9 Months Later: One more video from South Africa

I realize this isn't exactly a current event, but I've had this final video from South Africa sitting on my desktop. Time to post it, because I leave next week for the next big trip!

This was taken in the northern part of the country on our drive from Kruger Park back to Johannesburg. The area is a former homeland, and I felt like I really knew I was in Africa as we passed these homes.

A few final thoughts about our trip - before I forget them. I may have blogged before about how the entire country seemed to be behind the World Cup. Everyone wore soccer jerseys, street vendors sold World Cup souvenirs and vuvuzelas, museum displays and theatre events featured soccer, all the store displays referenced soccer, soccer coverage on the radio, on TV, in the newspapers, soccer billboards everywhere... I don't think I've mentioned that there was even soccer-related road-side art. I don't even remember the specifics now, but it did strike me at the time. It was a pretty cool atmosphere.

I hope the country is doing well. I know there was a lot of controvery surrounding the expense of the stadiums and other infrastructure. People argue that not all South Africans benefited from the influx of foreign money. Others say that FIFA reaped the rewards, but the people of South Africa did not. Economists claim a country can never reclaim it's investment in such an event.

I believe the country and the people of South Africa were excellent hosts. They pulled off the World Cup in spectacular fashion. I loved it, and it seemd to me that the South Africans had a lot of pride in their accomplishment. Nine months later, I hope that pride remains.

Meanwhile, my parents are preparing to return to South Africa. I am jealous. But they've been given very specific orders to return bearing Crunchyvites!!

A Few More Animals

Elephant on July 5:

Zebra, July 7:

Soccer City

On July 2 we went to Soccer City Stadium for our final game: Ghana v. Uruguay. Even though there were only 84,017 people there, it seemed much more crowded than that. Here is the scene at Park Station as we boarded the Metrorail to the stadium:

A quick glimpse of the beautiful stadium:

Here's the crowd inside the stadium:

Finally, getting out was a madhouse.Here are three short clips. In #1, we've finally made it to the concourse, but nobody is moving. In #2 we've started to move. In #3, we're finally headed down the ramp... Once we got outside we had to follow this heard all the way back to the train station. I believe it took more than an hour.

And now you know why, when we finally got on the train, Gywen asked the woman not to blow the vuvuzela...

Things You See on the Road

On July 7, on the road to Sirheni Camp, we came across this chameleon crossing the road. It took him a while; he was a slow walker with a really funny stutter-step. Each step took about three strokes.

Later that night, on our night drive with the ranger, we finally saw what we had been waiting for. We counted 7:

Walking in Kruger

On July 6, Barry and I took both a morning and an evening guided walk in Kruger National Park, with our rangers Matthew and Bishop. On the walks, we had to go single file behind the rangers, and keep quiet so the rangers could listen for rustling leaves, breaking branches, grunting or growling animals, etc. Here's a little taste of what it's like:

One of the highlights of our morning walk was when we came across two rhinos, including a young one. We got to watch them for a while and take pictures before they wandered off and we moved on. I couldn't get very good video, but here it is. Remember - there is nothing but a few shrubs between the rhinos and us!

Headed to Soccer City

OK... these blog posts can be categorized as "videos in no particular order." On June 20 we took the Metrorail to Soccer City for the Brazil v. Cote d'Ivoire match. The train was crowded, and once we actually started moving it only took 25 minutes or so to get there.

Germany Goal

June 27, 2010: The crowd was dancing, so I switched on the video camera - and ended up catching Thomas Mueller's second goal (Germany's fourth) in the game that knocked England out of the tournament. Celebration ensued. (Of course, as far as FIFA is concerned this video is for my own personal use and you are not watching it.)