Touch down in Argentina!

A very brief blog to celebrate touching down in Argentina!! The flight to Buenos Aires was … well I cannot comment on it at all. I fell asleep before take off in Italy and I woke up approximately 30 minutes before we landed in Buenos Aires. Yes. I slept for 14 hours straight. I told you we were tired!

Joepster, on the other hand, barely slept a wink (again) and was positively knackered when we landed in BA.

Never fear! We had booked a lovely hotel in the downtown area and upon arrival at 10am they let us check in immediately! We had been anticipating having to drop our luggage and wait for hours before we could check in. We were ecstatic when this wasn’t the case.

And so, after freshening up and having a little mini rest we headed out into the city to find food and beverages. We were in dire need of sustenance. Our first impressions of the city were really good. Safe and somewhat clean (compared to Bolivia last year) and the weather was awesome. We had grand plans of doing a mini tour of the city but we were exhausted. Joep especially.

So after stuffing our faces and half-heartedly wandering around making mental notes of all the amazing things there are to do in Buenos Aires during the last week of our vacation, we headed back to the hotel for a rest before dinner.

We didn't make it to dinner. Joep slept for a full 17 hours straight. Unheard of. I stayed awake for a while but succumbed to sleep later in the evening. Before we knew it, the sun was rising and we were up to head to the airport for our flight to Ushuaia … aykarumba. We really are pooped!!

A Roman Holiday - The Honeymoon Extravaganza Continues

Ahhh Italy. Joep & I often tell people how much we love Italy. The food, the wine, the architecture, the people … yet we’ve never actually vacationed in Italy together. Go figure! We had originally tossed up the idea of spending a few weeks in Italy for our honeymoon alas we were not in the mood for a winter honeymoon so a few weeks in Italy was converted to a month in Africa … followed by a month in Argentina … what?

Still, we were lucky enough (??) to have a 10 hour stopover in Rome on our way from Amsterdam to Buenos Aires. Most of the time I hate long stopovers but in this case it was glorious. Our bags were checked the whole way through so when we landed in Rome we simply took our hand luggage, hopped on the train to the city centre and enjoyed a day in Rome!

As I mentioned earlier, 5 days in Amsterdam left us completely and totally wrecked. In fact, when the alarm went off to get us to the airport on time I was tempted to sleep through it and just pay the extra to get a flight the following day. Joep was more enthusiastic than I was (and appears to need significantly less sleep than I do) so sleeping through was no option.

I’m very glad that this was the case! Upon arrival in Rome I remembered just how awesome Rome is. We set ourselves up at a little restaurant near the Spanish Steps and settled in for 3 hours of eating and drinking. You thought we’d be full by now right? Or that we wouldn’t want more wine eh? Wrong! We had room for both. It was exactly what the doctor ordered.

Good conversation, good food, good wine and an amazing location was enough to perk us both up and gave us enough energy to head off on a mini tour of Rome. Joep was gasping and oohing and aahing at every corner. Its longer since he has been there than me so he had forgotten how awesome Rome is more than I have.

I could rant and rave for hours about the buildings we visited, the streets we walked and the snacks we ate – Alas, I still have a month of Argentina travels to blog about so I shall keep this one short.

After thoroughly enjoying a mini Roman holiday we hopped back on the train late in the evening and headed to the airport where our flight to Buenos Aires awaited us … A whole month more vacation!

Life is simply wonderful right now!

The Newlyweds Head to Amsterdam

Amsterdam! One of my all time favourite cities. It has been a long time since I’ve been back – The Joepster on the other hand has made it back with some regularity since our departure for Canada 2 years ago.

After an amazing month in South Africa celebrating being a married couple (and excelling might I add), we set off from Vic Falls, Zimbabwe at 10am to make our 12pm flight to Jo’berg followed by a 4-hour layover before our flight to Amsterdam (via London). It was a long flight. Neither of us slept very well. We were jammed in like sardines at the start of the flight when a flight attendant approached us to offer Joep the only emergency exit seat left. I was ecstatic at the thought of having 2 seats to myself and some leg room (sitting next to a giant in economy means you never have any leg room). Joep however, proclaimed loudly that he would prefer to sit with his wife.

Romantic yes? Only kind of. I felt bad for my earlier feelings of ecstasy but my guilt soon subsided when, after 14 hours of no sleep and no space and asking Joep numerous times why he wouldn’t take the emergency exit seat I was informed that the reason he didn’t want the emergency exit was because there wasn’t a lot of leg room there either. It was better to sit next to me where he could have his leg room AND my leg room and even squeeze onto my seat a bit as well. Sigh.

Needless to say we were both exhausted by the time we landed in Amsterdam. However we were very blessed because Ozzi had offered to pick us up from Schiphol! Spoiled we are. We were even MORE spoiled because our good friends Nicole & John had very kindly allowed us to use their amazing apartment for our days in Amsterdam. So after collecting our rental car we headed to the worlds’ greatest apartment. Most spoiled people on earth.

Alas, the necessary R&R after such a long commute was not to be had. We had appointments to attend to … ahhh welcome to Holland! I forgot how busy it is in Holland. I mean, don’t get me wrong, we were happy to see everyone but boy is it tough having so many appointments all the time. After dropping our bags at the apartment and having a very quick shower we were off to Venray to visit various friends and family. We drove from home to home saying hello’s and cuddling the worlds cutest new born baby girl and by 10pm I was beat. Completely and totally beat.

We drove the last hour home in silence both of us just trying to keep our eyes open. Exhausted.

A good but all too short night of sleep awaited us and we were up at the crack of dawn to meet the mother ship at Schiphol! Excitement!! The day that followed was uber busy with preparing things for our ‘Meet the Newlyweds Party’. Joep found an amazing cheese shop where the owner (who was Scottish btw) was amazed by the cheese tower concept and agreed with glee to make one for us. Mum & I contributed our culinary expertise to picking out the right cheeses … it was a tough choice. Cheese in Holland rocks my world. Oliebollen were ordered, the Wildschut was visited where Joep, mum and I arranged the final details for the party. By the late afternoon we were pooped.

But there is no rest for the wicked because even more excitement awaited us – Sheenzie was arriving!!

And to top it all off, this was Joep’s big 31^st birthday! Oh my goodness, too much excitement. That evening we celebrated Joep’s birthday with a nice meal and a few glasses of wine. The evening ended on a very giddy note with mum & Sheenz which proved to be a great sign of things to come.

Once again, a late night was followed by a very early morning as it was the day of our partaaaaay and we had things to plan and guests in the form of the Delany family to entertain. As Joep ran a few last minute errands for the party I collected Sheenz and mum and we hit the streets of Amsterdam for some retail therapy and lots of laughs. I had so many moments during the day where I took mental snap shots so that I will forever remember times like this. There is nothing like hanging out with your sisters and mum to make your heart feel warm and fuzzy. Especially when said mother and sister are completely giddy and willing to laugh at just about anything. Heaven. I am very blessed.

After a good amount of soaking up Amsterdam’s glory (oh how I love this city!) and sharing innumerable laughs we headed back to our respective homes. Thankfully however, mum and Sheenz had agreed to get ready and then come to help me get ready because squeezing into my wedding dress again was going to be quite the challenge.

Still, despite all the excessive eating in Africa, I still somehow managed to fit into my dress!! Dear lord thank you for my fast metabolism.

All glammed up and ready to go we grabbed a taxi with the 4 of us to re-celebrate our married bliss!!

The party at Wildschut was yet another wonderful evening. The food was (apparently) good – I guess you can’t go wrong with fries in a cone right? The cheese tower was out of this world … seriously our Dutch / Scottish friend did an incredible job and the oliebollen were a hit. The guests were all in high spirits and the booze was free flowing. Man oh man, it was a big night. Huge kudo’s go to mum & Sheenz for travelling all that way and being the life of the party not to mention cousin Lauren & her wonderful social albatross Cyrus who fully embraced the party spirit. We had a blasty and at 3am we decided NOT to go onto another bar but instead to go home to bed. It was a good choice.

The following morning was another early start … we were so tired I thought I would cry. No more than 5 hours sleep per night is guaranteed to make a newlywed couple cranky. But we pushed through and after a wonderful canal boat ride with mum & Sheenz (who remained as giddy as ever … I still laugh whenever I think of them) we arrived at my Dutch family’s house for a delicious Dutch lunch!

I miss the Molenkamp’s!! For those who don’t know (though I think everyone does) the Molenkamp’s were my Amsterdam family when I lived there. From feeding me regularly, to chicken cherry pie / Grey’s Anatomy nights, to visiting me in the hospital, they took care of me no end. They further extended their wonderful-ness to mum and Sheenz (and Joep of course) by inviting us over for a wonderful Dutch lunch. It was down right amazing and included a view of the huge windmill in Amsterdam from their living room window.

We spent a good few hours eating and chatting and laughing about some of the more random things that happened during my time in Amsterdam before it was time to head off to continue our Amsterdam tour. Our old apartment (**sob sob** how we miss that apartment), Bloemgracht, the Anne Frank house, Westerkerk and, of course, the red light district were next on the list. Mum was, once again, appalled by the red light district, which provided Sheenz and I with much amusement. Later in the evening feeling positively exhausted we met up with cousin Lauren & Cyrus for a wonderful NYE of Chinese food and more wine.

When we all met up we discussed how we had all partied to excess the previous evening and we were feeling under the weather. We also discussed the fact that Lauren & Cyrus had no reason to be too mortified by their behaviour the previous evening (despite the fact that Boris’s mouse in a party hat was NOT lean against a wall funny and also keeping in mind the fact that noone really needs to know about your level of skill with each of the basketball requirements … oh yes, and Billy Joel’s ‘We didn’t start the fire’ is easily mistaken for Journey’s ‘Don’t stop believing’. Seriously. Try singing it. It works.). We celebrate the fact that Lauren found her lost handbag and we laughed. Hard. And long. In addition, Joep’s proposal that we have just 1 glass of wine to help our hangovers was warmly accepted and 1 glass turned into 1 bottle, turned into another and then another …

Before we knew it, it was close to midnight and mum & Sheenz were heading home early because they didn’t want to get stuck in the fireworks. It was a good choice. I forgot how nuts Amsterdam gets at NYE!

Having safely gotten mum & Sheenz home, the 4 of us stayed up to ring in 2012 with great friends / family, fireworks and champagne. And so, as the fireworks boomed around us, we were surrounded by crazy Delany’s and we smooched at midnight, I really felt like the luckiest gal on earth. I cannot imagine how life gets any better than this!!

The fireworks died down in the early hours of the morning and we went our separate ways allowing Joep & I to have our requisite few hours of sleep before awaking early to take mum and Sheenz to Schiphol for their respective flights. Boo. It was a shame to say goodbye but boy do we have some awesome memories from those days together!!

Joep & I spent the rest of the day running errands before I met up with Liessie for dinner followed by drinks with the Beckster and Joep had drinks with Ozzi. Our last night in Amsterdam was another late one and when our alarm went off at 6am the following morning we were beat. 150% beat.

We headed to Schiphol, checked in and awaited our flight to Buenos Aires via Rome to start month 2 of honeymoon!

To summarize … 2011 was an incredible year!! Here are my favourite moments of the year as briefly as possible:

1. Ringing in the year in Puno, Peru on Lake Titicaca with crazy fireworks and wonderful German friends.
2. Joep’s Australian visa getting approved allowing us to begin planning a move to the land down under!
3. Living the amazing Canadian dream with great friends, amazing city and far too many great nights in Ottawa (the BBQ at Anne & Louis’ place after Art in the Park will forever stick in my mind as one of the best evenings of my life).
4. Having the wonderful opportunity to live in Laguna Beach and enjoy as much of California as possible.
5. Yosemite National Park with the Mc El Mothe’s – One of the greatest trips we’ve done with 2 of the greatest people we know.
6. Napa Valley & Big Sur … one helluva long weekend. We loved every second of it. Even with the ‘tommy style’ bed.
7. Turning 30 in New Orleans and going sky diving! Loved it!
8. Catching up with Julz in New Zealand – A great old friend, a great country, a lot of laughs. Nuff said.
9. Getting hitched!! We are loving (and rocking) being Mr. & Mrs. Vaessen!
10. Honeymooning it up in Africa … boy oh boy what a way to celebrate marital bliss and end the year on a high!

Here’s to a wonderful 2012 and many more amazing memories!!

Pampered in Mozambique & a surprise Zimbabwe trip - The honeymoon extravaganza continues!

You won’t be surprised but just to reiterate once more … it was with heavy hearts that we left Nambiti, South Africa for the next leg of our trip. We had a 4am start (ouch!) to drive to Jo’berg airport in time for our flight to Mozambique.

The drive was easy peasy as was the flight to Inhambane, Mozambique. It is north of the capital Maputo and is right on the cusp of the southern / northern split of Mozambique. Poor ol' Mozambique has not got the best rap for tourism because it is synonymous with political instability and civil unrest however recent years have seen a return to peace in the country and it is fast becoming a tourism hot spot because it apparently has amazing beaches and it remains highly unspoiled. Interestingly enough it is also quite popular because it is known as being very rural with dirt roads everywhere (even most of the highways) and small villages rather than huge metropolises. We were excited to find out!

We were booked into a fancy schmancy resort and had hopes of getting out and about sporadically between bouts of doing nothing. We were also very intrigued to see how we would cope with doing nothing for a while!! Upon arrival in Mozambique we faced the hilarious challenge of clearing customs. It is at this point that I should mention that I put Joep’s Dutch passport through the washing machine a little while ago. Yikes. It is still semi ok but it is clearly damaged and we were a bit concerned about how it would be clearing customs. Keep in mind that my Australian passport is also significantly damaged from the rain storm we got caught in when doing the bayou tour of the Mississippi in New Orleans … what a pair we are!!

Luckily we had no trouble in Mozambique (the only trouble we had was in South Africa where the customs guy had a good laugh at our expense when he saw the state of our passports but still let us travel … whew!) apart from the incredibly long wait, huge cost and fact that Joep was too tall to have his photo taken for his visa and had to squat down while all the immigration personnel gathered around to laugh at him … classic!

Once cleared, we headed to our awaiting transfer bus where we enjoyed a 2-hour drive to the resort. Our first glimpse of Mozambique was pretty exciting. As I mentioned, we had been warned that it is really rural and under-developed and people were not lying. It is largely dirt roads and villages made up of shacks. The region that we were in had no large metropolis and the people seem to live almost entirely off the land still. Just incredible!!

We weren’t sure what to expect of Massinga Beach, our resort for the coming 7 nights, but the website looked pretty awesome so we were hoping for the best. Upon arrival at the resort we stopped at a hut at the side of the road. I began to get a bit concerned. Never fear, a 4WD was coming to collect us from the road to take us down to the beach resort. There were no signposts at all for the resort so we were a bit curious about where we were headed. We drove through a hugely rural area along a dirt track and through a river (this is a true story!) and as we pulled up to the outskirts of the resort I was feeling less than confident.

Upon arrival at the resort however, we were ecstatic! It is a work in progress for sure as the development is still underway but half of the huts are completely finished as is the restaurant and bar area. We were blown away by the views from the deck and were very excited to see our room! Rightly so!!

We have never stayed anywhere like this! A whole hut to ourselves with an incredible ocean view. Huge bed literally looking out over the ocean, huge bathroom, our own deck with sun beds right next to … yup, our own plunge pool!! Just what every honeymoon couple needs!!

The next couple of days were spent doing absolutely nothing. We made a few friends at the resort whom we chatted with every now and then; we enjoyed the 3 meals a day and we lay around reading books and hanging with the local dog. It was pretty awesome.

We also put our names down to go out snorkeling and on a sea safari and to do a tour of the local ‘city’. It is at this point that we are going to sound like the worlds most spoiled couple … we got bored. Listen. We’re all for relaxing but when you’re in a country like Mozambique you want to explore a little bit right? Right?? Maybe not everyone. Maybe it is just us.

But here is the dealio. The accommodation was beautiful. The plunge pool was glorious. The services however, are a work in progress. The advertised snorkeling and diving and sea safaris and not readily available which means that if you are the sort of couple that relaxes by doing such things, you are left sitting around with nothing to do. Which is great for a couple of days! But not for 7 nights.

So after 2.5 days of doing nothing we were ready to do something. Joep headed to reception early Friday morning and insisted we be given a transfer to Inhambane town so we could check it out. We were SO GLAD that we did it! The town was bustling and there were close to no white faces to be scene. We really felt like we were getting off the beaten track whilst still being close enough to tourist R&R heaven. It was glorious! Even more glorious was … don’t judge us … we had WIFI access!!

Listen – We’re not yuppies. But the resort advertised that there was WIFI available. We had left all Skype dates until Massinga Beach thinking we have heaps of time to Skype. It was close to Christmas and we hadn’t contacted anyone! So we spent some time reconnecting and explaining to family that we were offline. We then made an executive decision … we didn’t want to do nothing for 4 more days. Within 1 hour we had decided on a new destination, changed our flights back to Jo’berg to the following day and booked flights to Zimbabwe! We are efficient!

We called with our travel agent Blue Elephant who was incredibly helpful with all of this right down to booking us a hotel in Jo’berg for our 1 night stopover AND arranging an incredible deal for us in our hotel at Victoria Falls … I never use travel agents but after all the help Blue Elephant gave us I will definitely use them in the future! It was awesome!!

Blue Elephant also contacted Massinga Beach to let them know that we would be leaving early. During the drive back to the resort I, naturally, got totally stressed out that they were going to hate us for leaving early. Joep, naturally, didn’t see the big problem. He was right. The owner at Massinga Beach was a bit bummed that we weren’t having an awesome time but did tell us that he gets concerned when people book for 7 nights because there isn’t much to do there … DUDE!! How about you put that on your website?? He agreed that the website was a bit misleading regarding the availability of activities and said he would change it and all in all we were all happier. That evening was our best evening at the resort (typical isn’t it?) as we hooked up with 2 other couples at the bar and ended up having an awesome evening of drinks and delicious crayfish! Still, we were not too sad to be leaving the resort, as we were ready for our next adventure.

Midmorning on Saturday we jumped into our taxi for our 2 hour transfer back to Inhambane airport the most shoddy airport I’ve ever been in and, for that reason, the most entertaining. Oh and did I mention there is free Wi-Fi there? Mozambique, you are so awesomely random!! You have no paved roads but there is Wi-Fi available pretty much everywhere ... talk about priorities.

We arrived in Jo’berg without any trouble and made it with ease to our glorious hotel where we showered, made a couple of Skype calls and headed out for our Christmas Eve feast … steak! Delicious juicy humongous steak! Jo’berg has a terrible reputation for being super unsafe. We cannot comment on that because we didn’t venture out and about much. Our hotel concierge drove us to and from dinner, which was at Nelson Mandela Square in a huge mall. It was a super glamorous spot and we kind of felt like we were back in Laguna Beach.

The following morning Santa Claus had delivered us the best Christmas gift ever – Flights to Zimbabwe and 2 nights accommodation at the Victoria Falls Hotel! We skipped merrily to the airport and we were ecstatic to arrive at Vic Falls.

Zimbabwe has had a rough few years of late and we were warned in advance that the Zim side of the falls is much quieter than the Zambia side but that it is the best side to view the falls from. We felt prepared and our expectations were exceeded.

Upon arrival at the airport we cleared customs (it was more than a little tense there though and I was glad to get out) and jumped into our transfer to the hotel. We were greeted like old friends at the hotel and once again, we were made to feel like we were doing them a favour by being there rather than the other way around. Surreal!

Even more surreal was the view from our room … we looked right out over the falls!! True story. No word of a lie. It was like a dream come true.

The hotel itself has a grandeur that cannot be described. Don’t get me wrong - it is old. And it is in need of renovation. It hasn’t had any renovations lately and that is obvious but it also adds to the mystique and charm of the hotel. You really feel like you have stepped back in time. I’m pretty sure it still looks exactly like it did when Queen E stayed there at the ripe old age of 19!! If those walls could talk!!

So after getting over the shock of, once again, being in pure luxury, we headed down to the terrace to enjoy a beverage. It was at this point that I realized that for the 2^nd time in my life I was staying in a hotel that people come just to see … the 1^st being the Hotel du Glace in Quebec of course! The views of the falls from the hotel are awesome as are the monkeys and warthog wandering around the lawns. Literally, monkey's just running around in front of you while you enjoy your afternoon G&T. Totally nuts.

We relaxed for a while before deciding to do the walk to the falls. We were so glad we did! What a way to spend Christmas day! There is a very good reason why the falls are one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. They are naturally wonderful! Every corner you turn you are mesmerized. The falls go for kilometers and the amount of water rushing over the edges is incredible. We were completely soaked by the time we had finished soaking up (pardon the pun) all the sights. We couldn’t help but repeat how happy we were that we had decided to come to Zimbabwe.

What was also highly amusing was that we were amongst only a few white peeps wandering around … we were very surprised by this because our hotel was full of white tourists but perhaps we just came at a random time. Anyway, because we were some of the only white folks there AND because Joep is so tall, people kept stopping us and asking could they have a photo with Joep or simply taking photos of us as we walked by. Priceless.

I could write for hours about the water and the spray and the rainbows and the noise of the falls but you need to see it to believe it so I won’t bore you all here.

Suffice to say, they are incredible and we are so glad we have seen them!!

That evening, after a relaxed stroll back to our hotel we dressed for dinner. We had opted for the buffet with traditional African dancers to entertain us … it was somewhat lame but we got to wear Christmas hats and pull Christmas crackers so we were happy. The following day we were disgustingly lazy. See? We like to relax! We just like to have the OPTION of doing something. We had grand plans of doing one of the adventure sports available at the falls but … well we kind of chickened out. We’re clearly getting older. May I also point out that since writing this blog there was an incident at the falls with a bungee cord breaking! YES! When we read that on CNN we were so glad we chose not to jump. Being a scaredy cat is not all that bad.

Instead of throwing ourselves off the edge of the gorge with only a cord saving us from certain death, we headed back to the hotel where we enjoyed a cocktail on the terrace before getting a bucket of ice and heading up to the balcony off our room to drink the complimentary bottle of champagne that we had been given by the hotel as a wedding gift. It is at this point that I should mention that at every hotel we stayed at we were treated to champagne and rose petals on our beds because we are on our honeymoon. I LOVE the free champagne. I am not a big fan of rose petals on beds. You win some; you lose some.

Having polished off the bottle of champers we moved onto the next highlight. We were totally looking forward to our last meal of our African honeymoon … we had booked into the Livingstone Grand Ballroom for a 6-course meal with wine pairing. We couldn’t wait!! The restaurant has a dress code so we glammed ourselves up, Joep in his wedding suit and me in a nice dress, and walked down to the grand ballroom.

As I mentioned earlier, there has been little to no renovations done at the Victoria Falls Hotel in recent years. This is especially apparent in the ballroom where you totally feel like you are stepping back in time and eating in the early 1900’s right down to the live piano music playing throughout the meal. You can totally picture the place packed to the rafters with the elite of society consuming wine and game to excess. Alas, these days the ballroom is rarely full and we were 1 of only 5 tables seated. It didn’t take away from the fun though!

For the following 4 hours we were treated to an incredible 6-course meal using all the finest china, crystal glasses and best silverware. We felt incredibly spoiled and behaved like giddy school children. The waiters were so wonderful, the food was delicious, the wine was perfectly paired and the atmosphere was like something out of a movie. Might I also add that the cost appears to be the same as it was many years ago too. We were astonished! It appears inflation hasn't hit the Livingstone Ballroom. Very nice indeed. We couldn’t have ended the trip on a higher note if we tried!!

Needless to say, the following morning our heads hurt and our hearts were heavy with the realization that month 1 of our 2 month honeymoon had come to an end … Mozambique was beautiful even though we ran out of things to do. We still recommend it to others and plan on going back 'one day' to see more of the country because it holds a huge amount of promise for an action packed vacation. Zimbabwe was amazing and everyone should see these falls in their life time. They are really something else.

Now, a few days of fun await us in Amsterdam and we have another party to look forward to!! Not to mention catch-ups with old friends … oh yeah, and the second month of our honeymoon!!

We are officially the most spoiled people we know and we feel incredibly lucky to be enjoying such a luxurious, fun filled life together! I mean, we’re starting our married life the way we plan on continuing it right??

South Africa is made for newlyweds!

Man oh man, 2011 is really our year! After an amazing wedding celebration in WA Joep & I had 2 days of ‘recovery’ time before packing our bags for … wait for it .. our 2 month honeymoon!

It gives us great pleasure to tell people that our honeymoon is 2 months long. It gives us even greater pleasure to be on this 2 month dream vacation!

So, happily newly wed and all packed up we set of for Perth Airport in the middle of a pretty awesome electrical storm. I was starting to think that our flight would be cancelled as so many others were but we were super lucky and, despite a short delay in Perth, made our connections and landed on time in Cape Town, South Africa a mere 20 hours later!

Cape Town – I know that we have a tendancy to be overly enthusiastic about places we visit but I am not over exaggerating when I tell you that Cape Town may well be our favourite city to date (excluding Australian cities naturally!). The first impression you get of the city is amazing. Table Mountain in the background, the ocean on the forefront and this really beautiful city wedged in the middle. Incredible!

We spent the first afternoon talking about how we really should go exploring before accidentally falling asleep in our luxury apartment and sleeping right through till the following morning. We obviously needed the rest!

We made up for our laziness the following day. Our apartment was in Blouwbergstrand which has amazing views of Table Mountain but is a little bit of a drive into the city. Thank goodness we had a great little rental car! We headed into the city and made our first stop at the tourism bureau which is incredibly well organized and easy to get around. After booking a few awesome adventures for the coming days we decided to spend a little time enjoying the city streets before spending the afternoon driving to some of the little bays near by.

After wandering the streets for a little while and enjoying an INCREDIBLY declisious lunch at Hemelhuis (point of note here: We were so surprised by the amount of Africaanse in the city … its stupid that we were surprised by this because naturally this is the case but it was kind of fun to be able to read all the signposts, especially for Joepster the Dutchman!).

Feeling contentedly full and rested we hit the road for a bit of a road trip! First stop was Fish Hoek which is sooooo picturesque! We passed through Muizenberg on the way which was my favourite town on the drive because of the amazing coloured beach huts. It was here that we were stopped on the street by a local couple who asked if we were tourists. After finding out that we were, they proceeded to give us as many travel tips as they could – Amazing! And a wonderful first impression of South Africans!

After reaching Fish Hoek we realized that it was also closer to Cape Town than we anticipated so we decided we may as well drive a bit further south. After passing through a number of beautiful villages we reached Cape Point in the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve. The drive to and through the reserve itself is breathtakingly beautiful and we stopped a few times to take photos and had a good chuckle at the signs warning us of baboons being dangerous animals because it didn’t appear that there were baboons anywhere in sight!

We reached the point without much trouble and made our way up to the summit to admire the incredible views. Apparently this is often confused as being the most southern tip of South Africa, its not. More on that later.

The views were incredible, the weather was amazing and we soaked it all up as much as possible. Alas, we couldn’t loiter for too long because we had dinner plans!

The drive out of the park was more eventful than the drive in … as we drove along we were approached by a family of baboons! And I mean a real family – Grandparents, aunts and uncles, children, grandchildren, there were heaps of them! And even more hilarious, they were climbing all over our car. Thankfully we headed the warning signs and kept our windows up and doors locked because apparently they are totally vicious and will climb into your car and do some serious damage to you and your belongings. Still they looked pretty awesome from the safe confines of our car!

We had grand plans of heading home to freshen up before dinner but alas time had gotten away from us so, looking like ragamuffins we met up with Karen & Kevin dinner at La Boheme in the Sea Front. For those who haven’t had the pleasure of meeting her, Karen is a friend of our from Ottawa who recently relocated to Cape Town – We are very jealous that she gets to live in this amazing city!! Kevin is her new squeeze and is positively delightful! We had an awesome evening enjoying seriously amazing food and great wine not to mention lots of laughs and good conversation. It doesn’t get better than this! We then agreed more catch ups would be in order before calling it an evening and heading our separate ways.

The following day Joep & I had a packed schedule. We had agreed to do a township tour followed by visiting Robbin Island. We weren’t originally sure whether we would do a township tour having heard various views on them some very positive and others saying that it was taking advantage of the disadvantaged South Africans. After speaking with the tourism bureau we decided to do a tour with a company that is run by people from the townships and therefore, profits go back to the local communities and the tours create jobs for people from the townships.

We were so glad we did. The lady running our tour still lives in the Langa township today. It is relatively close to downtown (which was the whole point right? When apartheid began the moved all the coloured people from their homes to shantytowns outside the city but close enough that they could come a work in the city) but before heading out we stopped at District 6 where we were educated on how citizens were removed from the area in 1948 and ‘relocated’ to areas on the Cape Flats. The stories were pretty horrifying and more than a little depressing.

Within a short drive we arrived at the Langa township where we were walked through the streets by a local guide. The sense of community within the townships is pretty incredible. We felt completely safe (despite all the horror stories you hear) and found the tour both interesting and insightful. We left with mixed emotions. As I mentioned, the sense of community in the township was pretty great however, there is no denying that the people living there live in extreme poverty. And what we both found really strange was that there are NO white people living in these huge townships. Where do the poor white people live? It appears that there are no poor white people here …

All this to say, we are super glad we did the tour and found it enormously educational.

After the tour we headed straight to the waterfront where we had enough time to grab a bite to eat before boarding our boat to Robbin Island. We weren’t sure what to expect with Robbin Island. The boat over was uneventful and upon arrival on the island you are poured into tour buses with hundreds of other people and driven on a tour of the island where you are given some geographical information. You are then taken off the bus and walked through the prison on the island. The tour guides that take you through the prison are all ex-political prisoners.

Our guide was a lovely man who had been imprisoned there for 5 years because he refused to learn Africaans at school because it was not his native language. Can you imagine? We couldn’t. There is not much to tell about the prison. Its sad and its small and it looks like a prison. What I will note however is how mortified we were by other tourists in our group. Keep in mind that we were being taken through the prison by someone who had been forcibly imprisoned there for years. There was an American couple in our tour group who had many many questions for our guide.

The opening question? Wait for it … the guide leads us into a cell that housed up to 40 prisoners back in the day. After showing us around (not much to show … a room with bars on the tiny windows) he asked if there were any questions. The American guy puts up his hand to ask his question which is ‘So, it must have been way worse here when you were here right?’ The guide was confused and said ‘No, it was like this.’ The American responds ‘Really? Like this? I mean, its pretty nice here! The walls are nicely painted, its pretty clean in here right?’ The tour guide was confused and responded again ‘It was just like this when I was imprisoned here.’ The American responds with ‘Hmmm. Well I don’t think its so bad here. So uh, what did you do then?’ The tour guide answered ‘I don’t understand what you mean.’ The American says ‘Well, you must have done SOMETHING to be put in here. What did you do?’ Oh my lord. Joep & I wanted to muzzle this guy. The tour guide responded ‘I didn’t do anything.’ The American, not getting the hint, responds with ‘Well you must have done something.’ Lordy lord. Disastrous. People are idiots. Firstly, yes the cell was clean but ummmm … it’s a CELL! It is PRISON! What is wrong with this dude?! Secondly, he appeared to miss the entire point being that political prisoners here were often unjustifiably imprisoned. Yikes. It was brutal.

The final thing that we found really distressing was when one of the more considerate members of our group asked our guide how he feels coming back to the place he was imprisoned to work. Our guide responded that if it was up to him, he wouldn’t be there. It made me really sad. He is there because he needs a job. His family can’t stay with him so he only sees his kids on school holidays. Blech. I cannot imagine how that would be. Its really sad.

At the end of the tour we were given a few minutes to have a look around and read some of the testimonials that are on the walls of the cells. We also saw Nelson Mandela’s cell which is, shock horror, exactly like all the other cells. The tour itself is not the best. It is a real factory and you don’t get nearly enough time to read all the testimonials from political prisoners which were super interesting. We were glad we made the trip over though …. Despite some of the morons in our group.

A short boat ride later and we were back on the mainland and ready for dinner and an early night to recover from the previous nights festivities.

The early night was also necessary because we had a 5:30am start the following morning. We had plans to hike Table Mountain!! Once again, on vacation I always feel like I am fitter than I am.

Our hike began at 6am and saw us walking about 2.6kms climbing 1,000m in altitude. A similar hike to the Inca Trail last year but without the high beginning altitudes so a bit easier. The hike was amazing! We went with a guide Rian and he was awesome. As we set off he said to us ‘So you guys have done some rock climbing before right?’ Uhhhh wrong!! I wasn’t aware we needed those qualifications! We did but he said he would get us through it. He was awesome. Uber patient and kind and gave great instruction. We hiked the Indian Trail (there are a heap of trails to do some way easier and some way harder) and stopped often for photo opps and breath catching breaks. The views were incredible and the weather was perfect for the hike. I was so proud of myself when we reached the summit because some parts of the hike were proper rock climbing. In fact, when we reached the summit Rian told us that in 2009 6 people died doing the hike we had just done. All tourists and all had tried to do the hike without a guide. I couldn’t have done the hike without Rian and I was glad that I didn’t contribute to that statistic!

The top of Table Mountain is like arriving on the set of Jurasic Park. Its totally cool! We had a blast checking out the views and making happy snaps before Rian had to head back down on the cable car. We decided to stay a bit longer and have a coffee. We sat at the coffee shop on the summit to enjoy a quick snack. I was eating some crackers and admiring the local birds when, as I lifted a cracker to my mouth I was treated to a mouth full of feathers. One of the birds literally flew between my hand and my mouth to steal a cracker right from my lips!! It was time to leave before 1 of us lost an eye!!

We caught the cable car back down feeling very smug that we had hiked up and not gotten the cable car up like so many others. The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing with our beach views and recovering from the mornings exercise.

Late in the afternoon we got a bit glammed up for a night on the town and to have dinner at a highly recommended restaurant called the Bonbay Bicycle Company. We enjoyed a few pre dinner cocktails (and snacks … we are on an eating spree atm) at the Neighbourhood Bar on Long Street before dinner. The meal was, once again, amazing!! Atmosphere, food, wine, company (naturally … doesn’t get better than the Joepster!) and the night was deemed a success despite Joep suffering from a bad case of heart burn.

Sunday rolled around with big plans for us!! We were to meet Karen & Kevin at Msoli’s … OK so we had never heard of this amazing phenomena however the big Kahuna had and was kind enough to send me an article written by Jamie Oliver about his time as Msoli’s. Imagine the excitement levels!! The restaurant is situated in one of the townships. All the tour books tell you not to go to a town ship alone because it is highly unsafe for foreigners. We trusted Karen more than the tour books and it was only as we reached the heart of the township which was bustling and full of crowds that we began to wonder what on earth we were doing!! There was no need for concern though. After parking our car (with the assistance of many locals who were haggling for our business) we headed into the restaurant. The restaurant is basically an outdoor area covered with a verandah. There are a heap of tables and a dj in the corner. We met up with Karen & Kev and both sets of parents. Thankfully they were more organized than we were and had brought condiments, drinks, breads and salads with them. I’m not sure what Joep & I were expecting but whatever our expectations were, they were exceeded!

The atmosphere in the restaurant is electric! Locals from the township mixing with the locals from Cape Town mixing with tourists from abroad. Just incredible! Thank goodness we had a Cape Tonian with us though because figuring out how this place works is a challenege. Thankfully, Kev knows the infamous Msoli and before too long we were in the queue to what looked like a butcher but was actually where you order your food! Yup. You go into a room filled, and I mean FILLED (as in, a full dead lamb was wheeled into the room past us while we waited!) with fresh raw meat. You then pick out what you would like … lets all take a second to appreciate just how much the Joepster was loving this process! You pay for said meat (we bought a STACK of meat … cost? Approx AUD 5 … can you believe that?!) before carrying it out the back to where all the braai’s are. A braai is South African for a bbq but these are not your fan dangle modern day gas barbies. They are hard core, wood fire, smoking machines and the folks working back there seriously earn their keep!

You then return to your table and after 15 minutes you go back to the braai to collect your meat. It. Was. Incredible. The food was soooooo delicious!! I’ve never tasted meat like it! Joep was in heaven and I wasn’t far behind him!

After pigging out, big time, for an extended period of time we all decided, with heavy hearts (and stomachs) that it was time to move on. Back at the car we faced the challenge of who we should pay for helping us park (we ended up paying 3 different guys …) before maneauvering our way back through the township onto the main highway. What an experience!! One we would NEVER have had without Kahuna and Kev!

Once back on the highway we decided to hit up the Sunday markets at Hout Bay. Jeez louise, these markets were not the dodgy flea bags we were expecting. Talk about up market! Amazing art, food and knick knacks. We wandered around happily for some time before realizing we were still too full to enjoy the cuisine and decided to hit the road for Camps Bay.

Camps Bay – Heaven. Pure heaven. It was upon arrival in Camps Bay that we decided we were no longer too full to enjoy the local foods. It was a good thing. We set up camp at Grand Café with our ocean view and spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying cakes, calamari and cocktails. Sounds like a strange combination? Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it!

As the evening drew to a close we dragged ourselves away from Camps Bay and headed back up to Blauwbergstrand to take in the sunset and … you guessed … find a restaurant for dinner! Don’t judge us. We’re on honeymoon.

A delicious meal at Ons Huisie followed (notice the Dutch influence there!) and before we knew it, it was late in the evening and we had eaten more food in 1 day than most people eat in a lifetime! We loved it!

Monday rolled around and we were up somewhat early to head to the wine region! Stellenbosch and Franshoek are the local wine regions and both are raved about. We did a quick drive through the Franshoek region before hitting up the Stellenbosch region. Our decision making process was easy --- I googled the top 10 wineries in South Africa. 6 of the 10 were in Stellenbosch. Winner.

I had spent the last hour of Sunday evening drafting our own little wine tour and we were excited to try it out! If I do say so myself, I am awesome at planning wine tours. We managed to fit in all 6 wineries but did tastings at only 4 of them to save on time. The wines were incredible and the wineries were just beautiful! Joep was kind enough to be designated driver so I got to do all the tastings … splendid!

Our favourite wineries of the day would have to be Rust & Vrede (Peace & Quiet) and Kanonkop although every one that we visited we loved … at Rust & Vrede we bought a beeeeeeautiful bottle of wine which supposedly ages very well. We wrote letters to each other, stored them in the box with the wine and made an agreement to open the bottle on our 15 year wedding anniversary and read the letters. Being married is awesome!!

We finished the wine tour with enough time to head to Camps Bay for an evening meal. We had seen a sushi restaurant the day before that we were antsy to try … it was everything we hoped it would be. And more. Delicious! Although, with views of Camps Bay on a sunny day, I think anything would taste amazing!

After dinner we stopped in to say goodbye to the big Kahuna (**sob sob**) and to thank her for showing us around before heading home for 1 last dessert at Ons Huisie and a night of R&R. Oh Cape Town! We LOVED you!!

Alas we had to move on because Tuesday night we were booked into a beautiful B&B in Hermanus! Hermanus is about 130km from Cape Town on the Garden Route. We had decided that we would hit the road early on Tuesday morning and drive all the way to Mossel Bay where we would break for lunch before heading back to Hermanus for a night of rest. The drive was amazing! The changing landscapes as you go from Cape Town through Cape Flats then through the Overberg is hard to imagine! You go from coastal scenery that is just like Perth to lush greenery reminiscent of British Columbia! We were amazed and more than a little impressed! Mossel Bay, however, was a bit of a let down. Its kind of a depressing town so we didn’t stay long and headed back to Hermanus.

It was a good choice. Our B&B at Hermanus was incredible!! We were expecting the standard B&B affair. Our expectations were more than a little exceeded!! The B&B is a guesthouse. We had a huge room with giant spa and the main house has an amazing living area with views right onto the water. In addition, you don’t just get breakfast, if you so choose you can also have a gourmet dinner and pick out your own wine from their fully stocked wine cellar! Oh. My. Lord. We were in heaven. We sat down at our romantic table for two and were treated to the best meal we had had so far on honeymoon. Joep still talks about the clam chowder entrée (you need to taste it to believe how good it was). The lamb and fish mains we had were unfathomably good and don’t even get me started on dessert. Even better, the chef comes out to explain your dishes to you and to make sure you’re happy with everything. Happy? We were ecstatic! We were more relaxed than ever and happily hit the hay at a reasonable hour. Pure heaven.

The following day we were booked in to go cage diving with the great white sharks. Joep was psyched about this. I was less enthused … I am petrified of sharks. Alas, the weather was miserable and all dives were cancelled. We tried to reschedule for the following day but the storm that had rolled in was not making the diver possible on Thursday either and given that we flew out on Friday it appeared that the dive was a no go. Shame though because everyone says it is a must do and that it is totally incredible … next time. And believe me, there WILL BE a next time!

The beauty of the storm was that it gave Joep & I the perfect excuse to laze around for the day. We headed into the town to browse through the shops (I spent a full hour in my 2^nd all time favourite book store … 1^st being of course the little store in Laguna Beach) and spent the afternoon on the couch in the living room with our bottle of Kanonkop rose and our books. Hello honeymoon!! That evening, rather than brave the elements we decided to once again enjoy the amazing culinary expertise of Zonnika our chef. We were not disappointed. Pork belly cooked to perfection? YES PLEASE!! I feel like I am only writing about food … I cannot help it.

Given that our dive on Thursday was a no go as well Joep and I made plans to head to Cape Agulhas … it is the southern most tip of South Africa (not the Cape of Good Hope!) and it is also incredibly beautiful! The drive was lovely and there were some super cute little towns along the way and the cape itself was gorgeous and windy. Seriously windy. It was also a longer drive than we anticipated so after a late lunch we headed straight back to Hermanus because we had awesome dinner plans!

The previous night, Zonnika had informed us that it was her last night as chef for Schulphoek. Shame! We were devastated because, as you may have noticed, we loved her cooking! Never fear, she had taken up a new position at Birkenhead. We’d never heard of it … we have now. It is a similar guest house to Schulphoek but higher on the price scale and therefore higher on the ‘Oh my god this is incredible!’ scale. Similar to Schulphoek, the restaurant is generally only for guests however Zonnika booked a table for us to dine there on Thursday evening! We were ecstatic!

We got home, got glammed up and called Birkenhead to collect us. Yes, they were collecting us to eat at their restaurant. Can you say “excellent service”? Upon arrival at the restaurant we were greeted like old friends and told numerous times that they were ‘so glad you could join us!’ I’ve never felt so welcome in all my life! We were then shown around the guesthouse (wow!) and sat out on the deck literally OVER the ocean where we enjoyed a welcome cocktail. I have goosebumps as I write this!

After a delicious cocktail where our awed silence was broken only by exclamations of ‘I cannot believe we are here’ and ‘This is the most beautiful place ever!’ we headed inside to choose our table. Having seated ourselves comfortably we were approached by Zonnika (who we have a massive crush on … the way to a honeymooner’s heart is through the stomach indeed!) and our head chef for the evening to have the menu explained to us. There was one awkward moment when Joep asked what polenta was … the chef was surprised that Joep didn’t know what polenta was. I was also surprised. Joep noticed our surprise and pretended he DID know what polenta was … he didn’t know and when the chef left I explained it to him. Teamwork.

We then settled in to enjoy our second pre dinner cocktail when the chef approached us to hand up binoculars and tell us that a school of dolphins and pod of whales were swimming by! We were excited! Our we headed onto the deck to watch the amazing migration and while oohing and aahing at the sights we both noticed a slight burning smell. The smell got stronger and I turned to investigate. Our table was on fire!! The waitors and chefs were desperately patting it down trying to get the flames under control. They managed to do so (thank goodness) as I looked at Joep with big eyes wondering if we were about to be asked to leave the restaurant. You see, the fire had clearly been caused by a candle which had blown over in the breeze through the door that we had left open when viewing the dolphins. Yikes. We were moderately stressed but not for long because when we came inside the chef was feeling even worse! He also hadn’t closed the door having had a recent bad experience with an older guest walking straight into the glass door so he took on all the blame himself!

We all had a good hearty laugh about it and it made for a very relaxed evening afterwards.

The food that night was hands down best food of the honeymoon so far. Fig and gorgonzola gnocchi, prauwns, lamb, polenta with brie and Portobello mushrooms … oh my lord we were in heaven! We drank far too much, ate far too much and laughed far too much. All in all, it was the PERFECT end to the southern portion of our honeymoon.

We were dropped back to Schulphoek late in the evening where we passed out completely content. Hermanus, best eating of our lives. We must return.

Alas the following morning we had to move on once again! A 5am start saw us at Cape Town airport on time for our flight to Jo’berg where we hired our rental car and hit the road for our safari! Nambiti Hills game reserve is a small reserve in the Kwazulu-Natal region of South Africa. It is not in Kruger National Park but rather, is between Lesotho and Swaziland near Ladysmith. The drive there was super uneventful apart from a harrowing stop at a fast food joint where the waitress spat all over our food and we were unable to eat it, and we arrived at Nambiti just after 4pm. We were immediately given an insight into how good the service would be over the coming days. You see, the afternoon game drive starts at 4pm and we had just missed the departure. We figured, oh well we’ll go in the morning instead. But the staff offered to collect us at the car park, bring our stuff to our room and take us to meet up with the game drive! Splendid! We were so glad they did … I don’t think you ever forget your first game drive. I know I certainly won’t.

Within minutes of getting into the truck we had introduced ourselves to our fellow guests (all residents of South Africa … a promising sign that we had chosen a great reserve!) and spotted the hippo’s! Weeeee!! The hours that followed brought us zebra, giraffes and more antelope than you could shake a stick at. Not to mention a herd of elephants (so huge!) and a white rhino! Oh lord. Life was good. Oh and did I mention that half way through the drive you stop and are treated to a sundowner? Yes. White table cloth table, wine, beer, snacks all in the middle of a game reserve! It was incredible. I’ve never felt so spoiled.

But this was just the tip of the iceberg. Upon arrival at the lodge we were walked to our room … Luxury my old friend! Where have you been all my life?! We were blown away! It was pure heaven. Luxury like we couldn’t have dreamt of! Right down to the hot bath that was already filled for us to jump into after such a long day of driving and animal spotting.

After recovering from the shock of the slice of heaven we were allowed to sleep in, we called for our guide to walk us back up to the room. You’re not allowed to walk alone because the lodge is right in the middle of the game reserve and the animals roam freely throughout it. True story. We woke up to warthogs outside our window one day!

The evening meal was delicious and the company was wonderful and after a very long, very glorious day we went to bed content and very excited about the days to follow.

The days to follow were everything we hoped they would be and more! I won’t go through every game drive but I will tell you that we saw 4 of the big 5 in the wild. We also went to the ‘Cheetah Experience’ where 3 rescued cheetah live and you are allowed to get into the enclosure with them and pet them! It was pretty surreal. We loved it! We didn’t love the serval as much though.

A serval is like a mini cheetah and there was one at the reserve called ‘Diablo’. When we got into the enclosure with him he totally freaked out. The animal handler told the woman in our group (who was uber annoying and wearing a dress a few sizes too small for her) that she had to get out of the enclosure because her dress was upsetting Diablo. I thought it was a pretty funny joke but … he wasn’t joking. Turns out Diablo had been bought by some rich dude as a gift for his wife and when the little kitty turned out to be not so nice, they weren’t so nice back to him. Poor old Diablo. The animal handler said that the dress must have brought back some memories of that time and caused him to freak. Either way, being in a cage with a wild cat going nuts was not our idea of fun so we were happy to step out with the badly dressed lady … I did feel uber sad for Diablo though.

The other really cool thing we saw was a face off between 2 female lions. Here is the summarized story. There is 1 pride of 6 lions at Nambiti. A while ago the managers tried to introduce a new pride of 3 lions. The old pride was not happy about this and hunted the new pride killing 2 of the 3 lions. The last remaining female is now on the run from the ladies of the other pride. Alas, the male from the old pride took a shining to the lone female and knocked her up. She was pregnant at the same time as a lady lion from the old pride so 2 litters of cubs were born. The old ladies were not happy about this and (*sob sob*) killed the cubs of the new lady!! On our second evening at Nambiti word went around that the new lady had been cornered by one of the lady lions from the old pride. Uh oh! We drove out to see. It was nuts!! The new lady was backed into a corner on a hill lying very still. The lady from the old pride was totally showing her who is boss and not letting her out. They were eyeing each other of and grumbling at each other and all in all the atmosphere was somewhat hostile … kind of like the Delany house back in the day when one of us had stolen the other ones favourite top and ruined it …

Over the following days we had a few more lion sightings including the old lady lion on her own calling to her pride with giant roars (incredible!!) and the 3 ‘cubs’ of the old pride, although they are quite big now. This was amazing because the 2 males and 1 female were wandering around. They wandered into an area filled with zebra and antelope and all the zebra started barking when they saw the lions to warn all the animals that there were lions around. It was pretty cool!! It was also cute because at this time we got caught in the only rain storm of the week (a bit deal considering it is rainy season!) and these huge cats hate the water just like household cats do. Awwww poor lions!!

Man oh man, between the lions, the buffalo, the giraffes (how elegant are these dudes! We even saw 2 having a fight and swinging their necks at each other just like on ‘Walk on the Wild Side’!), the elephants, the hippos and the zebras (we saw a couple having a rip roaring disagreement and kicking each other in the face! It was hilarious!) we had more than our fill of wild animals. Might I also add that the kudu is delicious! I realize I am a total hypocrite because when the lions looked like they were going to attack something I was devastated yet I was happy to chow down on the animals myself … I don’t care. It was delicious!

Speaking of meals, my favourite meal of the honeymoon was at Nambiti. It’s a huge call because Birkenhead was out of this world and Joep & I have debated back and forth on this but picture this … you get back from your evening game drive and are told that tonight you will have a romantic dinner in the ‘Boom’. You wonder if boom in Africaanse means the same as in Dutch (“tree”) as you freshen up and are then lead to your table. You arrive at the top of a wooden staircase to a platform literally suspended above the valley. Only 1 table, an open fire and more stars in the sky than you could ever dream of … pure heaven. I will never forget that meal as long as I live.

The food was good (not as good as Birkenhead) but you could’ve served me a cheeseburger and I’d still say it was best meal ever because the location can never be topped. Joep and I spent the first part of the meal in stunned silence gazing around us in awe. It was like eating inside a planetarium except cooler … because its real! We were then treated to an awesome astrology lesson by our host Ross who also told us about his recent romance which made me swoooooooooon!! We polished off a bottle of champagne and a bottle of wine and despite the slight intoxication, I still remember every detail of this night and hope to do so for the rest of my life.

All in all our days at Nambiti Hills were unbeatable! The game drives both morning and night were glorious. The days spent lounging by the pool and enjoying too much wine (and more food) were pure heaven. The people were so lovely and the setting was breathtakingly beautiful. We highly recommend it to everyone!!

**Content sigh**

The South Africa portion of our honeymoon ended just as it began … on a massive high! Amazing country, amazing people, amazing FOOD!! We cannot wait to return!!