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Nic writes…
The last couple of weeks have been very varied in all senses. When we last wrote we were on the drizzly south coast of South Africa, ending our time on the Garden Route. Since then we have travelled several thousand kilometres and we are currently sunning ourselves in Tofo, Mozambique.
Firstly, we spent a day at Tenikwa, which is a wildlife rehabilitation centre that is also home to various wild African cats to attract visitors and funds. As my (early) Christmas present from Rich, we took part in the 'Crazee Cat' day which involved walking and grooming cheetahs, and viewing Leopard, Serval, Caracal and African Wild Cat. This was all amazing (especially as it was just the two of us), but the best part of the day was spent with the two wildlife keepers. They chatted to us in general about wildlife conservation in Africa and the threats to various species (for example, one of the biggest threats to cheetahs is inbreeding brought about by the loss of habitat - the inbreeding leads to various mutations such as patches of fur with no spots which means they are not fully camouflaged and so would not survive in the wild).
The keepers introduced us to a rockhopper penguin named Gilbert (he got his name as he looks a little like a rugby ball). Gilbert ended up at Tenikwa after he found himself on South African shores exhausted and a very long way from home. Sadly, whilst he is now healthy enough to be released, under South African law he must remain in captivity in case he takes any diseases he might have picked up in South Africa back to his colony in the Antarctic circle, which could wipe them out. However, Gilbert seems happy enough and loves human attention (he even spent some time preening our hands). We also got to meet Badge, a tame honeybadger. Rich and I have become a little obsessed with honeybadgers after watching a BBC nature programme earlier in the year, so this was the highlight of the day by far. Badge was relentless and loved to be thrown around (literally picked up and thrown, like you might throw a sack of potatoes). It looked like animal cruelty, but he kept coming back for more and didn't hurt any of us (he definitely could have if he had wanted to).
After leaving the Garden Route we had a lot of distance to cover. Firstly we needed to drive to Nelspruit, which is relatively near the Mozambique border. This resulted in several, very long, days of driving and for just under a week we ended up staying in a different town each night. This got very tiring and stressful as we tried to sort accommodation for each night, trying to balance out quality and cost whilst not knowing how many kilometres it would be possible to drive each day. One night we didn't have a place booked until 7pm!
We broke up some of the driving with various activities e.g. we visited an aquarium in Durban and had some downhill fun in the Drakensburg on push scooters with pimped out tyres (it was like mountain biking, but with no saddle or pedalling). However, many of the days we spent driving were wet and thundery, so we were quite happy to keep driving (only visiting the odd shopping mall in search for the shampoo I use at home… it's getting desperate)!
We arrived in Nelspruit in good time to hand our car in, so we decided to spend a day driving around Kruger to see how it compared to the parks in Botswana and Namibia. The biggest difference was the tar (!!) roads. It was a very good day and we saw a lot of wildlife (lions, hyena, rhino, elephant, buffalo etc), but the park didn't have the same charm and adventurous feel as those in Botswana and Namibia and, like the Masaai Mara in Kenya, each 'notable' animal was surrounded by several cars making it feel like an oversized safari park. It was still a lovely experience (we realise how spoilt this makes us sound… we know we are very lucky to be able to compare parks).
We then made our way into Mozambique. When we left the UK, we weren't sure whether we would make it to Mozambique as elections were taking place just before we were due to arrive and often elections in African countries can lead to violence. It was a particular concern in this case as there has been violence between two groups in Mozambique since mid-2013 (the two groups that opposed each other in the civil war many years ago). The national flag, displaying an ak47 is not very reassuring either. However, although the results have been disputed, the two groups called against any violence and the foreign office advice stated we were ok to visit.
As soon as we entered Mozambique we felt like we could be back in Malawi with evident poverty and lots of crazy minibuses! Luckily most of our trip up to Tofo was made on an alright bus, however the last 20kms were in a Malawian style minibus. At one point the bus was pulled over by the police who determined there were 5 people too many in the bus (that was an underestimation in my view). After some haggling between the bus driver and the police, we were on our way, all passengers back on board. One minute later we picked up two more passengers… no comment!
We have spent the last 7 nights in Tofo, relaxing and diving. Tofo is one of the few places in the world you can dive with manta rays and whale sharks. Sadly for us we have not seen either on our dives, but we have seen plenty of colourful fish and don't feel too disappointed.
Tomorrow we leave Tofo to head back to Maputo. The following day we travel to Pretoria and the day after we fly out of Africa. I'm very sad to leave Africa as it has just been amazing, but excited about what we'll see next.
(Note, we wrote this a couple of days ago and have only just had an opportunity to upload).
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