I know you have been waiting for the good stuff from South Africa!

Going on a safari in South Africa was not even on our travel radar. However, the couple we traveled to Chile with last year bought a safari at a charitable auction, and it was offered at the same price to anyone they wanted as companions. Hmmm, do you suspect that the price paid was over the minimum? So now the new next big trip was for a safari and road trip in South Africa. The first week of our vacation was at a private game reserve in the Zulu Natal region, which is in the Northeast corner of South Africa near the Indian Ocean.

If you have been on a cruise, the organization of the luxury safari was very similar. You received a great place to stay, excellent abundant food, a basic activity plan, and the option of spending a lot more money on add-on alternatives that were hard to resist. I think the company planned on breaking even on the basic safari package, and then made their profit on the alternatives and our beverages. You certainly needed to sample a lot of South African wine! We were in a group of eight and did all of the game drives together, and all eight opted for most of the extra pay alternatives. For the entire week we were assigned a wonderful ranger who drove us on the morning and evening game drive (and could he ever drive that open Land Rover on some very rugged roads), picked us up from the plane, delivered us to Richards Bay after the safari, and arranged all of the extras. You also would then tip the ranger like the staff on a cruise ship.

The searching and finding of the animals was much more than we ever expected. It was incredible to have elephants, hippos, rhinos, wildebeest, nyala antelope, wart hogs, monkeys and giraffe within feet or yards of the Land Rover. I, of course, came within inches of near death! A mother elephant took umbrage at our presence and came directly at me in the seat nearest her. She swerved away, just like the ranger predicted. I was trying to breathe again at that point. He told us that the animals are used to the vehicles and “please people, don’t move or stand and make the animal single you out”. Our excursions “off the reserve” were to two of the South African national game parks, the Greater St. Lucia Wetland Park, a nearby Zulu village, and to satisfy the world’s greatest shopper … stopping at a fantastic craft center and nearby towns.

Following the safari we worked our way down the eastern side of South Africa along the Indian Ocean. We spent several days in Umhlanga, a suburb of Durban (of course waiting to get to the U.S. Consulate) but we put the time to good use enjoying the amazing surf and beaches of the Indian Ocean, taking the midland meander in the Drakensburg Mountains, visiting Pietermaritzburg, and partaking in the holy week holidays. Our format for this part of the trip was to stay at Bed & Breakfast homes all the way to Cape Town. B&B’s in South Africa are very well developed and we always had a great place to stay. From Durban we flew south to Port Elizabeth on Kulala Airlines, which is a discount regional airline, like Jet Blue or Southwest. We had some really inexpensive flights on this leg and the flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg.

From Port Elizabeth to Cape Town we drove along the Garden Route and East Cape, taking in the wonderful ocean bays, beautiful landscapes, visiting Kynsa, St. Francis Bay, Mossel Bay, and spending two days in the wine country of Franschhoek and Stellenbosch. The wine country is truly magnificent, with rugged rock mountains and lush producing valleys. South African driving was on the left side so I really tuned up my skills, keeping to the left while shifting with my right hand. Only a few times did I turn on the windshield wipers instead of the turn signals!

The trip was topped off with several days in Cape Town, which many claim to be the most beautiful city in the world. The city is wrapped around the imposing Table Mountain and every neighborhood is on the water. We did all the mandatory tourist visits to the Cape of Good Hope, the cable car to the top of Table Mountain, the restaurants, and Robben Island. Mary Ann did her shopping reputation proud with all the available African crafts and exploration of the shops of the Victoria and Albert Waterfront. This is definitely a place we would return to. There was too much to see and do in just three weeks.

(Published in the Spring 2006 ABA JD Record)

Pay Attention Dummy! Part II

                            Safari Babe!  The Shopper.

When we last saw the “pathetic crime victim travelers” they were meeting their friends at the Johannesburg airport. Thank goodness for friends who had credit cards and money! The next stop was at the Country Manor in Johannesburg where we could start sorting things out. Upon arrival the good news was an e-mail from our daughter updating the ‘stop the credit cards’ project. She also gave us the good advice of not letting these little (BIG!) bumps ruin a vacation. March on and have a wonderful time.

One of the cards we had with us was a Visa AAA Passport cash card. This is essentially a prepaid debit card. When we contacted AAA they were very efficient and wired the amount of the card to a Thomas Cook outlet in a Johannesburg mall by 10 a.m. of the day of the theft. We now felt better having some ready cash! Our friend had his Blackberry with him, so we started the passport process by advising the Embassy in Pretoria of the theft of the passports, and asking for instructions. We never heard from them, although we followed up with a second e-mail. We next started calling the Embassy after the weekend, but ended up always being put on voice mail. We decided not to worry about it (oh sure), and wait until we could get to the Consulate in Durban following our safari.

The next hurdle was the flight to Richards Bay on the Indian Ocean, where we were transferred to our safari private animal reserve. Our tickets were e-tickets, so we did not lose that information, but we no longer had any permanent identification to satisfy the usual security check-in. Maybe it happens all the time in South Africa, but the check-in folks at South African Airways accepted our photocopies of the passports, and our explanation of the theft, backed up by our theft complaint receipt and number. Having the complaint number and receipt, became our ticket to keep passing “GO” throughout the trip. I think we will frame it as a reminder of having done something right.

As I have always traveled with one of the world’s great shoppers, it was still necessary to obtain a new credit card, or I would have a very grumpy spouse. We solved this by having our daughter in Wenatchee pickup a credit card from my office which we had not taken with us, and then send it air express by DHL to Durban, where we hopefully would also solve the passport shortage. After the safari we rented a car in Richards Bay (I had an international license so did not need my real license) and headed for Durban. We anticipated the credit card would have arrived on Thursday and we arrived on Saturday. No such luck! This was Holy Week and things were pretty much shut down, including a local holiday on Monday. As it turned out we received the card on Tuesday and Mary Ann had been card-less for 12 days. Talk about stress!

At the American Consulate in Durban we were the only hapless Americans in sight. The place was very busy, but with South African citizens trying to get visas to the U.S. It took us from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. to jump through all of the hoops, but we eventually walked out (a couple of hundred dollars lighter) with two very welcome emergency passports, good for one year. So now we are good to go with cash, credit card and passports. What else could go wrong?

Because of identity theft, we always call the credit card companies before going overseas, to advise they can expect charges in whatever foreign country we are visiting. The card that arrived in Durban was not so cleared, as we never expected it to be used. We were very blithely charging like mad on the car trip down the Indian Ocean coast. In Cape Town, when I was dutifully getting my history fix by visiting Robben Island (where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 17 years) Mary Ann was working on her shopping reputation at the Victoria & Albert Waterfront, when the card was rejected. She knew I was not going to handle this real well, since we were going to be using it in Amsterdam on the way home. She thus spent a good part of the afternoon on long distance calls to CitiBank to get the ABA Visa card back in operation. Upon my return, it was fixed and all was well.

I hope this tale of how the problems were solved has been helpful to you. Now if we can just get those darn emergency passports extended maybe we can travel again! Next time I will tell you about what a fantastic trip it really was.

 (Published in the Winter 2005 ABA JD Record)

Pay Attention Dummy! Part I

Mary Ann and I arrived in South Africa, groggy, irritable, and tired after 26 hours of travel going from Wenatchee to Seattle, then to Amsterdam and on to Johannesburg. We arrived late because of delays in Amsterdam, and it was after midnight. We were the last flight for the night and the airport was mostly deserted. It was a fine warm evening, so after collecting the bags (you remember all those bags we carry!) we saw our overnight hotel in the not too far distance from the exit and decided to just walk it rather than waiting for the hotel courtesy bus. Mistake!!!

I suspect from your reading of the 14 previous “Times’ Off The Bench” you would figure that we are experienced, careful, cautious travelers. Well…usually we are. We don’t take unnecessary risks, we follow all of Rick Steves’ warnings, and usually we don’t do stupid stuff. We have never had a travel crisis or been the victim of a crime (unless you count never receiving a piece of luggage). Until now. As we were walking into the driveway of the Johannesburg Holiday Inn, I heard Mary Ann scream, and quicker than it takes to write this, her shoulder bag was snatched by a silent running young man. Mary Ann reacted (surprisingly) by chasing him across the street and toward a freeway. As agile as she is, she did not get close to him. The bad news was that in the bag were our passports, Mary Ann’s purse, my billfold, all of our credit cards, and most of our cash. How could we be so stupid? Excuses include that I don’t like to sit on my billfold on airplanes. Mary Ann did not give it back after we landed and after customs Mary Ann stuck both passports and billfold in her purse instead of returning mine to me.

What a crisis! No passports in a foreign country. No credit cards. No cash except $300 hidden in a carry-on. No original picture ID, as the driver’s licenses were in the purse and billfold and the passports were gone. This was day one of the 21 day adventure in South Africa. What were we going to do? First we checked into the hotel and reported our theft. They were very helpful but amazed we were so stupid that we walked from the airport (tell me something I didn’t know). Next we tried to calm down and the hotel people arranged to get us to the police to report the theft.

We did follow the travel advice I have given in the past and had color photocopies of our passports and both sides of all our credit and debit cards in another bag. This turned out to be manna from heaven! First Mary Ann tried to call the credit card companies to get them stopped. With the trauma and excitement it was quite a challenge to be making international calls at 2 am in the morning. Finally, she had the brilliant idea of calling our daughter in Wenatchee, gave her all the numbers and left it to her to contact the credit card companies. Next the hotel staff took us to the police station at the airport (riding this time instead of walking) to file the theft report. We really did not hold out any hope of getting anything back, but it turned out that it was extremely important that we had filed the report, and had a complaint number and receipt of the filed complaint. More about this later.

Finally, back at the hotel we hit the bed trying to get some rest. Oh, sure! A million worries were running through each of our minds. How do we replace the passports? Can we get a credit card replacement? Can we get more cash? Did the cards get cancelled? The worries, as you can imagine grow and grow. No sleep that night. We were up at 6 a.m. and off to the airport to meet our traveling companions.

When we met as they came out of arrivals (nearly last) they tell us that none of their luggage arrived. We told them about our theft, and then commented everything works out great as we had clothes and they had money! What more could we need for a three week South African adventure.

Well we now leave the hapless travelers back at the airport. Will they get new passports? Can they get a credit card? Will they be able to fly around South Africa? Will they ever be able to return to the United States? You will just have to wait until the next issue for all those answers.

                          Tom Lost in the Indian Ocean
 
(Published in the Fall 2005 ABA JD Record)