Oct 2009

Happy Halloween from Brussels, Belgium.
Brussels is about 6 hours from home so we left Friday night, hit the new PX in Ramstein and the Macaroni Grill. I had trouble reserving a room there so we ended up going to Spangdalem Air Base for the night. We arrived in Brussels by 1230 today and found our place, Hotel Bloom. It was a very modern and nice hotel for only 70 euros per night. It was a 20 minute walk from the center of town and that happened to be down a shopping street

Our first purchase was Belgian chocolate. They are so into their Mannequin Pis that they have him in all different flavored chocolate. They also had chocolate potato chips like Pringles that we had to try.

Grand Place is the center of town with the Town Hall, restaurants and a flower market. We sat here and had one of those famous Belgian Beers. Eventually we wanted to see what the hype was with this little mannequin of a boy peeing so we headed that way.

On the way we passed a The Waffle Factory and got another Belgian Specialty. Our waffles were piled high with strawberries, chocolate and banana. We hit some lace and tapestry shops which are famous in Brussels.

Eventually we came upon a crowd on the street and saw what we had been waiting for....the Mannequin Pis. All the assessments were right - he is disappointing.

This little mannequin had been given over 700 outfits by various countries so I was excited to see what he would be wearing. I was sad to find out it was ....nothing! Because of this we decided to go to the museum in the Kings House to see the outfits on display there. It was hilarious to see the costumes he has worn including an Elvis Pisley suit donated by the US.

After this we headed to the comic strip museum because my beloved Smurfs are from Belgium. As it turned out they didn't play that much of part in the museum.

Tin Tin seems to be famous with the Belgians and the museum went thru the making of comics.

When we finally got to the Smurfs they had a poster with all 100 listed - however no Female Smurf. They also showed a little model of their house, hefty's work out equipment and what I think is Gargumels Cookbook calling for a few Smurfs!

For dinner we had the famous mussels in Brussels at Chez Leon. It is a bit of a touristy place but along the restaurant Row it was the busiest. They crank out tons of pots of steamed mussels.
After all the walking we did today we were exhausted and headed to the beautiful room in Hotel Bloom.

Our last day before the 2 day trek home we spent at the Jane Goodall Chimpanzee Reserve in Nelspruit. The reserve has 30 chimps, all who have lived a heartbreaking life before being rescued.

Our tour started at 1000 which is feeding time for the chimps. This one was just waiting to get his breakfast.

This young male looked like he was doing some serious thinking in the tree.

Then he decided to pose for his glamour shot.

The reserve had three different enclosures so three different communities. This enclosure had a male, female and lots of young chimps. When the dominant male came over for breakfast the female ran up to him and greeted him with a hug.

Because these chimps are usually taken away from their mothers when they are murdered the don't have a parent to spend their youth with. So they end up making close friends with a "sibling". Many of these would walk around with their arms around each other.

The young apes spent most of their time after eating playing and wresting.

At the second enclosure the scene was dominated by a male that had been brain damaged by humans who kept hitting him in the head. He was also taught to suck his thumb and still does it frequently. But because he is brain damaged he doesn't know any better than to run up and down throwing rocks at us and clapping his hands. He had actually bit off part of the finger of our guide in the past.

The next enclosure was what the guide called the real chimps. These are the adults and as soon as we got there a couple of the females got in a fight and the dominant male tried to break it up. Because we were standing so close to the enclosure he also threw huge rocks at us and a large tree branch that got stuck in the fence. We had to move early so no one got hurt.

Luckily for these chimps they were rescued a brought to a place where they can live out a healthy life. These will never be allowed back in to the wild.

On the way back thru Marloth Park we saw some more zebras and I got to practice my black and white shots again.

Unfortunately our trip is over and we have to start home early in the morning. However we had one more excellent meal of ox tail which is popular in South Africa but actually just a stew. One more night drive did not prove to be very productive for us so we called it an earlier night.

This will be our first day in Kruger in an open safari vehicle so I'm very excited about that. Its a little chilly at first in the morning but I get over it.

I have now taken several pictures of most animals in the park so I start practicing with black and white. I liked this one of the warthog.

It wouldn't be a day in Kruger in the spring without seeing a baby elephant. This one for some reason was carrying this branch along as they walked.

And this one thought if he couldn't see us we wouldn't be able to see him.

Another group of babboons crossed the road in front of us.

I took so many photos of giraffe last time that I laid off a little but I couldn't resist this one.

Sometimes I think they find us more interesting to watch.

Little did I know that my best Kruger moment was about to happen. We turned on to a dirt road and saw the tail end of a lion disappearing into the bush. When we got up to the spot another lioness was coming out on the other side of the road.

And then another and another and another. Us and the car on the other side of the road were the only ones to witness the event.

There were 14 lion cubs that crossed all in a line.

A total of 20 lions crossed before it was over. The sad part was that the huge male was at the end of the lion and that is when my camera decided to quit taking photos.

Nothing much could beat this sight but we did stop at a river crossing and see these turtles resting on a rock.

This monitor lizard was the last interesting thing. Two of them actually met up and we thought there would be a great fight. But in the end they just bobbed their heads at each other and took off in opposite directions.
Before the day was over Monet fed us another great dinner and took us on a night drive around Marloth Park. This amounted to putting plastic chairs in the back of Andre's truck and driving around with a spot light. Our big find was a hyena near their dump site.

Today's schedule had us hiking in the Drakensburg Mountains. However overnight it rained and the morning was very cloudy. The point of the hike was to get to a scenic overlook that would not have been visible with that weather. So instead we drove back to Marloth Park a day early. The drive was 8 hours without much excitement. Lunch was at Wimpy which is a restaurant similar to McDonalds and very popular in South Africa.

When we got back to Marloth Genie's son, Monet, had arrived for his vacation. He is a chef in Cape Town so for the next three days we ate really well. I was a little bummed about not being able to hike but the bonus was that we would get another day in Kruger and this time it would be in an open vehicle...and I got another day of seeing my bush babies

The Midlands Meander is a set of roads in the Midlands of South Africa that have all sorts of small shops and craftsman. There was everything from furniture we would love to have, leather goods, jewelry, antiques, African themed goods and wines. I had a blast driving from one shop to another. Lunch was at a brewery in a gorgeous mansion. The beer left something to be desired as most of it was cold but the food hit the spot. When our meander was complete we were on the road to Escourt and our next overnight stay at the Blue Haze. It was another gorgeous place with a large lawn overlooking a lake. It was the prom that weekend in South Africa and some teens were there taking their photos by these palm trees.