Sixintheworld.com

There is so much we want to tell you, yet we’re trying to be judicious as we sort through our muddled emotions and ongoing post-travel shock. For today, we thought we’d share something someone else has to say about us. Carly Blatt interviewed us a few weeks ago for a piece she wrote for Matador Travel, an independent traveler’s online haven. She was spot on in her representation of what our trip was all about and even went so far as to post her story in the Innovators category of Matador’s Traverse Magazine. If you’re interested, check it out here at Matador Travel.

Carly is a passionate traveler herself and called Dax last night to find out more about his various adrenaline exploits around the globe. She was particularly interested in his South African bungy jump, of which we realized we never posted video. How could this be? You might recall it is the world’s HIGHEST commercial bungy jump–a whopping 709 feet–and the intrepid Dax faced it without hesitation. While I wish you could all be at the Bloukrans Bridge on the breathtakingly beautiful Garden Route to witness the jump yourselves, for the moment you’ll have to settle for the footage below. Check it out and let Dax know what you think! He hasn’t found anything to rival it in our Atlanta environs just yet.

Technorati Tags: Bloukrans bungy, Bungy jumping, Extended travel, Family travel, Garden Route, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, South Africa

Anne has created a list on the Quick Facts page detailing how we’ve spent our different nights on the road. I got a kick out of reviewing the many different ways we’ve found rest throughout the trip and realized we’ve become flexible enough to handle almost any situation. Upon our departure last August, we were a normal, spoiled American family. Each kid was accustomed to his/her own bed and in the case of the big boys their own room. During our first two weeks I had an enlightening and humbling conversation with a man I met in church in New Zealand. He was thrilled by what we were doing and explained that he had tried to give his kids as much travel experience as possible on a limited budget. “We would pile all the kids (somewhere between four and six) into a van and drive somewhere in New Zealand for a week or two.” On these trips they couldn’t afford hotels but were all “happy to sleep in the van.” For the Andrus family that was unimaginable. At that time if you put us in a van, you would need to replace “happy” with “infuriated” and “sleep” with “all night leg wrestle.” However it was only a month later that we would be sleeping in a minivan outside the Australia Zoo.

We’re still not what I would call roughing it, but we’ve gotten much better at settling down and sharing a bed, a train, or an inflatable mattress. When our travel agent in India “forgot” to get us a hotel in Mumbai, our only option was to put the whole family in one double bed in a $130 hotel room. So we did. On the days when we were moving quickly through South Africa and striking camp early in the morning, all six of us slept in a 4-person tent. Many places we stay there are only three single beds or one double and one single bed. No problem. In no time three of us will be snoring and the other three will be enjoying their comparatively silent sleep. Of course this often means an extended check-in process at hotels or pensions as we try to convince them we can fit in one room (often a budgetary necessity). “It really isn’t that bad,” we explain. Most of the time we get our way, but as we’ve inched towards western countries, they sometimes get us with things like “fire-codes” and “hotel rules.”

Regardless of how small our rooms or tents have been we try to keep things in perspective. There are plenty of people around the world who sleep in far smaller spaces in far less comfort. When we arrived in India, we were shocked by how the children slept. Together 35 kids and four teachers shared six to eight woven plastic mats on a tile floor. They happily slept on the first floor while the six of us shared four single beds upstairs…at least during our first few nights we shared the four beds. Though it was winter, the temperature was still in the 90’s during the day and still stifling at night. The first night we had air conditioning, but the water running down the wall from the aircon unit didn’t bode well. By the second afternoon, it had given up the ghost and we were left to endure the night time heat the Indian way, with a ceiling fan. The kids and teachers on the first floor had a functional air conditioner, but they chose not to use it, claiming it gave the children breathing problems and really wasn’t necessary. Sticky, sweaty heat and tile floors are not the the ingredients for a good night’s sleep, but the kids and teachers had no complaints. After our third night of sleeping in pools of sweat, limbs sprawled and tongues extended as if we were dogs in a sauna, the kids moved to a thin blanket on the hard tile floor in order to be directly under the fan. If our kids are good judges, then beds and sheets don’t enhance one’s sleep as much as circulating air does.

When talking about our sleep, my size leads me to ramble about space. Anne would argue that space is not the big determining factor for how well we sleep at night. For her cleanliness, or at least a semblance of cleanliness, is paramount. She loved camping for this reason. She always knew our stuff–tent, mattress, sleeping bag–was clean. For nights of questionable hygiene, we have sleep sacks. These little silk or polyester sleeping bag liners have been lifesavers for us. Anne is small enough she turns hers into a chrysalis and emerges each morning unblemished by dodgy sheets and pillows. The kids have also been known to take their sacks out in situations where they would like to hide. They crawl inside and before you know it they are in a state of bliss. These sacks are what get us through situations like “the diarrhea motel” in Thailand, the “roach train” in Vietnam, and the many nights we slept with the lights on in an attempt to keep the bugs that come out in the dark from crawling into Anne’s mouth.

Whether it is a lack of space, bugs, or putrid smells, our family’s ability to sleep in diverse locations has changed radically on this trip. This was never an intention of ours, but it is an interesting and useful life skill that should serve us well and prepare us for many future adventures. I think I hear Antarctica calling.

Technorati Tags: india, sleepingbags, Round-the-world, RTW, sleep, Sleepsacks, tent

We left India almost six weeks ago and I still haven’t written my food post for the country. I’m having a hard time because Indian is my favorite cuisine in the world, but unlike all the other countries we’ve visited, I didn’t get fat in India. I actually got skinny. For those who might be worried about my health, please don’t fret. I have more than made up for my lack of calories on the subcontinent first in Africa and now in Turkey. A post about feta cheese and lamb kabobs will have to wait, however, as I take a moment to reflect on the food of Southern Africa.

During our time in India I started to think about becoming a vegetarian. I know that will shock anyone with whom I have shared a meal, as I am a voracious meat eater. At Brazilian churriscos I have always warned people about not filling up at the salad bar and outpaced everyone by keeping my “bring me more meat” button open the longest. In India I started wondering if I had eaten my fair share. Dax was ready to pick up the carnivore baton. He complained about the lack of steaks in India repeatedly and was very much looking forward to a big sirloin in Africa. With our differing attitudes we landed in Joburg. The first day we went to a pizza place which met everyone’s craving. The second we opted for hamburgers. Everyone was pleased with their first hamburgers in over 2 months and we started to get back in our groove. However, it wasn’t the hamburgers or the pizza that broke my contemplations of vegetarianism. Instead it was a lovely little thing the Southern Africans call biltong.

Biltong is dried meat; apparently any meat will do. I have always been a lover of beef jerky. I would make it with my grandpa when I was young, and during my 2 years in Japan he would send me care packages stuffed with pounds of it. I have travelled all across America and tasted the best jerky our gas stations have to offer, but nothing could prepare me for the Southern Africans’ love of dried meat. “Everyday, we eat it everyday,” one hearty man with a big belly and short safari shorts explained to me in Botswana. I first noticed a store in our local Pretoria mall that only sold biltong. Think of your local mall candy shop but exchange the sweets with things like kudu, springbok, beef, and ostrich all available in jerky or slim jim like sausages. Af first I thought this was a phenomenon specific to Pretoria, but I quickly found similar shops full of meat everywhere. There are even whole sections of supermarkets devoted to dried meat. As you would expect, they have the bite sized sticks of jerky we are familiar with but they also had huge slabs of meat hanging from the ceiling on ropes. The slabs of meat were as big as my arm and at one ingenious store they came with a handy pocket knife attached to each limb-sized slab. I quickly got into the tradition and everyday would stop at one of the little shops to choose my type of meat and get some biltong for the road.

Once again on the meat wagon, I joined Dax and started eating meat where we could. We had a couple highlights, Dax had a great oryx steak in Namibia and I had a sumptuous beef steak in Swakopmund. Just about everywhere we went there were steakhouses and in almost any town of note there was a steakhouse chain called Spur. Dax asked if we could go to Spur the first day we were in Africa. I kept telling him we would but never made it happen. They are everywhere I would point out and again promise him to go in the next town. When we hit Capetown, our last stop in Africa, I made sure we went. Everyone but Anne was pleasantly surprised. I had expected a Sizzler level chain while it ended up similar to an Outback Steakhouse. As Outback has an Australian theme for us, Spur is a USA themed restaurant for South Africans, complete with a native American logo and American food throughout–what a nice remembrance of home. In our travels we get a little too much information on how the world hates America. Some of that hate is warranted, but in other cases it just comes across as spite or jealousy. In either case, it was great to find a place that celebrates our cuisine, if not our country. With one week left in Africa and ahead on the budget from all our nights in tents, we went to Spur the first time. The kids loved it because Spur provides a playroom with Xbox 360’s. Dax loved the ribs and I enjoyed the steak. We hadn’t made it to the car before the kids were begging to go back. I told them we would but that we had to get ready for Oprah, which meant we had to get to another hotel. When we pulled in to our new location, the kids screamed and pointed at the restaurant attached to the lobby–another Spur. There was little doubt where we would be eating that night. After the shoot we returned to our little backpacker haven, Salty Crax. (An interesting story for another day was the round of laughter that erupted in a crowded internet cafe when I yelled into the computer on a Skype call to the Oprah people, “The name of our hotel is Salty Crax.”)

The day we got back from the shoot Anne was a little too tired to go out to eat and wanted to spend a little time working in the common room. I offered to take the kids to a different steakhouse but they all objected and we headed back to Spur– 3 times in 4 days. I told them this would probably be our last as we only had 3 more days left in Africa. However, I broke down on our last day and took them to Spur one last time. Everyone pretty much ordered the same thing, with the exception that I had moved from the Monkey Gland steak (not as bad as it sounds, it’s just a chutney) to their unique “Hot Rock” steak. As someone who never feels a steak is rare enough, this was my dream. When they serve you the steak, it is raw, just staring up at you with all its bloody gore. Accompanying the steak is a hot stone, heated to something like 800 degrees to cook it on. With this I could sizzle the steak for a couple minutes on each side and ensure a lovely rare piece of meat. (I guess all vegetarian desires were gone by this point.)

With our bellies full of Spur we headed off to the airport, which for those who read Anne’s post, Six in an Airport, know was the beginning of a 3-day ordeal. We spent the first night in Capetown, but didn’t get to the hotel until after midnight. After multiple mishaps the next day, we found ourselves in Joburg at a conference hotel the following night. Attached to the hotel was, you guessed it, Spur. This time the food was going to be on KLM and everyone loaded up. The kids were thrilled. I question our sanity to have eaten at the same place 5 times in 7 days, but that last steak sure tasted good. After a quick trip to the local mall to load up on biltong, we finally left Africa with visions of future meatfests in Turkey and Argentina dancing in our heads. Oh, and I hate to mention it, but I also left with a little extra jiggle in my step.

Technorati Tags: Beef Jerky, Biltong, Family travel, fast food, food, Namibia, Meat, South Africa, Spur, Steakhouse

We’ve been off the radar for a few days since we’ve once again been continent hopping–Africa to Europe to Turkey (the one country that occupies two continents: Europe and Asia). During that time we’ve received an overwhelming number of emails and comments from Oprah viewers wishing us well and offering words of support for our continued travels. We’ve even heard from some long lost friends who just happened to be watching when our segment aired. To all of you who have written, THANK YOU! Your words help energize us, especially when things get frustrating out here. We’re working on replies, but please be patient if it takes us a little while to get back to you. There’s only six of us and two don’t know how to type!

Frustrating doesn’t even begin to describe what we experienced over the past few days in our efforts to get to Istanbul. Our previous long haul trips have been uneventful, but apparently this was because we were saving all our airline mishaps for this one massive continental shift. Our ordeal began in Capetown when we went to check in for our redeye flight to Amsterdam. The guard who checks name on the passenger lists could only find Asher’s. He said it was no big deal, but I knew better. You see, when we originally booked our round the world tickets, Asher somehow ended up on a separate record from the rest of us. As we have made many changes to our itinerary, this has proven both dangerous and beneficial, depending on the situation. Each time Tom calls Delta’s round the world reward ticket desk, it takes multiple to hours to book a new itinerary. This isn’t Delta’s fault: they have to communicate with partner airlines to check availability and confirm reservations and often help us spec out multiple options, a time consuming process to say the least. Given the fact that we’re flying for free, we’re definitely not complaining! Many times after making such changes, however, we’ve realized that the amendments have not been made to Asher’s record. This was the case when for one week in December she did not have a ticket with the rest of us from Bangalore to Paris. We sweated that one out, but eventually Delta convinced Air France we couldn’t leave a 4-year-old in India alone and they granted her a ticket. Another time we made a complicated series of changes which ended up only on Asher’s itinerary. Had we not had two records, it is likely we could have lost them altogether. This time KLM’s computers, currently being converted to a new system, simply cancelled our five tickets while mysteriously preserving Asher’s. As in the previous instance, we told KLM we really didn’t want Asher spending two days in Amsterdam without us, so they dropped her from the manifest into airline limbo with the rest of us.

Solicitous and apologetic, the wonderful KLM employees shepherded us to a special counter where they began working on alternate arrangements since our scheduled flight was oversold. They had no flight the following day and spent almost two hours piecing together a new route. During this time the kids took advantage of the late hour and their parents’ involvement in the negotiations to do everything they normally could not in an airport: racing around the deserted building on luggage trolleys, running up the down escalator, and scouring the vending machines for loose change. Picking up another valuable life lesson, they watched as a security guard escorted a Russian merchant marine who was too drunk to fly to the service desk. He would fly KLM to Amsterdam and then Moscow in two days while we would head to Paris through Johannesburg on Air France the next. I wasn’t happy to lose Amsterdam (or the Hamster Dance in Asher speak), but KLM threw in some travel vouchers to ease my pain and gave us a night at the SHERATON (aaaaahhhhhh) complete with room service, transportation, and heated bathroom floor tiles to boot!

As always, the Sheraton was heavenly, so we arrived rested and relaxed for our flight to Johannesburg the next day. The only problem was Nationwide, the South African airline that was supposed to get us to the capital, had mysteriously cancelled everybody’s ticket but mine. This was getting weird. Did the computers have something against us? Tom put on his rage face, turned purple, and demanded an explanation. A Nationwide employee rudely told him to wait to see if we could make it on standby, and when we didn’t, said we should just go buy tickets for another flight.

We marched back to the international terminal and found our sweet KLM friend from the previous night who had come in on her day off to confirm our successful depature. She checked the computer, said it showed our reservations had been in tact, and vowed to get us to Joburg on another airline. British Airways took us later that night and reluctantly put us in business class per KLM’s request. The only problem with this scenario was that by the time we got to Johannesburg, Air France wouldn’t let us on the plane to Paris. “But they do it on Amazing Race,” McKane argued when they said we had missed the cutoff (the plane still had almost an hour before it left). This had little effect. “Sorry, but KLM should never have booked you with that tight of a connection,” the Air France guy replied. Tom turned purple again, but knew that no matter what color his skin assumed, we would have one more night in South Africa. This time they stuck us on a shuttle bus to a motel/conference center with fluorescent lighting and floral bedspreads. We weren’t happy about this new delay, but we were able to Skype Tom’s parents and listen to the Oprah broadcast via the computer, an unexpected bonus.

The next day we got to the airport in plenty of time to make the Paris flight and miraculously were again upgraded to Business Class (another big aaaaahhhhhh). The pretty desk agent reticketed our bags (which had spent the night at the airport) and issued us boarding passes for both upcoming flights–the red eye to Paris and the one the next morning to Istanbul. The plane was posh, so posh that the kids barely slept. Instead they spent hours adjusting their double wide, deluxe leather reclining seats, watching movies, playing video games, and scarfing snacks.

This made it all the more difficult when we arrived in Paris at 6:30 am (still dark) and had to wait four hours for our flight to Istanbul. We talked our way into the Business Class lounge, even though our next leg was in coach, and the little kids crashed on the couches while the big kids jumped on computers.

Groggy but eager to get to our next stop, we headed down to our gate around 9:30 am. We waited for at least 30 minutes in a security line and met a lovely American family from LA who had just spent three months in Morocco on a movie shoot. Once through the check, we handed our boarding passes to the gate attendant who demanded, “Where are your tickets?” “What tickets?” we asked. “Something that looks like this,” she explained impatiently dangling an old fashioned flight coupon in our faces. “We have etickets,” I calmly replied. I could see Tom starting to turn red in the background. “But you need this,” she said. “You must have this,” again pointing at her document.

“KLM put us on this flight. We never got a ticket. We got a little piece of handwritten paper, but they took it from us in Johannesburg.”

“They’re not supposed to take it. You must still have it. Look in your bags,” she demanded. I looked, though I knew the pretty girl in Joburg had taken it.

“We cannot let you on the plane without a ticket,” she scolded. Tom was purple once again.

He stormed off with another Air France employee to a ticket desk and the kids and I stayed and visited with the Americans we had just met who were on their way back to LA. Finally, the Air France woman returned, sans Tom (that’s French, of course), and asked us to follow her. The ticket agent had gotten us on the next flight to Istanbul two hours later, but callously blamed us for the mishap (”You must have lost it”) and didn’t give us so much as a coupon for a free peanut. Shame on you, Air France.

We talked our way back into the Business Class lounge and sipped down a few sodas, which outside the lounge would have cost $4 per can. (I just about panicked when we looked at the American Express exchange rates and saw the dollar had fallen another 10% against the Euro in the month since we had passed this way.) Two hours later we were on a plane to Istanbul, with six seats in six different rows, and fellow passengers none too willing to switch seats. A French girl finally swapped with Kieran after he burst into tears, jumped on my lap, and refused to budge when a strange man sat down in the seat next to him. This infuriated the stewardesses but is probably not a bad survival strategy if you’re a 7 year old.

By the time we got to Istanbul, we realized the probability of our bags having made it with us were slim. Tom put it at 50/50 and he turned out to be exactly right: 2 backpacks were in Istanbul, 2 were in Paris. Joy. We got a claim number and promised to call once we had an address where the bags should be delivered. We found an adequate place in the Sultanahmet district, and after 15 phone calls, they finally arrived at our hostel at 2 am.

So here I sit on my bunk in my room in the dark gazing out at the Hagia Sophia (oh my!), surrounded by all my children, all my baggage, a lavender husband, and a stack of vouchers to fund our trip to Grandma and Grandpa’s house this Christmas. Not such a bad result, but what a way to get there!

Always an adventure…

Technorati Tags: Family travel, Frequent Flyer Miles, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW

Some of our more avid readers may know that while we were in Auckland, New Zealand, I bungy jumped off the Auckland Harbor Bridge. I thought it was great fun but in terms of height t was one of the smaller bungies in the world, a mere fifty meters. When we arrived in South Africa, I was informed by my mom that the highest bungy in the world was off a bridge in South Africa. I immediately jumped at the opportunity. There were a few things standing in the way of me jumping though. First of all it would have to be at the end of our African excursion. Secondly it was a good seven hours away from Cape Town where we would be staying (we originally thought four but were told the roads were slow only the day before we left). Lastly, we were running short on time due to Uncle Vito’s untimely breakdown in Namibia. When we arrived in Cape Town, we set aside a whole day for the bungy. We woke up at 5 a.m. so we could get there early. We started driving and everyone slept while my dad listened to a business book on his iPod. We skipped breakfast and after a good seven and a half hours of driving we were there.

We went to sign up for the jump and luckily the age limit was 14 so I could jump. My dad being the only other adrenaline junky in the family wanted to jump, but due to his artificial hip, he would have to sit this one out. I went to the harness station to get suited up. The harness wrapped around my entire body and in the words of my mom, “makes it look like you are wearing a diaper!”. Now I had to wait. The guide said thirty minutes, only thirty minutes till I jumped off the highest bungy in the world. I was very excited! There was another group of Americans from a college in Saint Paul, Minnesota who would also be jumping. I talked to them about our trip and found that they were studying in Cape Town for six months and would be going back to the states in two. Thirty minutes turned into an hour and I was still waiting. I went to the restaurant where my family was eating, had some pizza and watched the live video stream of people jumping off the bridge. It looked amazing, but I must admit I was a little nervous by now.

It was another thirty minutes before my group finally headed off to the bridge. We had a briefing about what we should do when we jumped and the equipment we would be using on the bridge. I didn’t want to hear about what equipment I would be using, I just wanted to get on the bridge and jump off. We kept walking until we finally reached the bridge. Here we were offered two options on how to get to the bungy, a flying fox which would cost one hundred rand, or a walk on the catwalk which was free. No one took the flying fox. The view from the bridge was amazing. The gorge was covered in huge trees and a few miles out you could see the river feeding into the ocean. It was truly spectacular. But there was a downside to the catwalk. It was mesh steel so you could see down the gorge, which inspired a little more nervousness in the group. When we finally got to the bungy station, we had another briefing. How long would it take until I could jump? I had been waiting two hours and I just wanted to get it over with.

The jump master yelled out the order we would be jumping in. I was going to be second. I would have preferred first, but it was still a good position. I sat down and got suited up with all the necessary gear. I watched the guy before me go. It looked like a blast. When the other guy was pulled up I was so excited I can hardly describe it. The jump master made the final preparations. My ankles were strapped together, making it impossible to walk, so the guides carried me out to the platform. They asked me some very odd questions which I won’t repeat and walked me to the edge. My toes poked over and I looked down. 216 meters straight down. It looked like I was jumping off a skyscraper. I looked back up and sucked in my breath as the jump master counted down “5, 4, 3, 2, 1, BUNGY!” I jumped as best as I could. For the brief few seconds I was in the air, it felt like I was flying. Then I looked down and my stomach stayed up at the jump point. It was insane. The fall seemed like it was taking minutes not seconds and everything around me seemed to be moving at five hundred k’s an hour. It was the most adrenaline I have ever felt rush through me. Then I hit the bottom of my jump and slowly reeled back up. When I reached the top of my bounce-back, I was one hundred and twenty meters up. Then I dropped back down. I wasn’t expecting such a big bounce and was caught off guard. Once again my stomach was left a couple hundred meters above me. I slowly came back up and was sixty meters in the air, about as high has my jump in Auckland. I came back down and once again wasn’t expecting such a big rush. It was incredible. Now I was being reeled back up. I looked around the gorge. There was no way one could get a better view of it. It would have been very relaxing if my head hadn’t been pounding because of all the blood rushing into it. The retriever came down and reeled me up. When I got back to the jump point everyone asked how it was, I was still in shock so I just stared eyes wide and nodded.

Later when I was all unstrapped, I sat down and talked to a few people to an Indian about India as a world power and talked to a few kids from Jo’burg about life in a dangerous city. Then it was time to go. I went back up to my family and watched the video of my jump. We decided not to buy it–it was twenty bucks and my mom taped it from the side of the gorge on our camcorder. I got my certificate and we headed out. I slept nearly the entire drive back. Who knew bungy jumping could take so much out of you?

Technorati Tags: Adventure sports, Bloukrans bungy, Bungy jumping, Family Travel, Round the World, Round-the-world, RTW, South Africa

The best kept secret in the universe has to be that Capetown is the world’s most beautiful city. San Francisco and Sydney are impressive, but this South African jewel is simply stunning, so stunning that I think I may have to move here. Over the past week we’ve done a great job of exploring the city’s natural environs, mostly on our own steam and once with Oprah’s people. We leave tonight and I am reluctant to go. There is so much left to explore, so much left to discover.

We first approached Capetown from the north as the sun was setting. Table Mountain sat stolidly in the distance and loomed over the gleaming city like a protective parent. Having grown up in a Rocky Mountain valley, Tom contends there is comfort in the mountains, that they have a cradling effect which lends a sense of peace and safety to the soul. Personally, I find my peace in the ocean, but now, in this place where mountain meets sea, I’ve begun to understand what he means.

The home we chose for the week, SaltyCrax Backpackers/Surf Lodge, is located in the suburb of Table View, which as the name implies, boasts a spectacular view of the mountain. Every time we emerge from our little neighborhood and the mountain appears on the horizon, Kieran shouts, “There’s the Table Mountain. They call it that because it looks like a table, right?” as if each new view is the first time he has seen it. This is Capetown in a nutshell: a surprise around every turn, beauty from every angle.

On our first venture down the peninsula, we took the famed Chapman’s Peak drive, which scales the western edge of the mountain and then crossed from the Atlantic to Indian Ocean side. We battled the crowds that had gathered in Simon’s Town for the Naval Festival and made our way to Boulders Beach, home to one of the world’s few mainland penguin colonies. The small, noisy birds were once known as jackass penguins because of the distinct “hee haw” noise they make but were recently given the more delicate name of African penguin. After spending some time with them, the kids decided the former name is more accurate. Eager to play with the flightless avians, they approached them with the usual sweet talk and extended hands, but in return got only pecks (McKane bled) and retreat. We reminded the kids that they were after all wild animals, not pets, but there was no changing their minds, “Nope, they call them jacka…es because they’re stupid.” Far more cuddly yet equally hard to pin down were the rock dassies that scampered in and out of the shrubbery they shared with the penguins. We had told Kieran that these overgrown guinea pigs are the closest living relative of the elephant, but once we learned why, we decided to keep the reason to ourselves. If you’re really interested and over 18, you can do a little research of your own.

The following day we drove back down the Boulders side of the cape all the way to the National Park that covers the southern tip. My heart skips a beat as Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve been keeping a big secret for the past week or so, but it’s finally time to spill the beans. Earlier today we filmed a segment for The Oprah Winfrey Show at the base of Table Mountain in Capetown. Oprah’s people first contacted us in January but didn’t find a show that was the perfect match for us until now. They arranged for Oprah to interview us via satellite from Capetown’s most spectacular natural setting on March 28th. We had a driver, a producer, a make-up artist, and a film crew, and in general felt like celebrities for a day…all for a 10-minute segment! The tentative plan is for the show to air on April 2, a quick five day turnaround from taping to airing. We won’t be able to see the show until Tom’s parents bring a copy to Turkey with them in mid-April, so be sure to record/watch and tell us how we did. (No comments on weight loss or gain, please!) Feel free to tell anyone and everyone you know.

Technorati Tags: Family travel, Oprah Winfrey, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, Table Mountain

For many people the incentive for a trip to Africa is the wildlife. Thousands of tourists shell out millions of dollars each year to go on safari. They stay in luxurious bushcamps, eat gourmet cuisine, and rely on experienced, armed guides to locate and lead them to the world’s most exotic animals in their native habitat. Not so the Andrus family. Our budget simply won’t allow for $4000/night nor do most safari companies accept children. As far as we can tell, this is for two reasons: 1) gamespotting requires patience and silence, qualities few small children possess; 2) carnivorous animals find the under 10 crowd tasty and easy to capture.

So we have embarked on a safari of our own styling, which we were surprised to discover is ridiculously easy and affordable to do. While we don’t have anyone with a gun to protect us from the lions, we’ve been able to visit some of the world’s greatest game reserves on our own and effectively find all the animals we’ve wanted to see without any help. We’ve avoided expensive lodge fees by camping, which tickles Tom, an avid camper, frustrates Dax, a reluctant Boy Scout, and sits fairly well with the rest of us. It has hardly been roughing it, since most campgrounds are attached to amenity-rich lodges or backpacker hostels and offer clean bathrooms, lounges, and sometimes kitchens. Never before an eager camper (you hear me, Clarence?), I prefer sleeping under the mindblowing Africa sky on a brand new air mattress in a brand new sleeping bag to a musty hotel room.

Our first night outside was in Swaziland on the Mlilwane Game Reserve. We drove in at dusk and during the 5 minute trek to our backpackers’ lodge we spotted warthogs, wildebeestes, a monitor lizard, and some springbok. We awoke to a see an ostrich drinking from the swimming pool and spent the morning searching for hippos. We didn’t find any but came across this awesome dung beetle rolling the fruits of his labor across the road, some more warthogs, and a wide variety of ungulates (our new favorite word–look it up!).

Our next stop was the coastal estuary region of St. Lucia in the South African state of Kwazulu Natal, where as McKane explained in his last post, we found our hippos. Oh, were they magnificent! Thousands of pounds of mammalian blubber lumbering across city streets to graze on the town’s well-manicured lawns. No one will be promoting the Hippo Diet any time soon, since they achieve their massive bulk by eating only grass.

From St. Lucia we headed inland to Hluhuwe-Umfolozi, one of South Africa’s premier national parks. It was here that we appointed our in-house master gamespotter. You might think it would be Kieran, our 7-year-old animal afficianado or McKane, our resident enthusiast, or even Asher, who when not begging for candy actually enjoys scanning the horizon for wildlife. To our shock, it proved to be Dax, whose technique is improbable yet effective. At 14, he would rather be surfing or hanging out with friends than looking for giraffes from the back seat of a van, and so he usually drifts off to the sounds of his iPod during our extended treks. After six hours of scouring the park, we had found zebras, giraffes, bush pigs, Cape buffalo, wildebeestes, kudu, warthogs, a smattering of birds, and two rhinos. We made sure to wake Dax up with each new discovery and he proved a good sport, oohing and aahing at the appropriate times. As the sun began to set, we decided we really wanted to find more rhinos. Even though Hluhuwe-Umfolozi is home to over half the world’s rhinoceroses, we had found only one pair and they had been in a poor spot for viewing. We veered off the beaten path onto an isolated trail and hoped for the best. We passed a few of the park’s guided tours and asked if they had spotted anything. Not much was the reply. We ventured on, determined to succeed where others had failed.

Another 15 minutes and still nothing. Then, from the far reaches of the back seat emerged a deep voice, “Is that a rhino?” We stopped, abruptly turned our heads to the left, and sure enough, not 15 feet away was a pair of rhinos lackadaisacally munching on the underbrush. We burst into laughter. How had Dax, the one who cared least about finding animals, been the only one to spot them? We watched a few minutes longer and our hearts raced as they crossed the road just a few feet in front of us. I had turned Uncle Vito off and wasn’t sure he could make a hasty, agile retreat if the rhino decided to charge. Fortunately, we got off with only a snort from our grumpy friend and lived to tell our tale.

We might have written Dax’s performance off as a fluke had he not repeated it a few days later in Botswana. While speeding along a narrow, potholed road through a densely vegetated area, his voice again drifted from the recesses of the van, “Did anyone else see those elephants?” Again we came to a screeching halt and spun the van around. Through the thick bushes, the dispassionate teenaged wildlife spotting savant had spotted a group of massive African elephants making their way from one waterhole to another. Luckily for us, they had to cross the road to do so, so we sat and watched in awe as they stormed across the pavement and then paused for a drink before disappearing through the trees.

After this feat we crowned Dax the safari king, a title he did not seek, but good-naturedly accepted. As we venture on to Namibia’s Etosha National Park, we have high hopes that our king will continue to make the tough finds for us. As long as his iPod’s battery holds out, we’ve got a fighting chance!

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