South Africa 2018

South Africa 2018 - 10 April to 8 May

Big picture: 

Phase 1 - Fly into Johannesburg and drive to the Kruger game preserve. Spend 5 nights in Kruger and then fly to Cape Town.

Phase 2 - Spend 4 nights in Cape Town touring around and visiting the sites

Phase 3 - Ride bicycles from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth

Phase 4 - Fly into Durban and rent a car. Drive to the Drakensburg region and then drive to Phinda private game reserve. Fly home.

Here is the "Big Picture map"


Here is a link to the live map.

Phase 1 - Kruger Park



Phase 2 - Cape Town

Phase 3 - Bike Riding


Phase 4 - Durban, Drakensburg and Phinda




If you want to just see the photos, Here is a link to a lot of photos from the trip.

Schedule - summary   

• April 10 – leave USA (7 of the group)
• April 11 – arrive in JHB
• Spend night near airport
• April 12
• Pick up rental van (8 passengers)
• Drive to Kruger
• April 12 – 17 – Kruger (4 full days)
• Stay in Kruger at two different camps
• April 17
• Fly down to Cape Town
• Pick up rental van (8 seater) and a rental car
• April 17 – 21 Cape Town (4 full days in Cape Town)
• Stay in Camps Bay in house
• April 22 – 2 May Bike to Port Elizabeth
• Most people leave for home or back to JHB
• 2 May Fly to Durban and rent a car. Drive to the Drakensburg and to Phinda.
• 10 May - fly back to DC

Thanks, Google, for sending us down a 30 km rocky, potholed dirt road! Got a flat, but some very nice Africans changed out to the spare in a flash. Sitting in a tire shop while the spare is replaced. Now off to Phinda for three glorious nights at the Vlei game reserve.

Photos from yesterday's and this morning's drive and breakfast. Action shots of Sherry shooting lions and cheetahs. In the Kruger game park, there was a huge abundance of animals but you had to stay on the road. Here, the vehicles can drive overland. We shadowed a pair of male cheetahs as they did their morning rounds. At breakfast, a monkey stole Sherry's apple pastry right off of the table.

We came across a fresh cheetah kill - Mom took down a buck for herself and her three cubs about an hour prior to our happening upon them by the side of the road. Graphic photos, folks!

We are taking a rest day in Nysna along the southern coast of South Africa. Yesterday, we went up and over a pass to exit the high desert and to roll (rocket) down to the coast. The descent was almost 2000 feet, Sherry's longest to date. Nysna is a nice little tourist town and an excellent place to do nothing.

The broken mirror was done by a motorist. His passenger mirror smashed our handlebar mirror. These drivers pass waaay too closely, and we were foolishly riding a too-busy road on the Friday before a 3-day weekend. We took a ride in the van until the road got wider and had a shoulder before we continued.

Bike nerds will notice that my hand grips are upside-down. I had to switch the mirror to the right side of the bike, but the mirror only works with the left hand grip, so I just swapped them out. Not as uncomfortable as it may look.

Our trusty steed - a heavily modified Toyota Land Cruiser. There is a tracker's seat in the front where our tracker could sit and look for tracks. We are at a stop for our morning coffee break.

All of my stuff for a month on the road (minus the bike gear which was sent home with the tandem). Good thing, because we would have missed our connection in Johannesburg if we had to check bags. Our inbound flight was an hour delayed. Sherry had only one carry on bag as well.

Costa Rica - Christmas 2017/2018

Three weeks in Costa Rica - from December 17th 2017 to January 7th 2018. Casey, Hunter and Dorothy would be with us until December 30th, and then it would be just Sherry and I.

Lots of photos are here. Only a small collection are in this blog post.



The planned destinations were:

• San Jose - fly in and get the car
• Montezuma
• Monteverde
• Arenal
• Savegre/Manuel Antonio
• La Tigra/La Fortuna
• San Jose to fly home

The original plan was for all of us to fly into Ft Lauderdale and then fly together on the same flight to Costa Rica, arriving past midnight. However, our flight out of BWI was cancelled, so Casey and Dorothy arrived a day before us and stayed in San Jose waiting for us. Once we finally arrived and spent the night in San Jose we rented the car and then drove out to Montezuma down on the tip of the Nicoya peninsula.

We went out for a bioluminescent tour in one of the bays. After snorkling around and having some dinner, it got dark enough to dive in and be surrounded by little glowing creatures. Every motion of your hand would cause a riot of sparks. It was a lot of fun seeing other people swimming around, surrounded by glowing spots. This is us when it was still light out.

One day, the five of us rented two 200cc motorcycles and two 500cc ATV's and headed out under the direction of a guide. We rode on the beach for about 10k and rode through towns and into some pretty remote places. Some of the uphills were so steep that the rear wheels of the motorcycles were drifting and spinning out, and the downhills were super steep and full of loose dirt and gravel. There had been a hurricane a few months before and a lot of the dirt roads had been freshly re-bulldozed. Hunter rolled his ATV on top of himself at one point, but the ATV took most of the damage. 

Sherry "rode bitch" behind Casey, Dorothy and Mike at various points during the day. 

 Our Airbnb in Montezuma was so bad that we ended up getting a full refund for the $900+ we spent for the four nights. No water at all in the showers, no hot water anywhere, and a generally dilapidated state courtesy of neglect and a hurricane.

Mike, feeding the monkeys in Montezuma

The next stop was Monteverde where we stayed in this house

The owner of the house was also a guide in some of the Monteverde parks and was a 3rd generation resident of the area. His family farm was about 10 minutes away, so we went with him on a tour of the property. It used to be a dairy farm, but they are letting most of the farm go back to native species and more of a jungle. There were monkeys and birds everywhere.

The old hydroelectric plant for the farm. It was the only electricity for a number of years, and would get washed out every so often and need to be rebuilt. 

Sitting by their creek, watching some people build a new swimming hole. The hurricane washed out the old one.

Hunter's hands - there were biting flies and Hunter and Mike had strong reactions to their bites. 

The other resident of our rental house. He loved leftovers, and would do unspeakable things to an egg. 

 The owner of the house set us up with a guy who climbs trees to do research in the canopy. As a side business, he guides tourists up to the canopy using standard climbing gear. We found a big fig tree and started setting up the ropes.

The "Adventure Sherry" up in the tree. 

We also set up a top-rope on one side of the tree so we could free climb that side. Casey shows his moves on the north face. 

Mike getting ready to launch the weight attached to a thin line, aiming for a branch. This device is just a really big slingshot. 

Dorothy getting up into the canopy. 

Mike, Sherry and the guide. 

Selvatura park - close to Monteverde. It has canopy walks, hummingbirds, a reptile house, a spider house and various other Costa Rican wildlife exhibits.

Sherry with a hummingbird on her hand

Mike scores a triple header. They would rather sit on your fingers than hover over the feeding holes. 

Mike and Hunter on the canopy tour

Sherry of the Jungle on one of the walkways that goes above the canopy. 

Next stop: El Castillo - a small town in the shadow of the Arenal volcano. We stayed three nights in a funny place that was essentially a 4-room hotel but we had it all ourselves.  https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/19324840

This was a good jumping off point to go to some butterfly preserves, to the hot springs in La Fortuna (Baldí was awesome) and to the Arenal park. I think that we mostly just relaxed for a few days, ate at the local "soda" and enjoyed the views.

This is a sleeping frog

The same frog, awake

One of the poisonous species. 

Sherry with a Blue Morpho

We don't have many pictures of Savegre or La Tigra. 

Trying to hike the Long Trail - September 2017

The plan was to hike from the far-north terminus of the Long Trail down to Killington, Vermont. Almost three weeks of hiking, with rest/refueling stops at "The Stowehof" hotel in Stowe and at the "Millbrook Inn" near Irasville. We would finish at the "Happy Bear Motel" in Killington.

Start hiking: 26 September
Finish hiking: 11 October

What actually happened is that I bailed out at The Stowehof because my right knee was really swollen and I was going really slow on the downhills. However, I had not been backpacking in years, so it was a valuable and, at times, enjoyable excursion. It reminded me how I like being in the outdoors for extended periods without contact with civilization.

The part that I actually hiked was 67 miles:

26-Sep   Tuesday               Drive to Journey's End, Hike to Laura Woodward Shelter (10 miles, 2500' ascent)

27-Sep   Wednesday         Hike to Hazen's Notch Camp (9.5 miles, 2600' ascent)

28-Sep   Thursday              Hike to Spruce Ledge Camp (14.5 miles, 3600' ascent)

29-Sep   Friday                   Hike to Round Top Shelter (15 miles, 4000' ascent)

30-Sep   Saturday              Hike to Whiteface Shelter (10.5 miles, 3200' ascent)

1-Oct     Sunday                 Hike to Rt 108 Smugglers Notch (7.5 miles, 1000' ascent) with Night in Stowe

Getting There

We drove up on the 25th of September and stayed in Killington at the Happy Bear hotel. I drove up with Dave Green, while Tom Kloster drove by himself.

Nice town in Vermont on the way to Killington

The final miles to the trailhead

Parking at the trailhead

 The hike itself

The first two days were incredibly hot - high 80's and humid. Really unusual for Vermont in September. Then it turned cold and dipped a little below freezing for the last night I was on the trail. I never needed to use my tarp to sleep under because the trail shelters were not occupied by others when we arrived, so we were able to sleep in the shelters every night.

Taking a break at one of the overlooks. It was pretty cold, so we were sitting in the trees instead of out on the overlook. 

Group Shot: Dave, Mike and Tom at one of the overlooks

One of the smaller shelters along the way. The shelters ranged from a simple lean-to like the one in the photo to more elaborate structures with 4 walls and doors. They were all clean and well maintained. 

Having lunch and taking in the view

Phil joins us in Stowe. This is as far as I got. 

 Trail Conditions

Most trails use switchbacks and other methods for reducing the steepness of the inclines. This helps the hikers and makes the trail less vulnerable to erosion. Not the Long Trail - it just follows a straight line up and over whatever is there. It is never really possible to express steepness in a photo, but imagine the following three photos as being vertigo-inducing, straight-up or straight-down and a little slippery. I held onto trees and branches most of the way down the hills, using one hiking pole and having one free hand. I think that the steepness and the size of the steps that I needed to take is what really drove my knees into a tizzy.

It can be pretty muddy, too

What to bring

Mostly for my own reference if I ever do this again. It was going to be warm for the first few days,
so I just have shorts and tights. I was going to bring my pants for the second and third legs. I should have
documented the food, because I spent more time packing food than I did packing gear. Not shown:
One pair of socks and my hiking shoes.

Sleeping bag, tarp, bivy bag and sleeping pad