3cm diameter rebar rods spaced at 2m and were pounded into a compacted bif layer. Bif is an acronym for Banded Iron Formation. So to paint a better picture, they put 300 people inside a circle of 2mx3cm poles spaced 2m apart pouneded into a base of material high in iron content. With a lightning storm approaching.

One part of the job involves earthing (grounding for the yanks) the steel structures, and this means putting earth spikes into the ground so that if lightning were to strike it would follow that route. Sometimes using many spikes in a formation called an earth mat. Needless to say, as I tried to discern the message of aids day, I realized that the combination of the storm approaching and a manmade lightning rod surrounding 300 people might pose a more immediate danger than aids. I looked at my watch and was very thankful it was an hour until my plane left so escape was near

Swaziland Spring Paddle

2010-11-13T14:49:00.051-04:00

I'm finally back on the water again. last weekend in Parys and now I've just come back from paddling in Swaziland.

We left joburg at 4pm with a beeline to the border for the gate closing at 10.

From Swaziland Kayak Usutu Nov 2010

We would have left closer to 330, but we managed to put all the boats on, then realize the fence was too low to drive out. so we took them all off again

From Swaziland Kayak Usutu Nov 2010

930 we strolled through the border and after another hour's foggy drive we made it to the backpacker's just in time to pass out long enough to wake up to the morning. Swaziland has mountains, rivers, trees, animals, and from what i experienced smiling people with enough time on their hands to enjoy life. We stayed Sondeza backpackers which is basically a farm with cows, goats, and horses neatly segregated to make a farmer proud. then fill the rest with impala, zebra, wildabeast, warthogs, and let them run free/jump the fences and there's Sondeza.

From Swaziland Kayak Usutu Nov 2010

Day 1 we added 1 extra paddler to the 5 we had already, added a driver, then piled everything into the Pajero and off we went on our merry way. the river is supposed to have some game around it and a few Ngwenya (crocs), but all we saw were a few goats and cows

We paddled the Usutu river- mostly class 2 with a few class 3-4 and a friendly waterfall to boot.

From Swaziland Kayak Usutu Nov 2010

This was the first waterfall of any respective height i've run for 6 or 7 years, so at the top i confess i looked at horizon line and took a very deep breath. When we scouted from the top, i remembered the training of my original kayak guru Jeff Prycl telling me the last stroke is in the hips- if i use my arms the boat will rotate and i'll land skew.

From Swaziland Kayak Usutu Nov 2010

sorry to disappoint you Jeff.

As teh semi-relevant "Enter the Dragon" term goes, day 2 brought with it a lazy morning with a breakfast meant to put all participants in a coma, then back to the rivers for a shorter section with some interesting runs and a few tricky bits, but all in all another lekker dag

From Swaziland Kayak Usutu Nov 2010

I can't take credit for the next shots as they are all Luke's, but these are the best summary of a guy we met there named Ward. Ward's nickname is 12C, as in mental Ward 12C..

From Swaziland Kayak Usutu Nov 2010

That's a Seven2 paddle he's just broken. I have a seven2 in the states and they're a great paddle, but the company went out of business a few years ago and anyone that still has one babies them in hopes they will live forever.. Ward's did not.

Sometimes it pays to have friends in high (low?) places like the Fluid factory- they set me up with a Fluid Detox and no worries the whole trip. Better still, the size small comes out in January and I've been promised #10 off the line (apparently the first few may have a 'learning curve' for the manufacturers..)

From Swaziland Kayak Usutu Nov 2010

The saying ride'em hard and put'em up wet doesn't just apply to rodeos and horses and i promise the state of teh car when we arrived back in Joburg at sunday night was no exception. 2245 is the perfect time to end a weekend of paddling and i don't know about everyone else but next weekend is good for me.

More Speed Fines

2010-11-10T05:26:00.000-04:00

this month alone i've had 2 speed fines from these fixed cameras totaling R1875 along with what we'll lovingly call a 'spot fine' of another R50. these things used to be comical but at this point i think i've probably paid about R2500 in fines this year and something's gotta change.. maybe a radar detector.. otherwise i'm going to have to start driving the speed limit

NFKC

2010-11-07T14:20:00.029-04:00

NFKC, otherwise known as the National Freestyle Kayak Competition, was held in Parys, Freestate South Africa. Freestyle kayaking is whitewater kayaking but trying to do tricks at the same time- somewhat like springboard diving or flatland cycling- spins/cartwheels/stalls/flips/etc.

I didn't realize what i was getting in to when i came to Parys, i got in the car Saturday morning based on a friend saying "i've got a boat for you and there's a festival this weekend- be at Parys by 11"
50ish people showed up for the competition, the competition being on sunday and everyone arriving saturday. Everyone arrived Saturday to kayak in afternoon, and then have a party at an old abandoned quarry that night (in SA they hold the party before the competition to make it more interesting wtih 50 people trying to cope with a hangover on a river in teh hot sun). This was a proper party sponsored by the suppliers including a DJ, a kayak cut in 1/2 to use as a funnel, all thrown in a field above a quarry- never happen in teh states.

I ended up entering the intermediate category- this basically meant that though I couldn't do any 'sweet tricks,' i wasn't going to pop my skirt and swim. So with some spins and accidental squirts I made it into the 'finals,' which meant cutting from 10 people down to 3. I probably got 3rd, but because they only actually announced the winner, i'm going to say i came in 2nd.

from this pic it almost looks like i can do a flip.. the next pic i'm falling over sideways but that's beside the point

Duck Hunting and a Pigeon Shoot

2010-10-23T03:50:00.001-03:00

This weekend I had another escape from Joburg with a duck/goose shoot in middleburg. This time i was a bit smarter and stayed overnight in middleburg, so instead of a 1am departure i had the luxury of sleeping to 230.
After 5 hours of shooting we had a dozen yellow billed ducks, whistling ducks, egyptian geese, and 1 spurwing (below). The spurwing is a huge gooseish thing aptly named for a spur or claw on the edge of its wing. 3 shots between 2 of us brought it down to the lake, but when the dogs went to retrieve it somehow the bird had the energy to dive like a loon and come up 10m away- one more shot and there it is.

From Duck Hunt_Middleburg Pans

After the ducks stopped flying we moved over into the fields and one hour, a case of shells, 3 tired dogs, and a sore shoulder later we had about 12kgs of pigeons and threw in the towel.

From Duck Hunt_Middleburg Pans

All the extra ducks and pigeons went to a friend's housekeeper in middleburg who cleans them and sells them, but this time I kept 3 ducks and had another go at cleaning them in the back garden when I got home. Fortunately for the neighbors, I'm getting better (note that I'm purely self taught in this department). Of the 3, i had one almost perfect, one half way decent, and that middle one was in pieces.. I had a secret up my sleeve this time though- Tiger Balm. Tiger Balm is an Icy Hot type salve meant for sore muscles, etc and includes that deep heat burn when applied. I put Tiger Balm up my nose and after I stopped crying, I couldn't smell anything from inside the birds- all clear. According the my sources, the next step is to put the birds in the refrigerator for a few days and then the feathers will come off easily. I think I'll be enlisting Chylot's help with the cooking (Chylot is my Zimbabwean maid and she took all the ducks last time), but if I live through it I'll post the recipe.

Potchefstroom Triathlon

2010-10-17T17:04:00.005-03:00

Overall	Position Category	Surname	Name	Category	Institution Type	Institution Name	Gender	Duration	Swim; Bike; Run
281	70	Alexander	Scott	20-29 M			M	1:36:52	0:13:37; 0:51:30; 0:31:44

total/swim/run/bike

1:36:52

0:13:37; 0:51:30; 0:31:44

I did a sprint triathlon today and there's my time. 600m swim, 21.5km road bike, 5km run. but remember, for some reason this race was 21.5km instead of the standard 20km, and with some quick assumptions of my lightning fast speed, that means i can subtract approx 4min from that time and put myself back down to 1:32:52, which compared with my time from the Bucknell triatholon on 24 April 2008 (1:33:23), i've actually improved by a whopping 31 seconds over the past 2 years.. just think how fast i'll be when i turn 100

Pongola Dam Tiger Fishing

2010-10-09T15:46:00.085-03:00

The weekend started on a runway in joburg on thursday when our plane out to the Northern Cape couldn't take off (my second failed attempt at flying on this 6 seater plane). By a weird twist of events, this lead to an invitation to go Tiger Fishing on friday. early on friday. early as in a joburg departure at 01:15am friday morning, putting me on a boat in the middle of the Pongola Dam looking at the border with Swaziland by 10:00.

The dam and surrounding game park is the 5th largest dam in SA, but more importantly one of the oldest game reserves in SA- the plus side being that there are no predators. As we drove up to the camp site and parked the truck, oen of the guys who had been at the dam the whole week pointed to a pile of Rhino dung 10m away- "3 of them came through last night- just remember to mooovvveee slllloowww if they come back". No fences inside the park.

From Tiger Fishing_Pongola Dam

From the boat, it was like a boat cruise through Kruger- Rhino, giraffe, hippo, warthog, impala, enjala, kudu, monkey, crocodiles, barbar (Catfish), tiger fish,

and at one point while anchored in the middle of the dam 1/2km from shore, a boomslang tried repeatedly to swim onto the boat but was flung away with the end of a fishing rod (a boomslang is an extremely poisonous snake above)

From Tiger Fishing_Pongola Dam

So we spent 2 days fishing for Tiger Fish on the dam- we caught more Barbar than anything, but between 4 barbar (a couple above, the larger 4.5kg and the length of my leg), I caught my first Tier - 2.5kg.

From Tiger Fishing_Pongola Dam

The name Tiger comes from the black stripes like a tiger down the side, but also from the teeth. I wasn't expecting these teeth- big, sharp, and the whole time the fish is chomping at anything an everything

From Tiger Fishing_Pongola Dam

In addition to the fish, the other highlight of the weekend was that the rain finally came

From Tiger Fishing_Pongola Dam

The lightning started a veld fire on the other side of the lake, but with the rain and wind coming through shortly after it only lasted about 20minutes.

In true SA spirit, the food for the 3 days I was there was meat. lots of meat. Braai (bbq) for dinner. braai for breakfast. cold leftover braaimeat on the boat for lunch. braai for dinner the next night. if the meat wasn't so good i would complain, but all the guys broguht meat from their own farms or friends and who was i to complain.

As both a good morning and good night, a warthog was outside my tent Saturday morning when i woke up and left us a present when we got back from fishing

From Tiger Fishing_Pongola Dam

With no predators in the park, this warthog had grown big and old with some of the biggest tusks i've seen

From Tiger Fishing_Pongola Dam

He had a taste for the bread mix we left out on the table, and when we got back all that was left was hoof prints

And now I would like to end with a haiku I wrote myself from 2 nights croc-spotting by the shore - spotting flashlights have many uses. bock = general term for antelope, in this case impala

A croc has red eyes

The thirsty bock has green eyes

Bock inside croc. Red

RAIN

2010-10-06T16:17:00.000-03:00

I've been waiting almost long enough to have a baby for rain. January is the last time I remember rains in SA and I've been waiting ever since. I went back to the states for 2 weeks looking for rain and nothing but blue skies for july

The sky has been overcast and humid in Joburg for almost a month, but no rain. a few drops last weekend in Bloemfontein and now we had almost 5 minutes of rain tonight so I sat in a lawn chair in the back garden. Guns 'N Roses had it right- we're one month away from the real rain of November

Bloemfontein

2010-10-02T16:17:00.010-03:00

There's many random towns in South Africa. Small towns that are in the middle of nowhere and seem to have no purpose but for farmers. Bloemfontein is one of those towns, but somehow it's got 370,000 people. When we got off the highway, we realized no one knew where the stadium was. then we looked up. there it was. there's not much in Bloem even 1/2 as tall as the lights on the stadium, so you know where it is from anywhere in the city.

The Gauteng Lions played the Vrystaad Cheetahs on saturday for a spot in the Semi Finals of the Currie Cup and for reason unknow I decided to jump on the bandwagon (in this case 5 guys in a VW polo) and head down to Bloem for the game. Honestly I'm about as apathetic about Rugby as american football, but the food is good, beer is cheap, and I've never had front row 50 yard line seats that only cost R50 ($7). I should clarify that rather than beer, we went local with a night of double brandy and cokes, a 'proper drink.'
In the end the Cheetahs won. This was probably for the best because 5 guys wearing red lions jerseys in the middle of 370,000 orange and cheetah printed boers might not have been the best idea.
On the plus side, I did get to practice my Afrikaans a bit- a bar called the Mystic Boer was home for the night and everything that goes with the name was lurking inside.

The fact that a soutie Americanse dat kan Afrikaans praat meant that I could hit on every girl who turned out to be the girlfriend of a 6'6" 120kg afrikaner and somehow come out of it with a free drink. The girls of Bloem were a conundrum- the hottest girls in south africa, and the hotter the girl the bigger the guy's bop (this means beer belly in american). Sunday was a painful morning and I can't think of any reason to go back to Bloem until I've forgotten about this trip, but i think there's another game in the Shark Tank in Durban this weekend.. soo Go Sharks

Cookoff & Uncultured Heathens

2010-09-23T09:52:00.000-03:00

I baked a pumpkin pie for a cookoff at work and those uncultured heathens couldn't get over the fact that A) I cooked and B) what's pumpkin doing in a pie? I probably don't need to mention that I didn't win

Zim Political Education

2010-09-13T12:10:00.000-03:00

Chylot is from Zimbabwe and she's just returned from 2 weeks back in Bulowayo and now needs to renew her visa to stay in SA. I recently read on BBC that SA would begin deporting Zimbabweans again after a period of semi-amnesty due to the political conditions in the country. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1604895.stm

after speaking with Chylot, she laughed, as she does about things of this nature, and explained what they believe is Bob's plan- the elections are coming up. This election was a condition of the current power-sharing agreement in which Mugabe and Tsvangairai have been in relative stalemate since late 2008 (Tsvangairai had the majority, but Mugabe refused to recognize this). The people of Zim assume Mugabe has requested the visas be denied. This way, all the Zimbos in SA will have to return for the election in 3 months. In an effort to make these elections more 'free and fair', when you vote you will now have your fingerprint scanned immediately after to prevent people from voting more than once. In order to reapply for a SA visa after the elections, a fingerprint is needed. There is speculation to what is required for Ziim to allow you to get a SA visa. "Bob's a smart old guy.." Chylot chidded as she mentioned she would not be voting for Mugabe

in other news, after 10 yrs of operation, 4 US Aids workers have been arrested for opening an Aids clinic without the proper license *coughs* refusing to bribe *coughs*
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-11280500

21km of Quarter Century Crisis

2010-09-12T06:56:00.000-03:00

I am officially a Quarter Century Old today.

It is 09:42 in the morning and as a quarter-life crisis, on Friday I decided that on the big day I should run my first 21km (half marathon) in a race rated 4.5/5 for difficulty. With a goal of 6min/km (2hrs 6min) and no walking, I proved that I'm not quite an old man yet- 1:56:57. I can barely walk, I've spent the past hr icing my knee, I've exceeded IB Profen's recommended dosage, and I will be passing out after finishing this sentence, but BRING ON THE NEXT 25 YEARS

results to be posted at www.rockies.co.za

Long Road Home

2010-07-23T15:43:00.008-03:00

my first stop when i got back to the states was my parent's lake house

½ way across the lake, breathing heavily, I stopped swimming and thought about where I was.

930am and 8 hours ago I was getting off a plane in the States
6pm and 1 day 5 hours ago I boarded a plane in South Africa
4am and 1 day 19 hours ago I started my drive from the kalahari to pittsburgh
10pm and 2 days 1 hour ago I was an accessory to breaking and entering on a farm in the desert

This thought process had an obvious destination. When I was 13 I went to boy scout camp. One of my many merit badges (that’s right, I said many) was lifesaving, and one of the qualifications was to tread water for 20min without stopping. One of the guys in my Lifesaving course was fat. Really fat. So fat that he could float on water with the greatest of ease. 5 minutes into treading water he went to sleep. Someone had to wake him up when the 20min was over.

This led me to wishing I was fat. I was exhausted. and a few hundred feet from shore

TIA Moment: BnE

2010-07-21T20:28:00.009-03:00

BnE is short for Breaking and Entering. At 2200 on a Wednesday night, I became an accessory.

When I go to site, I park my car at a farmhouse outside the mine is rented from a farmer as informal offices. Apparently someone stole some of the farmer’s sheep during the day, and he was none too pleased. Blaming the mine, he proceeded to lock the gate to the farmhouse (including the farmhouse car park). He locked the gate with not 1 but 3 chains/locks and told the security guard that if anyone broke the lock he was going to be extremely displeased and express his displeasure with physical harm, though with much more verbose Afrikaans. When finished commissioning for the night and got back to the farmhouse to pick up the cars it was 2130. After a series of phone calls to the mine managers, etc. it was determined that security was to break the locks. Security was scared of the farmer and disappeared. Another contractor showed up, learned of the predicament, grabbed a piece of scrap steel from his bakkie and practiced his cricket swing.

Not wanting the security guard to get in trouble for this, i gave him my name and phone number before they let us leave.

The next day I had an interesting phone call from the mine, though luckily there was much laughter coming from the other end of the line.

Bespoediging

2010-06-15T16:18:00.000-03:00

Thought some of you out there might enjoy this one- I got my 6th
speeding fine in the past year and a half in south africa. this one
for 116kph in a 100kph- roughly 10 miles over speed limit. R200 fine.
That's about 25 USD.

To top it off, so many people just ignore fines that they decided to give you half off if you actually pay the fine

World Cup Opening Concert

2010-06-11T15:28:00.003-03:00

A couple months ago, I got an email. I didn't read much into it, but I did catch the fact that Shakira was coming to south africa and sending a positive response indicating would go see her. somehow, some way, i would see shakira before she left SA.

and here we are.

here's the game plan: "if we get lost, meet by the toilet we pissed at when we got here. break"

Desmund Tutu did one of the presentations at the concert, and i've gotta say the guy has a personality all his own. I read a quick bio, and from a nobel piece prize to chairing the truth and reconciliation commission to chairing, i would never expect to see the old dude up there dancin around the stage- at 79, he reminded me of mick jagger

I finally got to see shakira. her hips don't lie.

Day 2 of the world cup festivities included the opening ceremony and Bafana Bafana vs Mehicooo

As one of the BIGGEST things that has ever happened in Soweto, i found it extremely comical to see a giant dung beetle pushing around a soccer ball like it pushes.. dung. Let the games begin!!

Soccer Fever Begins: SA vs Denmark

2010-06-05T04:21:00.004-03:00

World cup fever is starting a week early with SA/Denmark at a stadium somewhere west of Pretoria. a stadium located in the middle of an upscale township. This was a crazy game and somehow South Africa even won- according to Fifa SA is ranked 86th in the world vs Denmark's 36, but in the last minutes of the game SA broke the stalemate and threw one up on the board. In my professional opinion, SA needs a midfield- their defense is good, goalie needs to stay in the goal and not run away, but defense is good. nothing between the defense and strikers. I'm not convinced SA is the better team (yet), but the European countries are in for a shock with the SA crowds. big shock. when the whole crowd starts chanting in an African language you don't understand, it must be intimidating. "te ba ka mo o eh, te ba ka mo o eh" = block it, block it according to the guy sitting next to me. when a woman brings an impala head, it must be intimidating. when the crowd decides, 'yep, this seems like the right time to try and knock the stadium down' and starts jumping up and down in unison, it must be intimidating- the fans did this in brazil a few years ago and the bleachers collapsed http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/26/2101221.htm

after the match we walked straight across the street into a shabeen- my first shabeen since coming to SA in oct 2008! after buying 10 qts, the lady told us we had to drink them right there and give her the bottles back. the night spiraled out of control after that. ready or not world cup here we come

A hunting we will go

2010-05-29T05:36:00.037-03:00

I ate a piece of raw guinea fowl liver. raw as in not cooked. not on a fork. not in a bowl. raw as in ripped from a dead bird 's insides to my hand to my mouth.

For the past couple months I've my client's company director has been telling me about bird hunting and how much fun it is and how I need to get out there and try it. Last week was put up or shut up. I wasn't expecting him to call me at 7am on saturday morning telling me there's a hunting trip next weekend and I'm going. I really wasn't expecting him to call my boss and say, "Scott has the day off on friday. business meeting."

My first hunting experience was in Rankeen's Pass North of Joburg hunting guinea fowl. We left friday morning and came back saturday night. All in all, i bagged 4 guinea fowl, though i'm claiming it was 5- one hit the ground running. In any case, bird hunting went well, i didn't shoot anyone's dog, so they declared it a successful first hunt. Unfortunately, they gave me a stupid story about rights of passage and junk like that. I ate the liver to shut them up. When they came after me with blood trying to paint my face I told them in no uncertain terms that wasn't going to happen. I think i enjoyed the bird hunting because there was no sitting around waiting. The whole time is walking through the bush with dogs waiting for a bird to come flying at your head and try to shoot it before it gets away. Never a dull moment.

Friday night we stayed out in the bush and after braaing meat, the jackals started coming around and howling. First time they've ever been to me and they howled with each other. Different than a wolf, more like a pack squealing high pitched cries- similar to an old roommate's miniature dachshund puppy named daisy.
Also during this hunt and while walking through the fields, I was on foot with wild boar and a Sable antelope (don't shoot the sable.. unless you've got R120,000. then DEFINITELY shoot the sable!!)

Trekking, a Women's Festival, and ski resorts in the off season

2010-05-09T12:31:00.009-03:00

With a public holiday coming up, a quick call to to a backpackers hostel just outside the Drakensburg landed 2 friends and I at a Women's Festival. On the phone, to quote, "will there be anything for.. 3 straight guys to do during this festival?" let's just say they lied. Beat poetry from one lover to another, no matter what the sex, is not meant for the public. The other aspect of Women's Festival was hippies. We crawled out of the women's festival tent and back in to the bar to spend the rest of the night on the pool table with the hippies and locals

From Drankensburg & Lesotho - April 2010

We started day 2 bright and early and up Cathedral Peak, which according to the guidebook is one of the few EXTREME, we ascended about 2000m in 12km. Then back again.

From Drankensburg & Lesotho - April 2010

This was the only sunny day of the weekend, but as soon as we left the car park the peaks became covered in mist, making the visibility about 20m.

From Drankensburg & Lesotho - April 2010

Making the Y in the trail just below the summit an interesting decision. We chose the path less traveled by, and as we reached the summit, the clouds parted.

From Drankensburg & Lesotho - April 2010

That small cairn is just proof we were not the first to make this mistake.

What's a long weekend without skipping the country- with Lesotho just on the other side of Clarens, we jumped in the car and bid farwell to the empowered women. After a brief stop in the "Art Mecca of the Free State" (Clarens Brewery), we made it across the border- narrowly escaping border patrol as we smuggled some of the cultural momentos- "you know this is illegal?" pause. pause. (translated this means Can i have a bribe?). pause. "ok enjoy your stay in Lesotho."

15km Fun Run

2010-05-09T08:29:00.003-03:00

For my first 15km run, i wouldn't exactly call it fun, but i think it went well all the same. I've been running 5 and 8km runs since feb and as i'm still not crazy enough to do a 21k (half marathon), this seemed like the logical progression. One of the good things about this one was that it was in the east rand, meaning flat, so it was fairly easy compared to where i've been training.

I've always had flat feet and have recently gone to both a Physio and Podiatrist to try and sort it out. THe physio was convinced that butt massages would solve the problem while the podiatrist took a more practical approach with modifying my insoles. In the end, the problem went from my ankles/knees to the arches of my feet with the insoles. My blisters popped around the 10km mark, but fortunately with 5km left they had plenty of time to give birth- i ended with blisters on both the arches and outsides of my feet. Otherwise it was a good race, i'm proud to say i did not walk at any point, and I finished with a time of 1:27:48. As i crossed the finish line, people were handing out flyers for the next races- i tried explaining to them that this wasn't the time nor place to discuss voluntarily putting myself through this again, but they didn't seem to understand so i hobbled over to the grass and collapsed. all this before 830am.

Kalhari Cucumbers

2010-04-13T11:09:00.002-03:00

Near the end of summer I started noticing plants that looked like watermelons and cucumbers in the sand around site. Apparently you can make jelly out of one of them, and the other just tastes bad. I tried the one that tastes bad.

Magoebaskloof

2010-04-05T11:30:00.003-03:00

Some friends and I booked a house on a dam in the Magoebaskloof region of Limpopo to go fly fishing for the long weekend over Easter. The story begins with the Zion Christian Church and their annual revival/party/secret meeting. The 3.5 hr drive from Joburg turned in to 5 with the traffic for the party. 3 million people arrived between thursday and friday, all by bus, all on the same road we were taking.

From Magoebaskloof Dam

When we got to the Pavetta Country House, we were a bit confused because the place was much too nice for what we planned to do and what we had paid for it.

From Magoebaskloof Dam

Through the weekend the water in the dam went from a normal dark green to the wonderful chocolate milk i enjoy so much for kayaking. It rained about 8" over the 4 days we were at the lake and as a result the fishing was somewhat sub-par. By sub-par, i mean that we did not even see a fish jump the whole weekend, but according to a lady selling mompeur (SA moonshine) in the town, there are "Trophy Trout" in that dam, but "you're just doing it wrong." so there you have it.

From Magoebaskloof Dam

On the up side, I did get to try a new sport- flatwater kayak racing. One of the guys races a fiberglass K1 and brought it up for the weekend. As you can see, I was humbled quite a bit

From Magoebaskloof Dam

sorry, turns out no pics of me

Other activities included hikes through farmer's fields with viewpoints such as a vodacom cell tower. Another hike did lead us to an oracle at the top of a mountain where he sold coke, sugar, matches, and quarts of Black Label beer. This was specifically enlightening as the lack of fishing had left us high and dry by day 3, so the festivities continued.

From Magoebaskloof Dam

rob also lost every card game we could think of

From Magoebaskloof Dam

I'm no longer afraid of short shorts. if 6'2" 120kg afrikaansmen can wear short shorts then so can i.

From Magoebaskloof Dam

It's the Weekeeeeeeeeeend Baby - Sodwana

2010-02-20T15:04:00.103-04:00

There are no pictures of the first part of the trip because a 10 hour car ride is not the most photographic of activities. I should specify that we were told there would be no stop gos, no construction, just smooth sailing all the way through. this was incorrect.
Back in september, you may remember a trip to Ponta do Ouro in Mozambique. When we were planning the drive, Wesley specifically said "I'm not driving in the middle of the night through those places- I don' twant to get a flat tire outside Pongola in the dark."
I blame him.
21:30 at night, dark, we just get out of the stop/go queue and someone is honking at us. we have a flat tire. we're 10km outside Pongola. We presently filed out of the car, left the key in the ignition, gps on teh dash, all doors open, Dancing Queen blaring out the speakers, took all our stuff out of the car to get at the spare tyre, and went to work. (Mother, I did put up the safety triangle). About 2 minutes after this started i realized this might not be the best way to go about things, but it was too late to change the plan of attack so back to the flat.. besides, any smart robber would wait until after we'd changed the tire to steal the car (when i make statements like these, my friends smile and say "you're finally starting to think like an African").
The tire was wedged on so much i had to pry the lug wrench against the break rotor to get it off, but eventually we were on our way again.

When we arrived at the coast, it turned out that none of us knew where we were staying or really where the beach wass. One would think that in a 'town' with 3 or 4 hotels and hostels we could have found it on our own, but 20 minutes of circular driving lead us to calling the fearless leader of Plan D Scuba at 11pm on a friday night for directions- to summarize, "drive straight" did the trick.

The accommodation was for dedicated divers only. no frills. mosquito nets were standard issue. fresh, still wet, gecko poop replaced the mint on the pillows. It actually resembled the canadian logging camps of the good old days like in the book Timber (credit to dad) where the mere thought of bad food would unite the masses and spark a rebellion. breakfast in Sodwana was amazing.

The scuba was good this time around- some of the same faces from teh last trip with Ivan, Sean, Helen, Pete, Lindsay, Nicole and a few newbs as well

The beach was white sands. The boats were pushed in a pulled out by tractors. Our gear was shuttled around by 'gear assistants'. basically if you could manage to clip the buckles and fall off the boat, you were good to go.

From Sodwana_2010_02_20

the Shrieking Eels!!! Not to knock The Princess Bride, but these eels don't exactly shriek. these guys don't even try and bite you, they just sorta sit there opening and closing their mouths eating little bits and pieces of fish poo (bad guess)

From Sodwana_2010_02_20

Finally got a good pic of a Sea Turtle- it's more like they're flying underwater than swimming

From Sodwana_2010_02_20

The finale was the best part. This was one of Shaniel's first sea dives and somehow he managed to go through his air in 30 minutes when the rest of us stayed down for closer to an hour. When we got back up to the boat, Shaniel was nowhere to be seen. After a few brief moments of panic thinking he'd been eaten by a killer seahorse, we learned he was swimming by that boat over yonder. and what to our wondering eyes did appear but a Rhincodon typus!!! Thinking quickly, we all threw our gear on the boat, threw our masks and snorkels back on, and threw ourselves back into the water. Another name for the Rhincodon typus is the Whale Shark. Luckily for us, a whale shark, despite being the largest fish in the world, is a filter feeder. This means that it left the 5 rows of razor sharp teeth with the great whites and focuses on plankton when looking for a light snack.

From Sodwana_2010_02_20

We snorkeled with this guy for about 15min all together- he was just circling around the boat and reminded me of an underwater elephant- not bothered by any of the puny humans tagging along behind. To give some perspective to the pics, those little guys swimming along underneath were about 1.5 ft long.. My estimate was 4-5m long and 1m wide head (my internal judgment of distance is all screwed up now- metric/english.. how long is a piece of string..)

From Sodwana_2010_02_20

Saturday night we went out to a place called Jan Maak 'n Jol (Jan makes a party in afrikaans) which was right next to Jan Maak 'n Plan (Jan makes a plan- an auto garage that started when the road out to sodwana was a big sand dune and lots of people made it out and needed " 'n plan" to make it back). to say that i wasn't out of place walking in barefoot in a bar with concrete floors and serving nothing but glass bottles would be a mostly true statement- the only way i could have fit in better would be to be 6' tall, 300lbs, no shirt, and chanting the Free Staad national anthem in afrikaans alongside Jan on the dancefloor. Oddly it reminded me of the pub at my jobsite in the northern cape so I felt right at home.

We got in 2 dives Saturday and 1 Sunday before starting the drive back- this time taking the R34 through the mountains and cutting off 2 hours of construction. In the end we left work at 13h00 on friday, drove 10 hrs, 3 dives, some good food, and some jol, and drove 8 hrs back sunday to arrive at the front door by 21h00

I've spent the majority of the week trying to convince anyone who will listen that we should go back again this weekend

Butt massage and Phone books in my shoes

2010-02-02T10:35:00.001-04:00

When I was 15 my ankles hurt so I went to a foot doc and he told me I overpronate (flat feet). He made me stand on foam blocks to make imprints of my feet, sold me (actually mommy/daddy) $150 insoles that hurt more than before, and that was the last I heard. I stopped wearing those insoles many years ago.

So now I'm off to the races and running again. I'm also limping for the next week, and since we run a 5k every Tuesday, the cycle continues.

Now I've decided it's time to break the cycle, and on recommendation of a friend who has run Comrades multiple times, I called his physio to see what the pros think.

Katya is a 25 year old woman, attractive, and gave me a butt massage. No typos. I walked in, told her my ankle hurt, and then she gave me a butt massage. Something about my pelvis not being where she wanted it and she was going to fix it. Then she cut up a phone book and put it in one shoe so I now walk lopsided.

My ankle still hurts, I have no idea how anything she has done will fix anything, but I'll be back next week.

Vaal: The 20 Year Flood

2010-01-31T10:05:00.000-04:00

With 2 weeks of non-stop rains, the Vaal Dam is experiencing 20 year flood levels. Friday night the bat-phone rang and A+B meant it was time to go kayaking.

Normally 300ish cumecs, upwards of 2200 were pumping through all 17 of the open flood gates at the dam. A 15km run that would normally take 2+ hrs too us just over an hour. With houses and golf courses submerged on the banks, the extra 4m of water turned the willow trees in middle into a maze of green curtain. The normal river features completely washed out, leaving nothing but 2m wave trains and holes to get lost in. Some sections that normally had 5m clearance between the top of the water and the bottom of bridges had water spilling over into the car lanes.

Sadly I must admit that the guy in the pic below isn't me. Having not been in a boat for 6 months, I spent the 15km white knuckled and wide eyed- I attempted the very technical maneuver of barreling, full speed, through the wave in attempts to punch through the white stuff.. (if they had taken a pic of me in this position, all you'd see was the bottom of my boat toward the sky)

All together no swims, no blood, it's still raining so this weekend is round 2!!

2010 WC Government Announcement

2010-01-20T08:54:00.000-04:00

Government warns World Cup stab vests useless against taxi fenders

JOHANNESBURG. A knife-proof vest being marketed to British tourists as a must-have item at the 2010 World Cup has been slammed by the South African government, which says it is completely pointless as most tourists killed will either be shot or run over by taxis. However the country has recommitted itself to killing as few tourists as possible.

According to the BBC, the so-called stab vests are being marketed in the United Kingdom as essential security wear for the 2010 World Cup and cost up to $70.

However, this morning the South African government condemned the armoured items, describing them as alarmist, reactionary and discriminatory against people who earn a living through knife crime.

But, said spokesman Whiplash Mahlangu, the real outrage was how ineffective the vests would be in keeping tourists alive.

"We urge our visitors to remember that of the 1,500 South Africans who are murdered and the 1,100 who are killed on our roads every month, only a tiny minority succumb to knife wounds," said Mahlangu.

He added that while the usual 2,600 locals would be killed during the World Cup, South Africa was committed to killing as few international visitors as possible.

"If we can keep it down to around one percent of the South African average, that is, 26 tourists, we'll consider that a job well done," said Mahlangu.

But, he said, visitors would have to accept that stab vests would "not be of optimum utility in an average hail of gunfire from an average assault rifle, or against the earnest advances of a Toyota Hilux's front fender".

He asked both South Africans and foreign tourists to remain positive about the World Cup.

"The world is coming," he said. "The important thing to remember is that of the 500,000 guests coming to our shores, 499,974 will be going home alive.

"Ultimately football will be the winner."

that's illegal- promise you won't tell?

2010-01-19T15:33:00.000-04:00

at various stages of these blogs, i tell mother dearest to close her eyes. close your eyes.

yesterday i drove out to the kalahari so i could play around on site this morning, then drive back to joburg. loads of fun. during this drive, i was bored and drove rather quickly. while doing 155kph in a 120 zone, a little guy in policeman's uniform jumped out from behind a tree and stopped my car (they hide behind trees with radar guns to catch speeders).

i took a deep breath. i knew what i had to do.

blah blah afrikaans blah blah

"ek kaan nie afrikaans praat nie"

"ahh, you were going rather fast there. where are you going?"

"i'm on my way back to joburg. i've been working at the mines." hand him my license

"what do you do there"

"i'm working at one of the new mines that's starting up- manganese"

"hmmm. you know that you were going 132kph? that's a R250 fine.. so you are working at this mine?"

"trying"

"training? you are training the local workers at the mine?" (accent saved me here, training was the right word)

"yep, out near Kathu and Hotazel"

"that's great. you americans are so smart. it's great you're here. that's what we think of with america" now i'm thinking he must be having a laugh here

at this point he walked around the front of the car to look at the registration and make sure it was valid. with some quick thinking, i took all the money out of my wallet and left R160 in it. then he came back, not seeing my quick hands

"so you were going very fast there. how long are you in south africa?"

"i'll be here a while- i want to stay for the world cup. but i don't have an address or anything for you to send a ticket to- can i have a spot fine and pay you now so there are no problems?"

"yes your team did well in the cup last year. you know spot fines are illegal?"

"really? huh. i'm hoping to go to the england/usa match in the first round"

"the british are big. they will start fights but it will be fun"

"i don't have the whole R250 for the fine" i start taking out the R160 from my wallet.

"no no, not all of that" and he takes a R100 note.

"you know this is illegal and you can't tell anyone?"

"who would i tell? i don't know anyone in this country? do you think south africa will make it to the second round?"

"ahh we will see. remember don't tell anyone and drive slow"

at this point i expected a super troopers moment where the policeman was messing with me and now i was off to jail, but i slowly pulled away, adrenaline pumping like mad, and off i went merrily down the road at 155.

i bribed a policeman today.

thinking i am one step closer to being south african, the first thing i do is call someone to check. apparently, i was never supposed to say the words 'spot fine' because that's sorta a no-no and removes any chance of the transaction being legal, but again, i played the foreigner card and he must have let it slide since he could tell it was my first time. so thoughtful

ahh south africa- land of the free and home of the corrupt

Victoria Falls, Yeeeaaaaa

2010-01-07T10:17:00.146-04:00

David Livingstone was the first European to visit Victoria Falls in 1855. He was 20ft tall.

From Victoria Falls

Victoria Falls was named in honor Queen Victoria (technically renamed from Mosi-oa Tunya or The Smoke That Thunders). I don't know if Queeny ever made it here, but it certainly would have been a sight to see a royal procession headed by an old lady who looked like she wore her crown in the swimming pool.

Similar to the Maid of the Mist at Niagra, the walk across Victoria Falls was wet. A combination of mist rising and condensate precipitating meant we were hit from both top and bottom, so despite a raincoat, we were all properly soaked.

From Victoria Falls

Before walking the falls, we flew them. The Flight of Angels was a 12min bird's eye of the entirety of Vic Falls.

From Victoria Falls

Again, my first instinct was to compare to Niagra, and true to form of Bigger and BETTER, Niagra is taller.

Victoria Falls is not the tallest or the widest waterfall in the world, but they term 'biggest' based on the width/height combo. Vic Falls is 108m high, 1708m wide (this is more than a mile wide), and is essentially swallowed by a narrow canyon before flowing into a narrow passage and escaping into a Rio Grande type river. This narrow canyon is where the mist forms and is projectile vomited back into the sky, only to condense again and fall back down. Shortly after breaking free, the Zambezi passes under a bridge. bridge. bridge.

From Victoria Falls

fun fact- Victoria falls has its own rainforest. when you walk out to the falls, the mist hits you from below and the rain from above, so that raincoat is worthless. best to wear a swimsuit

From Victoria Falls

Take out the beard and give him a little bigger camera and you've got yourself a perfect stereotype of the japanese tourist in action

High things always seem to attract certain type of people. This type doesn't go around to bridges or tall buildings looking for an excuse to jump off because one is not needed.

To skip the details, this is the first 'entirely for the stupid tourist with too much money video of himself' i have ever purchased.

(there's an intro/promo that can be skipped)

Bungee was much scarier than skydiving and oddly worse than teh Soweto Swing from 6 months ago. The ground is close and going headfirst means that the judgement of distance (or untimely death) is hard to miss. Another 'oops i shat myself' aspect of the bungee is the combination of accelerating freefall and that split second of 'will this thing work?' integrated seamlessly between the 0m jump mark and the -110m 'i'm not dead' mark. To further emphasize this point, there are another 2-3 cycles of the experience while the bungeer flails helplessly demonstrating the similarity between a bungee and yo-yo. And yes, that is me yelling on the video. I intended to give a good old yankee Yeehawww as a little joke for the zimbos, but only got to the "Yeee" part before i lost control of all bodily function and ended it with a prolonged "aaaaaaa"

(for the record, no whiplash, dislocation, or even mild discomfort)

Oliphants, To walk with Lions, Night Drives in the Bush

2010-01-06T01:48:00.055-04:00

Oliphant riding, lion walking, night game driving, and a bush dinner- what good tourist could resist?

On the second day of our Zimbabwean Adventure, we all of the above. The elephant riding was a bit petting zooesque, but an elephant is big. Really big. and despite the zoo, elephants are big.

From Lions, Elephants

by the end, it was like I was walking with a giant housecat. I hate housecats.

From Lions, Elephants

Another momentous occasion was when i popped the top. Normally I boycott the caffeinated arts, but on this occasion with 2 hours of night safari ahead of me, I broke down.

From Lions, Elephants

The lights didn't work, so we stopped and connected a spotlight to the battery, and off we went. I think the highlight of the giraffe was the safari at night. We saw a lion later on in the drive- a female possibly out hunting, but I think teh giraffe is what i remembered about the night drive.

After the drive we had dinner by the river. The guide was very good the whole way through, but before dinner started he asked if there was anything else we wanted to see while we were in his country. I said that I still have never heard a lion ROAR. then he wnet on to the next person. I should mention the lion cages are about 1km up the river from where we had dinner. I should also mention that the guides said wild lions sometimes come by the domesticated lion cages at night to see whats shakin. Half way through dinner, either a lion roared or one of the guides was moaning in the bushes. Soo i'm going to start concentrating on the kill- the other thing I haven't seen since the African Adventures began.

Vic Falls, You know you're funding terrorism

2010-01-05T11:16:00.046-04:00

Jumping back to Joburg before vic falls:
In the middle of my holiday i was called in to work bright and early one morning because some of my colleagues like to torture me. during this visit and while talking to one of the draftsman who was originally from Rhodesia, i spilled the beans that i was taking the family to victoria falls- the Zim side. his first response, "You know you're funding terrorism don't you? we all refuse to go because all you're doing is giving your money to uncle Bob."

From Victoria Falls

i told myself it was too late and boarded the plane to enjoy a 2 hour flight of guilt for not choosing the zambian side. i then enjoyed a 15 min shuttle ride after shelling out 30USD/person to previously mentioned and self-elected president at the customs office.

We stayed at the Victoria Falls Safari Lodge and after all the stories of Zim and the terrorism comments and the airport and the heat, I was stressing a bit that the accommodation wouldn't be what mommy considered when she thought of vacation.

From Victoria Falls

The view from the room.

From Victoria Falls

Breakfast

From Victoria Falls

We were so close to a semi-authentic 'Victoria Falls as the colonials did it' experience and then they made us wear curtains like togas. There is a reason I'm not starring in the photo.

From Victoria Falls

Dinner.
The rest were impressed by the bush meat, but being a seasoned veteran I passed by the warthog and impala and elan. Mopane worms.

From Victoria Falls

They feed vultures with the scraps from the Boma

From Victoria Falls

And off to the races

Franschhoek - Cape Winelands

2010-01-02T09:20:00.029-04:00

From Cape Town

This is actually the end of the tour, but it was a good family pic all the same.

We drove out from cape town for a day in Franschhoek and spent a great day in the Cape wine country. We hired a driver from the guest house and as luck would have it we were just in time for the start of the Pierre Jourdan Sabrage tour - a South African sparkling wine maker.

The old guy featured in most of these pics is the owner of the vineyard. The other old guy is my dad.
I stand by the theory that this guy was drunk when he showed up and kept going throughout the show. At this point, he was telling us something about how the floor we were standing on was made of elephant poop..

From Cape Town

Getting an education

From Cape Town

He told us a story about french oak and something about barrels costing $10000 a piece and how the only way we can really pretend to know our wines is if we agree we can taste the difference.

He called this Sabrage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabrage

From Cape Town

To summarize, he used the historical value of opening a champagne bottle with a sword as Napoleon's cavalry did as an excuse to pick the prettiest girls from the audience to come on stage, wrap his arms around her, cut the top off a bottle of champagne, then to the cheers of the crowd he would grab her by the shoulders, turn her around to face him, and kiss her before she knew what was going on. he did this 3 times per show and used more and more force to get the girl to turn as they became aware what they had volunteered for.

From Cape Town

Those wine bottles have life in them yet- wonder if mom will let him put one in our dining room at home..?

From Cape Town

"Yep, that's a pool all right"- guest house in Franschhoek

From Cape Town

even with the excitement of a foreign country he still manages to fall asleep in the middle of the day in public places

From Cape Town

Cape Point & Cape of Good Hope

2010-01-01T08:56:00.031-04:00

From Cape Town

Cape Point is where the Indian Ocean and Atlantic Oceans meet. Sounds like an interesting place eh? When I thought of Cape Point, I thought- oh, there must be a gigantic whirlpool or Neptune coming out of the sea for a picnic or at least a little color change between oceans.. but no, nothing but wind. lots and lots of wind.

The West to the Atlantic

From Cape Town

The East to the Indian

From Cape Town

And straight on till morning in the middle

From Cape Town

On the way in we passed a troop of baboons. Knowing that this wasn't the only baboons they would see, I slowed, they took pictures, we held up traffic, and I drove on. They screamed and whinned about wanting to watch the baboons longer. 3 more troops of baboons stopping traffic later, they didn't even raise their cameras.

From Cape Town

Dad found a skull and chased mom away. It's nice to know that no matter how old I get I'm never expected to grow up

From Cape Town

Cape Point was also a very sad day- my flip flop broke and I exposed my parents to the fact that it is PC to be barefoot in public places in South Africa, and I take advantage.

From Cape Town