Well, in case you thought we'd fallen off the face of the earth or been hijacked, we are still very much alive and well in South Africa. We've extended our stay by a week as we couldn't fit everything in. Our return date is now March 24^th.

We've traveled in a big circle around South Africa and have put over 5,000 miles on Cate's car. Below is an annotated map of South Africa showing the route we took and the places we visited.

If you've been following along, you'll know that we flew into Joburg on Jan 26^th where we stayed with Cate and Fiona for the weekend. Then, on February 2^nd, we headed down to Lily of the Valley Orphanage in KwaZulu Natal for just over 2 weeks. We've already posted a lot about our experiences at Lily so we'll skip over that part of the trip here.

We left Lily on February 16^th and drove northwest to the southern part of the Drakensberg mountains. We stayed in the very peaceful little town of Underberg and joined a 4x4 tour up the Sani Pass into Lesotho. Boy, what an experience that was! The Sani Pass is described as one of the most treacherous mountain passes in Africa taking you 9500 feet above sea level on a single track dirt road in a matter of 5 miles!

It had been raining heavily in the Drakensberg for several weeks prior to our arrival and the Pass had been closed because the road had beenwashed away. They opened the Pass but very few vehicles had made it to the top because the road conditions were so bad and the fog was so thick. Our fearless driver was determined to persevere and we made it to the top where we were rewarded with lunch at the highest pub in Africa. The weather was deteriorating so we left hastily for the hairy descent back into South Africa. It was scary, exciting and wonderful all at the same time.

View from base of Sani Pass ... before we ascended into the clouds!

From the Drakensberg we drove to Port St Johns on the Wild Coast. Port St. Johns was described as the “jewel of the wild coast.” It is anything but! It is a dilapidated, dirty, creepy town. The creek looked like a garbage dump. The beach had trash and debris washed up. There was a sense of hopelessness and desperation. It's sad because the landscape and views are actually gorgeous, but the residents have destroyed this natural beauty with carelessness. It was approaching sunset, and we wanted to take a walk on the beach, but when we got there it did not feel safe.

Traditional village in hills of the Eastern Cape

We left early the next morning and drove through the beautiful hills of the Eastern Cape with their colorful traditional houses to Jeffrey's Bay. What a contrast to Port St Johns! It was as clean, beautiful and felt very safe. Jeffrey's Bay is a world famous surfing destination.

Jeffrey's Bay Beach

From Jeffrey's Bay we continued traveling west to Knysna. Knysna is another amazing example of South Africa's natural beauty. Storms River mouth and gorge is spectacular to see. The gorge is disturbingly steep and deep, even to someone that had gone rock climbing for years. We visited a wood working shop and met a very nice man, Colin, who took us through the shop, explaining every species of wood as we went and showing us each product (and it wasn't even his shop.) He urged us to visit a yacht builder across town. We were anxious to get moving along but agreed to back track to the factory. I am so glad we did! James, the owner of Fluid Yachts, showed us all through his facility, explaining the business's history and vision as well as the joys and difficulties of being a SA business owner. He gave us a tour of the “smaller” of the two catamarans at 55ft long. It was a work of art. The deck fixtures were formed right onto the deck as if they grew out of the fiberglass. The systems were all the best brands in the world and installed in a way to please both the owner and the mechanics.

Looking into gorge from the main highway bridge

Storms River Mouth

Storms River Mouth

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Mark standing in front of one of the oldest remaining yellow wood trees

From Knysna we continued west to Cape Town and then south along the Cape Peninsula to the little seaside village of Fish Hoek were Grace grew up. We spent a week in Fish Hoek living in a cottage about 300 feet from the long sandy beach. We did day trips to Cape Point, Table Mountain and Boulders beach where we swam with the African Penguins. Cape Town is an incredibly beautiful place where the mountains meet the sea!

Cape Point - covered in fog!

View of Hout Bay from Chapmans Peak on a very windy day

Fish Hoek beach

Kalk Bay Harbor - one bay up from Fish Hoek

View of Table Mountain as we ascended in the cable car

Looking down on Cape Town city and port from the cable car

African Penguins on Boulders Beach

We experienced wonderful South African hospitality as we caught up with many of Grace's friends in the various suburbs of Cape Town …

Family friends - Ruth & Ron Connyngham and Maureen West

High School friends– Melanie Raphael, Angela De Sa and John De Sa

Campus Crusade friends – Erika and Martin (Hays) Janutsch

USA friends – Melissa & Ben (Brown) Blasko

We even bumped into some friends that she had lost contact with while we were doing errands. Nadene Tharratt Bell from UCT and Debbie Jenkins from FHHS!

We attended a service at Muizenberg Community Church which is a very multicultural church. We sang songs in English, Xhosa and Afrikaans. What a wonderful experience it was to worship the same God in different languages!

We left Cape Town on March 1^st en route back to Joburg. We spent a night in Montagu with Grace's friends Neil and Hazel Fraser, from her Christ Church Hillbrow days. The drive through the mountains into Montagu was breathtaking. An early morning departure began a 13 hour drive to Welkom through the Karoo which is a semi-desert area. In Welkom we spent the night with Grace's cousin Biddy and were treated to a delicious dinner and fresh homemade scones for breakfast.

Grace and cousin Biddy

We spent the weekend at Cate & Fiona's in Midrand recuperating from all our travels and then set off early on Monday March 7^th for Pilanesberg Game Reserve. What a wonderful experience that was! We stayed in a very comfortable safari tent with an indoor bathroom. The monkeys paid us a visit one day while we were out and helped themselves to packets of sugar and coffee creamer! We saw the monkeys in our neighbors tent the previous day and so we had taken great care to secure every zipper on the tent but the monkeys are very clever … they figured out that the ground sheet was attached by velcro and they just pulled it open! Thankfully we had put most of our food in the trunk of the car based on what we saw at our neighbors tent the previous day so there wasn't much for them to eat.

Our safari tent

Securely locked - or so we thought!

Clever monkeys mastered velcro!

We spent many hours driving around the Game Park in search of animals and we were richly rewarded. We saw a huge variety of animals including lion, elephant, rhinoceros, giraffe, hippopotamus, zebra, impala, springbok, kudu and many different species. It was a wonderful experience! We've posted a few pictures below but will do another post later with more photos – we took almost 500 photos!

Huge heffalump!

Lioness scoping out her prey

We've been back in Joburg since the 10^th and have been spending our time visiting people in different community development projects, churches and ministries. We'll blog about those experiences separately so that's all for now.