South Africa 2024: Preparations
In the early part of this year, a good friend of mine living in South Africa signaled his intentions to marry in September. Of course, I could not resist the opportunity to see another part of the African continent and, because of where he was living, I had the opportunity to tick off both South Africa and Lesotho. But alas! Circumstances arose and the wedding was moved up into August in Cape Town, far from the Draachenburg mountains and my chances to visit two countries. The timing did not work for Greg and so I pulled in a different Greg for this trip. The latter Greg and I have been life-long friends and traveled cross-country several times, so he’s a natural choice for replacement.
The focus of the trip, obviously, is the wedding. And the party itself are mostly tourists from various parts of the country and the world, so there’s a strong desire to go see and do all that we can in the short time we have as a group in Cape Town. This includes Table Mountain, Boulder Beach, the Cape of Good Hope, Winelands, and the Waterfront. The nearest safari tours are more than two hours from our lodging, so I’m not packing for a major wildlife excursion. This dictates a different set of camera gear than I would normally bring. For this trip, I packed:
One Nikon D750 and one D7000 with one battery grip
Sigma 18-350 mm, Nikkor 24-70 mm, Nikkor 200-500 mm, and Sigma 2.4x teleconverter
Peak Design and Cotton Carrier holsters
An old SunPak monopod to save on space/weight and a Joby phone tripod
Assorted chargers, adapters, power strips, and power banks
Some small tools like screwdrivers and a Leatherman multi-tool for repairs. Of course, the duct tape is coming too.
The southern hemisphere is in winter during the middle of the year and the city is located at just shy of 34 degrees south of the equator, which is roughly the latitude of Los Angeles or Columbia, South Carolina, so the winter is fairly moderate. Instead of shorts and sandals, I’m packing flannels and long pants. But it’s a mix too, as we’ll be dining out in the city, trekking up Table Mountain, getting into the sand with penguins on Boulder Beach, and of course looking dapper for the wedding. Like our trip to Kenya last year, I packed a spare duffel bag for souvenirs for the return trip.
With my travel partner lined up by early July, we booked flights with British Airways from JFK through London and on to Cape Town. Total flight time is estimated at 21 hours. A long flight to be sure. We secured seats in steerage class and lucky for us, we’re on an Airbus.
Of course, I could not help but dig in to some languages prior to the trip. South Africa has eleven national languages: Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, Swazi, Tshivenda, Xhosa, Xitsonga, and Zulu. Duolingo does not have a course built for Afrikaans, but it does have Zulu and it does have Dutch, on which Afrikaans is heavily based. I supplemented my Dutch with two audiobooks from Afrikaanspod101.com. Their Afrikaans Survival Phrases is particularly helpful. With only a month to learn, I am not nearly as fluent in either language as I was with Swahili for our Kenyan adventure last year, but I’m hopeful that it’ll be enough to bring some smiles to some faces while I’m there.
The exchange rate for US dollars to South African Rand is approximately 1:18. Rand come in a variety of notes, each sized based on value. The front sports a picture of Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first black president who had spent time in prison in Cape Town, and the back of the 10, 20, 50, 100, and 200 have an image of one of the big five: Cape buffalo, lion, leopard, rhino, and elephant.
South Africa, unlike Kenya, does not require a visa, only a passport. It is recommended to get several vaccinations before traveling, but none are required coming from the US. The State Department has a service called STEP (Smart Traveler Enrollment Program) where US citizens can enroll their travel plans. In case of emergency (natural disaster, political unrest, etc), the US government can direct its citizens to safer areas or in extreme cases, extract them entirely. It's the only time we really want the government knowing where we are. There had been political and social unrest in the country in the lead-up to this year’s election, and although that’s largely quieted down, I still feel like it’s a good resource to have in my back pocket.
The flight leaves soon, so follow us along on another African adventure!
-Ed