Holland - Amsterdam

It is the end of our trip... But the adventures don't stop yet. We've got one city left, and what a city to end on!

We are staying about a 10 minute tram ride from the centre of Amsterdam, on the west end of the city just around the block from the De Gooyer Windmill.

De Gooyer Windmill

The city very old in comparison to the young Munich that we just left behind. The city was untouched by WWII, in comparison to Munich which was entirly rebuit after the war.

Amsterdam by Foot
We started our exploration of the city by an organized walking tour. We saw many of the touristy sites, such as the Oude Kerk, Mieuwe Markt, you know, all the normal tourists things. But the one thing that stood out in the walking tour was a cranky, old woman who lived in a small house right beside the Oude Kerk (Old Church). This church is not located in the quitest district of town, I mean she lives just on the outskirts of the Red Light District. Our tour leader told us about her hatred of all tourists because of their drunken loudness and galavanting that occurs outside her house, and her tendancy to take it out on the tour groups. Our tour group of about 25 people stopped just outside her front door to have a chat, she then came out of her house when we stopped, yelled at us to leave the area, all the while snapping some pictures with her digital camera. Who knows what she'll do with those pictures...

A lone bike in the centre of a university courtyard.

Graeme and I also decided to take in some fine art at the Rijksmuseum, which is displaying many pieces from the Dutch Golden Age. Artists include: Jacob van Ruysdael, Frans Hals, Johannes Vermeer and Rembrant. Some of the highlights that we saw were Rembrant's The Night Watch, The Jewish Bride and The Sampling Officials.

The front of the Rijksmuseum.

Amsterdam by Water
The next on our agenda was a tour of the canel system. We hopped on the Holland International just outside the Central Station for an evening cruise. Highlights from the cruise include:

• Melissa getting bitten by a swan as we were docked. "Stop looking at me swan!"
• Bumping into the side of a canel bridge with our boat that is much too long to navigate through the thin canels.
• And of course, the beautiful houses along the water. It was night time, so everyone had their interior lights on, so we could peer into many houses...

The Holland International tour boat
with Central Station in the background.

The sun reflecting off a building during the cruise.

The exploration of Amsterdam is not yet done, we have another day and more places to see...

South Africa - Cape Town

On the 16th of August we arrived in Cape Town, our final destination on our African journey. What a beautiful city! It has nice ocean views, as well as a beautiful waterfront restaurant/shopping/entertainment area and first-world facilities.

First up on the agenda: diving with sharks! Now, we COULD have gone in the ocean in a cage suspended just slightly below the surface of the water to look at sharks, but we wanted to dive with sharks without the boring cage around us. The solution: diving in an aquarium! The "Two Oceans Aquarium" has a large shark and other predatory fish exhibit in a 6 metre deep tank, where they will take you diving. The only thing between us and the sharks was an employee with SCUBA gear and a shark-poking stick who poked at the sharks with the stick if they looked like they were going to try to eat one of us. Luckily, we all survived with no loss of fingers or limbs! We also got to see the rest of the aquarium, which was nice. (pictures to come, maybe)

Later that night, we went out for a nice steak dinner. After dinner, we left the restaurant and were walking down the street when a slow-moving van drove by honking at us. It had a giant banner on the side saying "LOOK AT THE MOON", so we looked up at the sky, and sure enough we were right in the middle of a lunar eclipse. Thanks, random South African van driving people!

The next day, we went on a trip up Cape Town's famous Table Mountain. The weather was beautiful, so after probably the world's fastest gondola ride up, we had a 360 degree panoramic view with Cape Town in the north and the land leading to the Cape of Good Hope in the south.

Riding up the gondola

Melissa with the Cape of Good Hope in the background

Western Cape Town from Table Mountain

The Atlantic Ocean (3rd ocean on our trip!)

Eastern Cape Town from Table Mountain

After a farewell dinner with some of the people in our tour group at Quay 4, a nice restaurant by the harbour, we went back for a quick sleep before our 4 am wakeup for our flight to Munich. Goodbye, Africa!

South Africa - Stellenbosch Wine Tour

South Africa is well known for its various wine regions, most famous of which is Stellenbosch. After two days of driving from the South African border we arrived in the town mid-morning and promptly set out for our full day wine tour! On the agenda were four wineries. These included Simonsig, Fairview (Goats du Rhone), Franschhoek, and Boschendal (See below).

All in all, the day was quite a success. At each winery we had the opportunity to try 5 or 6 different varieties including two that were specific to South Africa: the Pinotage (a hybrid of Pinot and Hermitage grapes) and the Chenin Blanc. The Chenin Blanc can also be found in France; however, it is considered a South African specialty. By our second winery we were in full swing and it wasn't even 1 pm yet. Lunch was served in a small restaurant in town and we were all quite thankful for the intermission. The two wineries that we toured in the morning ended up being better than the two in the afternoon; however, the last winery was absolutely beautiful as it was placed between two mountains just outside of Stellenbosch. It was one of the oldest wineries in town but its wines didn't rank among the best of our tour.

In the evening after our tour we all headed out for a farewell dinner at the Cape Town Seafood Market (which isn't actually in Cape Town) where we had some exceedingly mediocre steak. I think we had been spoiled by the amazing steak and game available in Swakopmund and throughout Namibia. Surprisingly, Mel's sushi and my veggie tempura were actually really tasty!

Road leading up to Simonsig estate, with Stellenbosch valley in the background.

Original front entrance to Simonsig - now its just there for decoration.

Old buidling at Boschendal Winery. The winery had beautiful green lawns and old oak trees that dated back over 270 years.

By the end of the day Phil was still going strong (Quadrouple Fisting!) and seemed to be having a great time.

Namibia - Fish River Canyon

After our time spent in the Namib Desert we headed towards the South African border along the Orange River. On the way, we stopped at Fish River Canyon which is Africa's largest canyon. Sunk deep into the Namibian grasslands, it runs for about 160 km and reaches 27 km wide at sections. On average, the canyon is over 550 m deep along its entire length. Though not quite as impressive as the Grand Canyon, it was still spectacular. Here are two pictures we took from the rim.

Namibia - Sossuvlei

We went to the desert.

This is what it looked like as we drove to the desert:

This is what it looked like once we got there:

Then we went on a desert walk with our 5 foot Japanese guide. She was CRAZY, and we loved her. However, we never did find out quite how a miniature Japanese lady managed to find herself leading desert walks through the Namibian desert.

Namibia - Swakopmund

* Grandmothers beware, you may not approve of all activities in this post!

Swakopmund is a small German settlement sitting between the Atlantic Ocean and a longe field of sand dunes that stretches for a few hundred kilometers down the coast called the Namib Desert. The highlights of our stay here have been sandboarding, go-carting, ATVing, skydiving and eating Springbok at a local resaturant.

Springbok: The tastiest steak you'll ever have. (not our photo)

Oh yah, and we also went SKYDIVING!
Here are our skydiving faces:

* This is purely a dramatization. Melissa wanted us to pose for her.

Phil, Stu, and I ended up going skydiving out of Swakopmund the day before we left. We were actually really lucky as all the jumps from previous days had been canceled due to clouds and the ones after us were canceled due to wind. However, our jumps were amazing - hands down, the most exhilarating experience we've ever had. We've already planned our next one!

Skydivemobile. This is the car that drives you into the desert landing strip.

The perfectly good plane that you jump out of.

Me (Phil) floating to th earth after my 30 second freefall.

Graeme falling from a bit higher.

Phil landing.

Stu landing. (Note: Stu is 60. He is a trooper.)

Me after the dive (still wearing the silly suit).

It turns out that there is even more fun to be had in Swakopmund than there is in Livingstone! So, in addition to skydiving, we also went sand boarding, go-carting, and ATVing. Sand boarding had two options: stand up boarding, which was essentially snowboarding on sand, and lie down boarding, where you went head first down a dune while riding on a polished piece of particle board. For the lie down option, Graeme clocked in at 69 km/h and Melissa was a close second at 68 km/h. It was sooooo much fun! Melissa also managed to pull off an awesome tail grab (see photo).

Melissa at the top of the dune.

Neil on the dune.

Melissa nearing 70km/h.

Oh yes!

Oh no :(

The same day that we went sand boarding, we also went ATVing through the huge sand dunes of the Namib. The ride lasted for just over two hours and as we zipped up and down the dunes. We were all really excited for this activity as we had so much fun doing it in Panama. I can happily say that it did not dissapoint. There are more pictures to come, but they are on Stu's camera.


Last of all was go-carting, which we did right after we finished skydiving. Melissa decided to join Phil and I for this one and she beat us considerably. She always beats me at go-carting! The track was just over 500 m long, and the german made carts were amazingly fast. On the stretch you could get up to 70 km/h before hurtling around the first corner. Go-carting only lasted 10 minutes, but it was incredibly fun!