Ep 190 w/ Dave Seminara – Inside South Africa, Lesotho & Eswatini: Dave’s Ultimate African Adventure Guide

So first of all, this country has the claim to fame of it is the last absolute monarchy. So what it means is that everything that happens in this country is at the behest of the king. So there's other kings in Africa, but they're like figureheads or they have, or they might have some power, but they don't have absolute power. The king is an absolute strong man. The king is the man in Eswatini and he's got 17 wives and

We got to crash a birthday party where one of his wives, think it was his ninth or tenth wife, they said, was there. So we got to catch a glimpse of her. So that was interesting. We caught a glimpse of the king at this one ceremony too, but like the king is the man there. There's a few different barriers you have to get over in traveling, I think, to Africa. I've been to Egypt before, but to me, North Africa is a completely different ballgame. For me, the first barrier to get over was cost. Because when we take our big trips every summertime as a family, the first thing I have to think about is purchasing four

plane tickets somewhere. So I always start with a consideration of plane tickets and how much do they cost and how do I get there. Now for those of us here in America, for Europeans it's lot easier to get to Africa, but for those of us here in North America, it is a big deal getting to Africa. There are very, very, very few direct flights, right? If you want to travel to Africa cheaply or at least somewhat reasonably, the cheap way to do that is to go from North America to Europe on an overnight and then another overnight or another full day.

Europe to Africa. Because even though I'm a travel addict, I despise flying. Like to me, flying is just like the medicine I have to take to get to a place.

Welcome to the Winging It Travel Podcast, your weekly ticket to the world, dropping every Monday and hosted by me, James Hammond, proudly part of the Boy Escape Network. This is a travel podcast that throws out the itinerary and dove straight into the raw, real and unpredictable essence of global exploration, chasing moments over milestones, those spontaneous encounters, immersive sounds and unforgettable stories. Whether I'm hiking up volcanoes in Guatemala,

or camping under the stars in British Columbia.

I've met incredible people, seen breath taking places and collected unforgettable stories. I now get to share them with you alongside some of the most diverse and well-travelled guests from around the world. Expect engaging conversations that bring fresh perspectives and inspiring travel tales. There are also raw reflective solo episodes where I share personal insights, practical tips and honest stories from the road. This is a podcast for travellers, dreamers, backpackers and anyone who's ever thought, what if I just went for it and travelled? If you're looking for stories to tell, tips to share,

and experiences to inspire, then you're in the right place. There's so much travel content coming your way, it might just spark that trip you've been dreaming about for years. You can find Winging It, and more fantastic travel podcasts from around the world at voyescape.com. The link is in the show notes. Let's go and explore the world. Hello and welcome to this week's episode. I'm rejoined by Dave Seminara, who is a writer, journalist, YouTuber, and an avid traveler.

Dave comes on the podcast to talk about his recent trip to South Africa, where he looped in Eswatini and Lesotho. And we're going to get all things covered in this episode, like safety, budget, amazing experiences, wildlife, local people, local perspectives, what he learned on the trip and everything else in between. Dave is always welcome back onto the podcast and he's been on for the third or fourth time now, so almost an unofficial co-host. And today we're going to dive straight in.

to an area of the world that I just need to go and travel to. And quickly before we dive in, don't forget to rate and review this podcast on your podcast app, Spotify, Apple, Castbox, whatever you use. And if you're on YouTube, please follow, subscribe, like, and leave a comment. I love to see and read them and it helps the channel gain a bit of traction. If you'd to support the production costs of this podcast, you can buy me a coffee at buymeacoffee.com forward slash winging it for $5. That is appreciated too.

Great, how are you? Thanks for having me.

Yeah, always a pleasure. Where you right now?

I am in my backyard here by the pool here in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is a lovely setting. I'll show you around here what it looks like. October is actually a really nice month here in Florida. We're talking Africa today, but since I'm here in Florida, tell you October is such a nice month here. If we're not having hurricanes, like last October, we had two massive hurricanes 11 days apart. was an absolute nightmare. But October is, you know, still hurricane season here. So we don't have a lot of tourists here.

That's a lovely setting.

But if we're not having hurricanes and stormy weather, can be a beautiful ⁓ month here.

Is Florida the place where people move to in the winter because obviously the weather is great? Yeah.

Yeah, snowbirds.

Our population increases like 30 % or something like that in the winter months.

wow, so they must have second homes in the state,

They do. They do. They do.

Where's the most popular place to have second homes? Is it Key West?

No, I Key West is too small and expensive. So I wouldn't say Key West. I would say, you know, there's a number of different places where people have tons of second homes, but like I've got a brother who's a snowbird down in Naples, which is in the Southwest coast. Like Naples in that area, Fort Myers is a huge second home place. There's a lot of people here in St. Petersburg in this area who have second homes here. ⁓ Really sort of all over the States, up and down both coasts, the Gulf coast and the Atlantic coast. near the near, near all of the best beaches, I would say.

Yeah, I remember on the road trip across America, we were at the end of summer at the top end of America and people working their way down. So they had the summer, you know, in around the country, it's like Northern hemisphere of US if you like, and it's making their way South because obviously the winter gets worse. So that's kind of what we met like people on seven, eight month road trips. Pretty cool. Right. And I think for the USA, I think the road trip culture is

one of my favorites because I think you get an interest in subset of people there, think.

of people who are like, you know, they've got camper vans and stuff like that. mean that?

Yeah,

they're kind of almost full time, maybe like, yeah, live in their house or apartment, maybe three or four months a year, but mostly on the road and there's huge RVs. Yeah, I quite like that vibe. I quite like it.

I don't aspire to that lifestyle at all. My wife has talked about that before. I don't like the idea of driving a gigantic vehicle. I don't know what it is. even like sometimes if you get a rental vehicle that's too large for my taste, I don't like driving like a boat around and I've never driven a motor home. But for some reason I don't even like the idea of it. Even though I'm an absolute travel addict, that type of travel doesn't appeal to me because I don't like the idea of driving a gigantic vehicle. Maybe if someone drove me around and I was just in the passenger seat, then maybe I...

Wouldn't mind it.

So would you camp or ever camp at all?

I think I'm too old for camping now, James. think I've grown out of that. used to camp a lot. We used to camp a lot, especially when I lived in Oregon, like Oregon is an amazing state for camping. I love the idea of being out in the middle of nowhere and seeing the, so seeing the stars very clearly and being in one tent, my whole family, have two children, especially when my kids were younger, family bonding time together and one tent together. love that. But I'll tell you, you know, ⁓ the older I get, the harder that I think is for me for a number of different reasons. mean, first of all,

I'm one of these people, my wife, God bless her, she could sleep 10 hours and not have to go to the bathroom a single time. I get up a couple times per night to go to the bathroom and like when you're camping, that is such a hassle when you're in a tent, especially when it's freezing cold outside. You're like, you've to make bathroom run. So I don't enjoy that. Also just all the little aches and pains like my back, my knees, just all the different body parts. ⁓ You know, I'm portraying myself like I'm a super old, I'm not that old, but I just, I guess I'm getting a little too.

old and fragile for camping and I will do it again but it won't be often. Let's put it that way. What about you?

I am no tents anymore for the same reasons. you know what, believe it or not, I've started drinking water this year, which sounds a bit crazy. Um, so I start to go to the toilet every once a while at night. It's pretty much every night. So I, I just can't deal with it. So I can't go tenting, but I will go to camp in a RV or camper van a hundred percent every summer. Yeah.

And so, know, and so, you know, today, this is a good segue into our topic for today too, because we had to Kruger National Park in South Africa. And I talked to some friends about, okay, where did you stay when you're in Kruger? And you can, there are like rustic places where you can camp there. And there's also, ⁓ you know, there's places like these lodges and stuff like that, where you can kind of rough it in South Africa. And that was a consideration, especially if you're, you know, on a tight budget, that's kind of the way you can do so far. We did not end up doing that.

And again, it was because I thought to myself, don't sure how many times I'll be able to afford to go on Safari, but I I want to fully enjoy it. I don't want to wake up in the morning saying like, my God, my back. Because when you're on Safari, you go on two game drives per day. these game drives can be two to three hours at a time. So you may be spending four to six hours per day in a vehicle. And it can be a little bit bumpy too, especially when you're off-roading, if you're in a private game reserve, especially.

So like, I don't want to have my back hurting when I'm already going to be spending four or five, six hours per day in a, in a safari vehicle. So, ⁓ ended up spending probably, you know, more money than, than, than I would have preferred. But, know, I'm telling you, James, this trip that we just took, and there's always recency bias when you get home from a trip and you say best trip ever. then you go on your next trip and say, that was actually the best trip ever. I think this trip that we just took.

was the best trip I have ever taken in my life. And I've taken hundreds and hundreds of trips, but South Africa, Lesotho, Eswatini, these three, ⁓ the experiences that we had, I think it was the most, it was definitely the most interesting trip that I have ever taken in my life. And now I'm rethinking my entire geographic travel focus. ⁓ And I'm thinking so strongly about Africa now. It was my first time traveling in Sub-Saharan Africa in my life.

And now I've got a little taste of it and I want to keep going back.

That's not the first time I've heard that on this podcast. Really? Yeah. I think a few people said that they went to Africa for the first time. Maybe not so Africa, but like Tanzania or Namibia and like, yeah, I need to go back and go to Kenya and then we'll go to all these countries across the continent. it's interesting you say that because I've never been to Africa.

There's a barrier you have to get over. There's a few different barriers you have to get over in traveling, I think, to Africa. Been to Egypt before, but to me, North Africa is a completely different ballgame. You have to get over a number of different barriers. For me, the first barrier to get over was cost. Because when we take our big trips every summertime as a family, the first thing I have to think about is purchasing four plane tickets somewhere. So I always start with a consideration of plane tickets and how much do they cost and how do I get there.

Now for those of us here in America, for Europeans, it's lot easier to get to Africa. But for those of us here in North America, it is a big deal getting to Africa. There are very, very, very few direct flights, right? And if you want to travel to Africa cheaply, or at least somewhat reasonably, the cheap way to do that is to go from North America to Europe on an overnight, and then another overnight or another full day Europe to Africa. So that's a barrier to begin with, because even though I'm a travel addict,

I despise flying. Like to me, flying is just like the medicine I have to take to get to a place. So when I, when I, every time I go into the search engine, I go to Google flights, type in Tampa to Johannesburg or whatever. First of all, I don't like the price it's showing me. Second of all, I don't like the routing. So it's taken me so long to get over this flight deal, right? Like, okay, how am going to get there and how much am I going to spend? So eventually I had to be like, okay, you know what? I'm going to invest about $6,000.

to get my family to Africa, right? About $1,500 each, $1,400, $1,500 each. And I paid a little bit extra to go directly. There's only three cities in North America, at least I believe that I'm aware of, where you can fly directly to South Africa. And that is Washington Dulles, Newark, Newark, New Jersey, just outside of New York, and Atlanta.

Right. Okay. So there's three options to get to South Africa directly from North America, at least that I'm aware of. It's possible. There could be a Toronto one. I'm not sure, but I don't think so. So, and those are more expensive because you're getting a 15 hour flight. You're banging the whole thing out in one belt swoop. Otherwise you're talking about an eight to 10 hour flight to somewhere in Europe and then another long flight from somewhere in Europe. you're just like, I know how I feel when I fly to Europe to begin with. You already feel like it's completely jet lag. You get off of an eight or 10 hour overnight.

flight

grim.

You just, you feel so tired. You want to go to a hotel or do something. You do not want to remain in the airport for two, three hour layover and then take another long flight to Africa. So we paid the extra money. got over the first Africa barrier by saying, I'm going to spend more money on airfare than I want to, but I'm just going to swallow that medicine. Right. Cause everybody told me South Africa will be reasonable once you get there. So I'm like, all right, I'm willing to spend a crazy amount of money on airfare. I invested the 6k in the air for right off the bat, which is a heavy pill to swallow.

And I paid a little bit extra to go straight there. So 15 hour flight from Washington Dulles to South Africa. And the flights were not that bad. You know, last summer our big international trip was Japan. I think we talked about that. So it's almost the same duration as going to Japan from here. Very similar, right? And I always, for the four of us, I book window aisle, window aisle in two different things, right? And I just pray to God, God please.

be merciful to us and let nobody come to those middle seats. in both directions, nobody came on those middle seats. Right. So we, we, it was not too bad. And, um, and then I think the other barrier with going to country like South Africa is you're scared about the crime rate. we'll be honest about that is that there's a very, you look at the crime statistics and it is a little scary. Right. You tell you, you tell people you're going to South Africa. And the first thing I think of is, but

It worked.

Isn't it dangerous? So for me, I don't worry too much about things like that. However, when I propose our annual summer trips to my wife, I have to explain to her, I have to be ready to answer such questions of, it dangerous there? one of the first things my wife said is, are you sure that's safe? And so you don't want to say, never having been there, you don't want to say, of course, everything's going to be completely fine. having been there. But I sold her that, you know, I think it's going to be fine. Let's just do it. It'll be fine.

And, ⁓ I'm happy to report that we spent nearly a month traveling around these three countries and had no, not only did we have no problems whatsoever, but I almost courted danger by going to a whole series of different townships. went to many different poor places. I did not stick to the touristy areas at all. And I encountered nothing but hospitality and kindness in these three countries. And, ⁓ it was just magic. Loved it.

That's a great intro into the conversation because we are going to touch on the safety element, the places you went to and budget as well. I want to touch on that, but actually I want to ask you first, why South Africa? Like there's plenty of options in Africa. What was the thinking there?

Great question. So first of all, the classic thing that most people want to do when they go to Africa is go on safari, right? And so there's a lot of different places you can go on safari in Africa, right? So I think East Africa is what people think of first as the classic safari destination of Africa is Kenya and Tanzania is number one. And Tanzania, know, a lot of people combine it, Kenya, Tanzania, go to Serengeti, they go to Ngoro Gorno and whatever. And so I looked into that.

And, one big thing about that is the safaris are more expensive in Kenya, Tanzania, question. South Africa presents better value. Now, never having been on a safari in East Africa before, cannot compare them one to one. What is the South Africa safari like versus Kenya, Tanzania? Safari snobs and experts will tell you that Kenya, Tanzania is better. Whether they are correct or not, I don't know. But what I'll say is that it's also much more expensive.

Right. So for me, that's a major important factor. Right. Also why I prefer in South Africa over there is not only is it less expensive to do safari, but to me, South Africa is a more interesting country to travel in because there's so many different things there that are not available in Kenya and Tanzania. Now, don't get me wrong. I really want to go to Kenya and Tanzania, so I'm not trashing those countries, but there's nothing like Cape Town in Kenya and Tanzania, for example. ⁓ true.

There's nothing like it to my knowledge, the Draconsburg mountains, which is another area of South Africa that we visited in Kenya and Tanzania. There's a Kenya and Tanzania also do not have an amazing wine country. Like they call it in South Africa, it's called the wine lands. They do not produce world-class wines there. I think South Africa has so much to offer the food, the culture, the variety of landscapes, the scenery.

Yeah.

When I'm going somewhere for a month, which is, we're there for like three and a half weeks or whatever. I want to go to a place that has it all. Right. So, cause I'm not going to be on, I'm not going on safari for three, four weeks. I want to have a lot of things to do. And when I looked at what is there to do in Kenya, for example, there's a lot, but I didn't find like a month's worth of stuff I wanted to do there. So to me, South Africa has got more stuff going on in it. More cosmopolitan cities, more variety of locations. ⁓

and just a ton of stuff to see. And I didn't see everything either. We spent all that time there and there were stuff I didn't have time for. It's a large country.

Yeah, I totally agree with the reason. I think when I look at the southern part of Africa continent, I know it's a bit of a cliche to say South Africa, but I think it does have that variety and that option to see different stuff. Whereas, yeah, like you say, other countries are maybe specific to one thing and they do it great. Don't get me wrong. But there's no other options maybe to change up to go and see a bit of sport or whatever you want to go and see. Right. So for me, South Africa is always there because of the rugby and the cricket as well. That's kind of a dream of mine to watch.

and it's a sporting country isn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah. They love it. Okay. We're going to dip into some places that you visited. ⁓ normally based, based on your YouTube, actually, I've gone down and obviously done my research. So we've got a few places here. we're going to start with the obvious one, which is Cape town. ⁓ the Cape flats, you went to the Cape flats, which can you tell people what they are and what was your experience?

So the Cape flats is, yeah, yeah. So ⁓ the Cape flats is sort of a notorious area of Cape town. It's technically a suburb of Cape town. It's east of the city. If you fly into Cape town international airport, you're going to fly right over it. it is very close to Cape town international airport. It's a very notorious area. It supposedly has the highest crime rate or highest murder rates in South Africa. And the country as a whole already has one of the highest murder rates in the world.

And so the Cape flats is one of the worst areas in the country in terms of crime rate, ⁓ which is saying something in South Africa, right? But it's really an interesting area. I didn't want to go there on like a poverty tour. know, there are tours like organized tours where you go there and you do things like that. I wanted to go there, but I wanted to meet someone there who's working to try to, to change things and to improve the place. And so.

I wanted to find somebody who was doing work to ⁓ try to work on the gang violence problem there. And so I looked around and I found a program and a priest, a very charismatic ⁓ reverend who works there in this violence interruption program. And I visited the Cape Flats. an area that's basically sort of a manufactured area where during the apartheid area,

They took this center city neighborhood and they took all of the black and colored people. Now I should explain the term colored too in South Africa. In the United States, you don't use the term colored, but in South Africa, this is an actual term. It's an ethnic group. People who are mixed race are referred to as colored in South Africa. And they're very proud of that as well too. ⁓ mostly the Cape Flats is mostly considered a colored community.

These people were pushed out into this Cape Flats area away from the city. were trying to essentially during the apartheid area, ⁓ basically take black and colored people out of the center of the city and push them out into this marginal area far from the city. And that's how this community was founded. But I spent about a half a day ⁓ meeting people, these so-called violence interrupters out in the Cape Flats and learning about what

this community is like and the different problems that children face out there. And I'll tell you, one of the most sobering things I have ever seen in my life was while I was there. ⁓ this charity, not only do they work on solving the gang violence problem, they also provide food to the impoverished surrounding area too. So people come there and they get meals from them. And I happened to be there when a truck full of apples was arriving. All of a sudden, know, I'm interviewing people out in the street.

And I see children running, like actually running through the streets. And I said, what's going, where are they going? What's going on? And they said, oh, the truck has just arrived with apples. And I'm sorry, I'm confused. wasn't apples, it was oranges. All of a sudden these kids are running from all over the neighborhood to get an orange. And it was like pandemonium. I said, let's go over there and find out. We got over there, we went over by the truck. The chill, it was almost like a small riot is that these kids were so

desperate to get an orange that they were fighting with each other in some cases of like, know, jostling and fighting to get to the truck where they were handing out these oranges from the back of a truck. And it was, it was incredibly sobering. You know, they, they told me these people who work in this charity that children in this Cape flats, start getting cooked on drugs by these gang members at the age of eight, 10, 12 years old. And they, they develop gang affiliations from this incredibly young age and

It all sounded, you know, it, it, it, that angle of it was also super depressing, but the good news is charities like this one and some other ones are really making inroads into trying to make this community better. So there's, this community has a lot of problems and has plagued by a lot of violence, but you find that even in places like this, there are amazing people out there who you'll meet some of them in my video. If you watch it, if you watch my video about the cave flats, you're going to meet some amazing people.

It's amazing that in a place like this, you can also meet some incredibly sweet and warm hearted people who are working to try to make a difference in their communities. And the way that I was received there, if you watch my video, you'll see the way that people treated me there and the way people ⁓ were so happy to talk to me because they don't really get a chance to talk to outsiders or visitors don't really come there.

huh.

I did not feel in danger there. Even they're telling me these stories about this thing happening, that thing happening. But when you're looking in people's eyes and talking to people, you know, they're just ordinary people. And that's the thing that like you, it really surprises you is that you hear all these horrible statistics and horror stories and you think you're expecting, okay, the minute I get out of my car, I'm going to be, you know, dodging bullets or people are going to be mean to me or people are going to, you know, ⁓

want to pull a knife on me or you're going to feel like you're going to get robbed. And I didn't feel that way the entire time I was there. People were just normal, you know, just people interacted with me just with as a normal person. And they were as curious about me and where I come from as I was about them. And I loved that kind of travel. Like when I'm there and you can really connect with people one-on-one and learn about a place, learn about the problems of it.

And then people are also give something back to because they're, really curious about my country also too, because a lot of people I met that day have never even met someone from America before. ⁓ most Americans do not visit the Cape flats, know, Cape town, you know, cause it's a half hour away from Cape town and Cape town. There's a lot of stuff to do in Cape town, right?

It's

a beautiful city. commend you on that video because I think this is crucial for people to see. Especially for Cape Town, like you say, there's so much content online where it doesn't show anywhere near this sort of stuff. any video that we mentioned in this episode, I'll put in the show notes a link so people can on it.

So this guy, by the way, his name too is Pastor Craven Engel. I want to give them a shout out too. So Pastor Craven Engel, really amazing guy. You'll meet him in this video. ⁓ He also, you know, what was interesting to me too, what was really eye opening is because as an American, you know about the history of South Africa, right? You know about the terrible way that black people that were treated during the apartheid system. But then this third group, the colored people of South Africa, before I traveled there, I didn't know anything about them.

And they are a very distinct group. Like they consider themselves different. Like, you know, here in America, ⁓ for example, you know, like we are president Barack Obama, he was a mixed race person, but he identified mostly as black and people refer to him as our first black president and things like that. But if he were South African, he would not be called black, he would be called colored. And they view themselves completely separately and they have a lot of pride in their own group. And, but there's also,

quite an intense rivalry between them and other groups. And there's a lot of resentments. And I found out about those things during that day and during this, and I explained that a bit on video, they explained to me that there's a lot of resentment there too, because they have something called black economic empowerment in South Africa. And there are certain jobs that have to mirror the percentages of the country. And what they were telling me is that in the Cape Town area in the Western Cape province,

The colored population is something like 30 or 40 % of the total. So they're very large, a very large percentage of the Cape Town and the Western Cape province. They're like a plurality. They're in fact, I believe they said that the largest group, they're larger than whites and blacks. There's something like 40 % of the population. But they consider themselves to be the worst off of the three different groups because they say that, you know, the whites had all the power. They said,

during the apartheid area, their attitude was we were not white enough to be privileged during the apartheid area. But now during the era of black economic empowerment, we're not black enough to be eligible for the different ⁓ affirmative action schemes that give hiring preferences to blacks in South Africa. And so this was super interesting too, because I was like, geez, I didn't know anything about this. So it's like, it's a very complicated country. ⁓

And you can learn a lot just by going to unusual places like the Cape Flats.

Which kind of brings me on to the next question actually, which is a of a big question. But how did you feel about the class and race divide in Cape Town? Based on what you said there.

It's so weird, know, I mean, again, we're talking travel here, so I'm not going to get into politics, but I'll just say the backdrop of the trip was, know, extended this refugee offer before we got there, right? And so this made headlines all over the world because he was saying that, you know, that white people ⁓ could come to America as refugees, right? He created this refugee program.

And a lot of people were not too happy about this. I'm sure you have read, obviously some people liked it, but a lot of people were not. And was super controversial. especially black folks in South Africa were like, what? You're going to let some South Africans come, but only whites and you know, whatever. So I was thinking, this happened shortly before we left. And I was thinking, okay, as a white American, what's it going to be like traveling in South Africa after Trump has just cooked up this white refugee thing. And I really wondered like, were people going to be

asking me about it, like, was there going to be some baggage involved? And it was very interesting because people did ask me about it and they wanted to know my opinion and stuff. And I had to say that like, it was super interesting because ⁓ South Africa is a really big country. When we were in Cape Town, you go to these, Cape Town has these amazing food markets. I'm telling you the best food markets of any city I've ever traveled to in the world. You go to these really upscale food markets and it's like, wow, there's like rich white people around everywhere.

And then you go out to the wine lands and there's all these rich white people everywhere. so in the first part of our trip, which was focused in the Western Cape, it was like, kind of like laughable. were like white, white refugees. Like this is madness. This is crazy. Like literally every white people we encountered seemed like they were very well off, know? But ⁓ the weird thing is then we got at the end of our trip, we were up in, you know, I always pronounce this poorly, but it's spelled G-A-U.

T-E-N-G is the name of the province in South Africa. Gauteng or how Tang I think they pronounce it. It's which is where which is where? Johannesburg and Pretoria are and then at that part of the ship we started to actually meet poor White people and like okay, so there are actually, you know impoverished poor white people in this country But they're not in Cape Town at least for the most part. So South Africa I learned, you know, it's a very large and complicated country is very complex

You really need to travel around a lot of different areas of it to really get a feel for it. And, yeah, so mean, it's, it's, it's the racial element is there and there's definitely, you know, race relations issues in South Africa. But I would say as a tourist, here's the, here's the great part as a white tourist, a white American tourist going there, you do not carry any of that baggage with you. in other words,

they don't just look at your skin color and treat you like as though you're an Afrikaner, right? So there may be, there may be coloreds or black people there who have not great feelings about Afrikaners or other white people in South Africa, but you are not viewed that way as an outsider, right? And so, cause you know, your accent immediately, they know that you are not from there, right? And so the way that we were treated by people of all colors in South Africa was amazing.

Mm-hmm.

Right?

Everywhere I went, and you look on my channel, you're going to see videos of me, not just in the Cape Flats, but also of me in some black townships that are 100 % black. We went to one of them, very, very poor Imizamu, which is a super poor improvised community ⁓ on the outskirts of Cape Town. 100 % black. You can watch me. You can watch me the way people interacted with me there, how nice they were to me there.

⁓ You can watch me in Soweto Township. You can watch me in Alexandra Township. These places are 100 % black. And you can see the way that I was treated. There was nothing but hospitality. Nobody was like, you're American. There was none of that. There was really none of that. mean, the people were so nice. I love South Africans. I'm telling you, love them.

this is what I love and it kind of defend, sorry, kind of defines travel almost in a nutshell. When you say these people showed you nothing but hospitality. is the thing across the world, isn't it? On the majority of occasions, like wherever you go.

It's amazing, isn't it? You there's going to be, you know, you think that there's going to be baggage. You think that, especially as an American traveling, that there's going to be baggage because we have like a very polarizing system, right? ⁓ We also have, let's say too, that, know, South Africa is also outside of obviously the middle East. I would say it is also the most pro-Palestinian country in the world too. You see the Palestinian flag all over the place.

I think it's

And the South Africa is a country that initiated the war crimes prosecution against Netanyahu in Israel. Right? So this is arguably the most pro-Palestinian country in the world. And we are the most pro-Israel country in the world outside of ⁓ obviously Israel, right? By far. And so I wondered about this stuff too. Like, you know, we got the Trump refugee stuff going on, white refugees. We're the most pro-Israel country.

Yes I did.

a pro-abolizing president, how people are going to feel about you. People are going to treat you as Dave, not as American X. You know what mean? That's what I love about people.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I think, ⁓ when you come from a British perspective, I'd be interested to see how they would react to a British person there based on the history. but also like British and islands, you islands, very pro Palestinian and all that sort of

⁓ yeah,

after South Africa, Ireland, Ireland and South Africa are the two. Yeah.

Well, these two countries have a lot in common based on what the British did, right? So I can understand why they've got that sort of reaction to it. 100%. Yeah.

It's amazing. Sorry, go ahead.

Now say in terms of Cape Town, can we just finish on Cape Town, the geography? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's an incredible place, isn't it? The table, the setting. That is just unbelievable, isn't it?

my god

magic, but I gotta tell you like Cape Town, a big thing is about weather and when are you going to travel to a place, right? I can't tell you how stressed I was about visiting Cape Town in a Cape Town winter, because I'd heard a lot of horror stories about Cape Town weather in the winter and their winter time. So we were traveling there end of May, beginning of June, which is the beginning of their winter. Cape Town can be very wet and cold, right? And ideally, this is the city. It's so magnificent, the geography.

Yes.

You really want to experience it with some sunshine, right?

And our weather there was very sketchy. It was hit or miss. It would have been so much more beautiful with better weather. Um, it was the only place everywhere else went in South Africa. The weather was perfect Cape town there. If you're going to go try to go in the spring or fall the summer and their summer. Okay. Which is our winter is very, very hot. Really try to go there at the right time of year because the weather, the first of all, it can be very windy.

And you go up to like famous Table Mountain, for example, which is an iconic place to visit sites in the city. You can't even go up there. So it doesn't even work. The finger doesn't even work when it's too windy and stuff like that. So for the first few days, we couldn't even go there. We could not go to Robin Island the entire time. We were there five nights. Kept trying. Robin Island is of course where Nelson Mandela was there for 27 years in prison. And it's an island. You have to take a boat there. The boat does not run when it's too windy.

Hmm.

So we could not go to Robin Island, which was disappointing because I really wanted to go there. So ⁓ Cape Town is absolutely magnificent. However, to really enjoy it and appreciate the views, it'd be nice to have better weather. We did get to see it. really ironic thing was, I don't know, James, if you ever experienced this in your traveling career, but the very first day we flew in, let's say we got in at like 4 PM, it was perfect. So it's like we're driving in from the airport and it's like, my God, this is the Cape Town of my dreams. This is it.

And we were there five nights. It's not like we were there two, three days, five nights, six days. It was never like that again. We never saw it with blue skies and like, you know, the postcard imagery. We never saw it like that again. It was literally for it. And it gets dark early. That's the other thing too. I'm sure you've experienced this in travel. When you're traveling during their winter, it's also getting dark at like 5.30 or five o'clock or something like that. Which is super inconvenient as a traveler.

I love traveling. I love traveling like some place where it gets dark in the summer at like nine or 10 o'clock. Then it's like, you've got all that extra time. So, ⁓ yeah, I wouldn't want to go back in winter again if I could help it, but it is a magnificent city, Cape Town. The biggest surprise for me was the food. I cannot believe how good the food is in Cape Town. It's mind blowing.

What is it? I don't even know what to expect.

Everything. mean, it's everything. That's the cool thing about it. It's kind of, it's kind of like Toronto or Vancouver in that they've got every type of excellent ethnic restaurant you'd want. As I said, the food markets, I have one blog on my channel, just about the food markets in Cape Town. Watch it because I'm showing you all the amazing food. I've never been to food markets this good in my entire life. Quality of the food, the quality of the baked goods.

Coffee, you're a coffee guy. No from watching your channel.

Yeah. Is it,

Coffee is outstanding. They have a type of cuisine called cape. Nothing is that expensive there. That's another great thing we're getting into. They are compared to North America are I'm going to say like the restaurant prices are 30 or 40 % less on average. And instead of 20 % tipping, which we do here over there, they do about 10 % tipping. So you're saving half on the tip.

The bills are 30 to 40 % less. So no, I did not think the coffee was very expensive. I didn't think anything was very expensive. The only thing that's expensive is going on safari. Other than that, you're making out like a bandit, South Africa.

Sorry, I cut you off on the food market experience. Are we basically seeing different cuisines from around the world and they're cooked fresh?

Yes,

but they also have their own distinctive, yes, but they also have their own distinctive cuisine too. So first of all, barbecuing, which they call brying is a national thing there. So brying is like the thing there, barbecuing. So I'll barbecue in all kinds of different things. And if you go on a nice safari too, they'll barbecue some, they'll bry some really weird and interesting things for you too. We got crocodile, we got crocodile. They give you some ostrich.

If you're on a good safari, they'll, barbecue up some interesting game for you. ⁓ in Cape Town, they have a type of cuisine called Cape Malay cuisine.

Okay, which is

is,

⁓ it's almost like a mashup of Indian. So things almost taste like a butter chicken or a Vindaloo or things like that. That kind of curries. Hmm. Love that stuff. I can't get enough of it. So good. And then all the classics, then you like, they've got good Indian restaurants there. They've got good Chinese. They've got, ⁓ they've got very good, you know, here in the U S we'd call them new American restaurants, but I guess just sort of creative cuisines.

The food scene there in South Africa is mind blowing. I'm telling you, the restaurants and the chefs there, you can't believe how good they are.

Okay. Wow. I guess there's a difference between city food and maybe out in the country, right? Maybe the reserves and stuff. must eat different stuff.

So if you go to a good safari place, right? The food that we had on our, we went on two safaris, one in Kruger national park and one at a private game reserve. We stayed at a place called Kruger Shalati. Okay. Which is a train on a bridge. made a log about this place, which you can see, but the food that I had at this place, gourmet food, first of all, it's kind of like being on a cruise in that you pay your price and then you're eating as much as you want and drinking as much as you want.

Right. But quality is insanely elevated. Right. Because on a cruise ship, unless you're on a small ship where they're, you're paying an unbelievable price, which I've never done before. You're getting good quality food usually on a cruise ship. If it's a good cruise ship, you'll get good quality food and an abundance of it as much as you want to eat. And you'll gain five pounds on the Safari, this Safari Kruger Shulhati. You are getting insane gourmet food. Like the kind of stuff that I never.

Mm-hmm.

get because I don't go to restaurants that are that expensive, right? Yeah. So you're going to like a five-star kind of like Michelin star caliber restaurant, right? But it's also unlimited. like you show up at lunch, you show up at lunch and I would, could never decide. So I would just get two or three entrees and you can order as many of them as you wanted. I was literally a kid in a candy shop, James. The food was so gourmet that every meal I was getting at least two things. So like at breakfast I'd be like, okay.

I'll have the breakfast burrito and I'll have the, you know, the blueberry pancake, you know, like it was, it was insane. The caliber of food at Kruger Shalati. So first of all, too, this place is so unique. You are staying on a train and restored vintage train cars. Okay. It's parked on a bridge over the Sabe River in Kruger National Park. So you have herds of elephants coming by to drink from the river. You can see them.

right from your train car, your train car, you've got an entire train car is your room you're sleeping in. This place, I mean, I'm telling you, this is the most unique, it is the most unique and outstanding place I've ever stayed at in my life. When you take everything into account, you're getting two game drives, you're getting insane gourmet food, you're seeing all these animals. You have a guide with you. We had this guide there.

Her name is Ayanda. I'll give her a shout out. So this young lady, ⁓ it used to be, it used to be that all the safari guides in South Africa, let's say 20, 34 years ago were like old white guys. And then eventually after the fall of apartheid, then the black guys got involved. Having a young female black guide is something that has happened only maybe let's say in the last few years that they've even been getting involved in this, right? Our guide, Ayanda.

When I first saw her, thought she looks like she's 20 or 21 years old. She looks so young. thought, huh? This is our safari guide? I have to admit, I was like, wow, she looks so young. And you think initially too, um, is she going to know what she's talking about? Like, you know, she doesn't seem like old enough to even be doing this. The knowledge of this young lady was mind blowing. Oh my God. Every animal we come across, you see a bird from a hundred yards away. Oh, this is the whatever.

You're blowing your mind. You see all these different animals. She'd tell you like, this one's pregnant over there. He's pregnant? How do you tell that? I mean, it just blows your mind. Like these people, this young lady spent like two years studying everything you would ever like devoting your life to really becoming a master, an expert about not just the animals, but the natural environment. She'll tell you what type of tree that is over there. Or she was telling us about the stars and the constellations around and things like that. And it's like,

to have all of those things put together, staying in this incredibly unique place, being on a train, seeing these animals, having a personal guide, taking us out twice per day on these game drives. The quality of the food and the drinks and the barbecues and the entertainment, like one night we came home from our, this is honestly, think the one day that we had there, I think was probably the best travel day of my life. We just came back from this amazing game drive where we saw

This one leopard, now leopards are so elusive. I've never been on a safari before getting to see a leopard. Leopards, if you see one sometimes too, you only see it for like, there were a few times we saw leopards and bam, as soon as they saw us, they dart away. It's like you see a leopard for like three, three or 10 seconds and you're happy. This one leopard that we saw and I videoed him, he was walking.

yeah, the half-

He was sauntering around right around our vehicle. where he was like, I could have reached out and touched him. That's how close this leopard was to us. This leopard, like my heart was beating so fast. I was thinking to myself, my God, this leopard is right here, right next to us. was like, it was the most amazing sighting I've ever had in my life. And then we come back from this mind blowing game drive and the staff is all out and decked out at at Kruger Shalati. They're all decked out and they're singing.

Wow.

these magnificent voices, right? They've got their own like basically choir, I guess I would call it there, where they sing traditional African songs. So they greeted us as we come back on the vehicle. Let's picture this. You come back from your game drive and there are these bonfires they have set up for you, right? They're preparing the braai. There are bonfires set up. there's fires. There's a choir out who's serenading you as you get off of your safari vehicle, right? So you hear this wonderful African music, these beautiful voices.

Behind them, you see the fires of all the meats cooking and everything. Right. So it's like, can, you can smell the dinner cooking, right. Over the open fires. You're hearing them this wonderful, glorious music and these people dancing. Right. And I was thinking, I just, you couldn't wipe the smile off my face. I was just like, I could not dream of a better day of travel than this. treated to these insanely awesome meals. Right.

getting serenaded by this incredible choir and then meeting all these other interesting people. And that's the cool thing about safaris too, is that because you're spending all this time on these game drives, you get to know the other people in your vehicle really well. And so we had, I don't know, like let's say six or eight people in our vehicle, which it wasn't, they did it really nice because sometimes if you see, sometimes you'll drive by, you'll see other safari vehicles and they're so packed in. You're like, Oh my God.

Yeah.

That looks awful. I'm so glad we weren't like that. Really might have 16 people in a vehicle or something like that. We didn't have that, but let's say we had six or eight people, but you get to know all these other couples so well. So we made all these great friends, you know, on safari, people that we really, really liked and getting to come back after an amazing game drive and then share, um, sharing some really great South African wines and these amazing braai barbecue experience with people as they're putting on a show for you while you're eating.

with the dancing and the singing and everything. mean, was like, it was, it was, was, it was just spectacular. I hope that I wish that everybody, if you're a traveler, you got to experience that once in your life.

And can you give an idea, because it sounds absolutely incredible, an idea of price?

That is, you know, so it's very hard to say. What I'll tell you is that like, I think what I have heard as a good rule of thumb is, is that you're probably going to something like, what is a good rule of thumb here? So first of all, let me give you a word of warning is that everything depends upon the number of people in your family for this type of stuff. it's not like here in the U S where the hotel price is going to be the same, whether you put one person in there and before people in their own, it's per person, all the price of these things, right?

Because you're taking up a seat in the safari vehicle, you're eating the food, et cetera, et cetera. So a lot will depend upon how many people are in your family. Like if you're a solo traveler, you're going to pay 25 % of the price that I paid, roughly, because I with four people, right? So, but I'll tell you that like, the price could be, it's also, again, it's heavily dependent on when you go. High season, low season, shoulder season.

But I'll tell you, you're probably going to spend something like between $500 and a thousand dollars per day per person. Now that's a large range, but it's going to be something like that. But, it sounds insanely expensive and it is, I'm not going to minimize the cost. But when you think about, first of all, you're only going to do this for like, we went to Kruger Schlachty for two nights. Now, um, I had to be like,

almost dragged out of this place after the two nights, because I would have liked to have stayed for like a week. But so you're not going to like if you, were in South Africa for three and a half weeks, right? You go somewhere for a couple of nights and you're splurging on those nights, right? So you have to consider this a massive splurge. You have to factor in also, you're not going to spend any other money when you're on safari. You're all in there. So you're, they're, they're entertaining you, your game drives, your food, your drinks, your everything. So it's.

Yay.

completely all inclusive. You're not going to spend another dollar on those days whatsoever. So it's expensive, but it's absolutely worth it.

don't think it's that bad actually, considering the price I've heard of some safaris in many countries in that area. So I think actually I was a bit pleasantly surprised by your price point there.

Well, you know what's crazy about it is too, and it varies by season too, but what's crazy about it there is also is that the mini bar is free. So in the rooms, so my entire, my entire life I've been telling my children, don't touch anything in the mini bar. Right? My kids have been to almost 50 countries. They have never been allowed to patronize a mini bar anywhere in the world in the 40 some odd countries they've been to except at Kruger Shalati because they told us everything in the mini bar is free. And it's a very lavish mini bar.

There's hard alcohol. Of course I didn't tell them to have that. There's beer, there's, there's beer, there's hard alcohol. There's really high quality snacks and everything. You can eat as much as you want and drink as much as you want from the mini bar. And at the end, there was a really cool surprise on checkout morning. We came back from our final game drive, right? And we're checking out that day. Have you ever stayed in a hotel where they preemptively clean your room before you check out?

No.

We came back. like, you know, checkout time is at noon or, whatever it is, right. But you've got your morning game drive, which is like 6 AM. So you leave very early in the morning for the game drive. We came back from our morning game drive and we were getting like, went back up to our room to get freshened up for breakfast. We came back and we're like, Oh my God, they actually cleaned our room. Even though we were about to check out. was like, they cleaned our room. And then the biggest surprise was we can't, were on the valet parking thing there. They're like, um,

Our car had been really filthy because we were traveling through, you know, all kinds of dusty dirt roads to get there. So it was caked in mud and stuff like that. They washed and vacuumed all the cars. like everybody was checking out.

Wow. Yes!

That's insane. just like, I've been waiting my whole, I've been waiting my whole life to stay at a hotel that washes and vacuums my car for me. The level of, the level of service was mind blowing.

⁓ Yeah, And just to finish on this experience, just for people, obviously you saw all the animals,

So this first experience in the National Park, saw, ⁓ we did not see every animal. The only animals that I would have liked to have seen, we saw everything we could possibly want to see except for rhinos and cheetahs. But we saw a lot. I mean, we saw everything else. Everything else you could imagine.

Yeah. Okay.

And the other experience, was that in South Africa or was that in another country? Yes.

So that was also, and so we went on a couple of other safaris. Now we went on ⁓ another safari in a private game reserve called Kurongwi. Now there are several private game reserves which border ⁓ Kruger National Park in South Africa. And in those, you are going in there and the major difference between those and Kruger National Park is on Kruger National Park, you have to stay on the roads.

⁓ a s-

Now in Kruger National Park, safari vehicles must stay on the roads. And the roads are, some of them are dirt roads in the national park and some of them are pavement tarmac. In the private game reserves, they off-road you. So ostensibly you can get to see more animals. Now in the private game reserve, we also saw rhinos. So we did see, we ended up seeing all of the big five.

No cheetahs. Cheetahs are not in the vague thought. That was the one animal I was looking for I did not find. Sorry about anything else. But I will tell you that if you Google what is better, staying in the national park or going to private game reserves, most quote unquote safari experts will tell you the private game reserves are better. They're also usually more expensive. Our experience, and I don't want to trash the place that we stayed at in Karangwe, because it was very nice. We did not see as many. It was very counterintuitive.

Yeah.

I think you'll agree with me here too, Janice, but in travel, so much of your experience is based on expectation. And I've been told by everybody, all the so-called experts that I was going to see more in the private game reserve than in the national park. we saw a ton in the national park. So my, and then afterwards we went to the private game reserve next. So when we were starting in the private game reserve, I was thinking my expectation was up here. I was thinking, wow, we already just saw an insane amount of stuff in the national park.

Now we're going to see twice as much. And we did not. I would say it's hard to say, you know, I would say we saw less in fact, in the private game reserve. And there were days, I'll tell you something about safaris people. If you've never been on a safari before, I'm going to give you some awesome advice, two great pieces of advice. So first of all, ⁓ you have to understand there's a lot of luck involved with safaris. So you're going to have game drives that are going to stink. Probably if you go on enough game drives, right?

Okay.

Usually if you pay for a safari, you're to get two game drives per day, right? So if you do, we did two nights in one place, three nights in another. So we had five nights of safari. That means 10 game drives. Out of 10 game drives, I would say three or four of them were mind-blowingly awesome. or four of them were decent, like where we saw some stuff, but it was, there was also a lot of spells aboard them where we might've been driving around for an hour and not seeing anything. And two or three of them were like, we saw like very little.

you

So here's a good piece of advice for you because you're thinking about, right, well, a common question is if I'm going on safari, how many nights should I book? And I will say clear out every dollar from your bank account and stay for as long as you can. Because if you book a safari for one night, and you're only getting two game drives, you're going to the casino. You're playing roulette.

⁓ re-

You're playing roulette. You might strike you. You might have an awesome experience and you might not. The more game drives you can afford, you're offering yourself a better chance of really seeing stuff. And if you go on a safari and your first game drive is not mind blowing where you're like, damn, I didn't see very much. Just wait.

Mm-hmm.

because your luck can change in a second. I mean, we had a couple of experiences where it was like, I remember there was one game drive where, I swear to God, we drove around for months. We must have driven around for like an hour and a half or two hours and saw like nothing. And I was thinking about something like, what the fuck is going on here? I started thinking too, like we paid all this money and where the fuck are the animals? You can really start to like, you can really start to kind of get pissed off like, are the goddamn animals, you know? And then all of sudden,

Like there was this one game guy for like two hours. saw not a damn thing. And I was getting so bored. Literally one of my kids was falling asleep. Like one of my sons is literally sleeping in the back of the safari vehicle. And then all of a sudden it was like, Whoa, you see one thing and then 10 minutes later you see another and another and another. Your luck can like change so quickly. So it's very haphazard. So you can go to the, you could go to the same private game reserve I went to and see.

End times as many things as I did. So that's the first piece of advice is, is that there's a lot of luck involved and the more game drives you have, better your chances are. Second piece of advice I'm going to give you is do not compare notes with the other travelers staying at your safari lodge about what they see. Cause you're going to go out in a fleet of different vehicles, right? So like you'll go out in the morning, you all go out at 6 AM same time, but you disperse into different vehicles and you're heading off in different directions.

Yeah.

Yes. ⁓

Now they do communicate to each other on radio, right? So if your guide has an awesome sighting, unless they're a jerk, they will communicate that sighting to the other people and say, there's a leopard over blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

What did you see in your vehicle? Oh, this really got to me when we were at the private game reserve because there were lot of times in the private game reserve, we stayed there three nights, where we were just striking out. We were completely striking out. We had a few game drives where we saw like almost nothing. And then we come back and people were like, oh my God, look at these photos of these cheetahs we just saw. And you'd like, Jesus Christ. And it drives you crazy. We just spent three hours driving around and seeing nothing.

Yeah.

And these people are showing me on their phone, like close up photos of cheetahs and I haven't seen cheetahs yet. And it can really mess with your mind. And so I would say, resist the temptation to compare sighting notes with people and other vehicles. Only compare notes with the people who are in your vehicle.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That does remind me of my experience in India this year. We did one game drive and we luckily saw elephants. Incredibly lucky.

Yeah.

That is good lucky. Okay. So wait. All right. So let me summarize your people. talked about Cape Town. We talked about, ⁓ Safari. Any more questions about Safari? Otherwise there's a couple other regions I want to tell you about. Let's move on. Right. All right. So we talked about Cape Town. We talked about Safari. Those are the two big ones. You got a little more time to spend in South Africa. Here's where else I think you should go. So first of all, Drackensburg mountains.

Absolutely beautiful. love this. I love this region so much. There are, aside from the hiking in the mountains and the fresh air and everything, there are Bushmen paintings. So the Bushmen are ancient people who lived a very, very long time ago. And I love things like this where they have these ⁓ paintings, which are hundreds and some of them are hundreds of years old. Some of them are thousands of years old. You go on these hikes to see these Bushmen paintings from long, long, long ago. I love doing stuff like that. We stayed at a place.

Okay.

You stay there. It's a mountain getaway and everything again is inclusive. They have gourmet food that is so good and you can get as much of it as you want. And I'll give you one example since I know you're, you're an eater like me. Okay. They, one night they had one night they had pepper steaks. Okay. This was the most delicious pepper steak I've ever eaten in my life. It had a rich pepper sauce gravy on it. Okay. Caliber of the meat. You think in the U S I'm sorry, you go to an all you can eat place.

They're not going to serve you a high caliber steak. This was, this was absolutely magnificent. This steak. Okay. And then my son and I ate it. We ate it so good. We're like, my God, that might've been like one of the best steaks we've ever had. The waiter comes over. Would you like another round of steak? You're damn right. We would. We got second steaks coming over. It's just like this place is and, the desserts too. ⁓ I'm telling you, man. mean like the food at this place is gourmet quality. And here's the weird thing. Okay.

See you

The alcohol is not included at this place. But here's the kicker. They've got a wine cellar you go down into, right? Where you go down and pick your, your own wine from the cellar. They have wines there starting at 75 Rand. A bottle. 75 Rand is a little less than $4. Okay. So we're talking about a four star hotel, four star hotel kind of resort place that has bottles of wine.

Yeah.

Wow.

for $4. Never in my life have I experienced such a thing. Okay. And of course, since I'm a cheapskate and I was also curious, I wanted to know what are these $4 bottles of wine like? So I, both nights we were there, I ordered a $4 bottle of wine. And I want to tell you these $4 bottles of wine they have there are very drinkable and very good. So this is the resort that has gourmet food. has $4 bottles of wine, which is insane for me for a four star resort, right?

Again.

And here was the thing that I liked best is I love going on hikes, but what I like even better than going on a hike by myself or with my family is a guided hike. So they have two guided hikes every morning that you can go out with. So you're going out with a local guide. And these guys are awesome. I love these guides because they're telling you stories. They're telling you all about the local culture. So the local culture there, they're Zulus, work there, right? So these guys are telling us all about Zulu culture. Now I did one vlog, you'll find on my channel.

about Zulu culture. And it's all based upon the interesting stuff about the Zulus that my hiking guide told us about. And if you're a dog lover, they've got two beautiful dogs at this place. And one of the dogs whose name is Lucy likes to hike. So Lucy comes with you on the morning hike. So you get to hike with this amazing dog out to see these Bushmen paintings. Again, I talked about like, you know, sometimes in travel, you have these amazing days. For me, when I can spend a day

Amazing.

hiking and going on a beautiful hike with a very knowledgeable guide who's telling me all about the Zulus and the culture and everything. And with a really cute, fun dog and I'm served gourmet food. And this place also has cheap massages. And I got like one of the best massages of my entire life after the hike. was just like, I was in, I was on cloud nine. It was like, again, I stayed there two nights. my God, what I have liked a week at the cavern.

This place is absolutely epic. So, Drakensberg mountains, go to the Drakensberg mountains, go to the cavern. Then the last thing I want to tell you guys about is, is that there's two little countries inside South Africa. And when you're in South Africa, if you're a country collector like me, or if you're just a person who's very curious, you got to go to Lesotho and Eswatini while you're there. Do it.

What is the logistics like of getting to those?

No visa needed if you're an American or a Canadian. And I believe most of the countries of Europe, the only rub is your rental car company. So we rented a car for this entire trip. Oh yeah. Your rental car company, those rascals, will charge you some ridiculous price to get a letter stating that you are authorized to bring the rental vehicle into Lesotho and Eswatini. And I think I paid almost a hundred dollars per letter. I think it was like the equivalent of like

75 bucks per country, right? Like the way things go often in life, when I got to these two borders, did they ask me for this letter, which was supposedly required? No, they did not. So I had two very expensive $75 letters that no one ever asked me for. But I guarantee you, you don't pay for that $75 letter, they probably will ask you for it at the border. But they are supposedly required to bring a rental car into those two little countries.

But that's the only logistical rub of visiting those two countries, of adding those two countries into your South Africa itinerary. And you absolutely should do so. So should we start with Lesotho and I'll tell you why to go there?

Yeah. Well, one more question actually about South Africa. Durban is on my bucket list to go and watch quicker than Boxing Day. Yes. What did you make of it as a city and a vibe?

So Durban, we were only there for one night and we stayed in a suburb of Durban called Umlanga, but I'm sure I'm pronouncing that wrong. And I did not have enough time to give a proper explanation of Durban, but Durban is, it's a city that has a huge Indian population. So I think one of the major reasons to go there would be to eat Indian food, but, and it also has beautiful beaches. So where we stayed Umlanga, the beaches are absolutely spectacular.

And again, if you're going there during North American or European summer, like when we are there in June and you want spectacular weather, that's a great place to go. Cause we were there, it was probably 75 degrees and sunny, which is like 25 Celsius, 27 Celsius. Weather perfect, beach is beautiful. So I think that like, if you want beach, beaches and beach weather, okay, in the winter time, Durban and the area north of Durban where you were would be a great place to go.

Mm-hmm.

But Durban, city itself, we did not stay in the city. I will give you a fair warning. ⁓ It has a reputation for crime. so again, we also finished our trip in Johannesburg. We spent two nights in Johannesburg. Johannesburg has a massive reputation for crime. I love Johannesburg. So I am not prepared to tell you do not go to Durban because it has a reputation for crime, because people say, do not go to Johannesburg. I love Johannesburg. me, Johannesburg was super interesting.

Thanks

Okay. ⁓ we'll come back around South Africa to finish the episode. Just a couple of questions, but let's get into Eswatini and Lesotho. Where do you want to start?

So let's start with Lesotho because we went there first. Lesotho is called the kingdom in the sky. It is the only country in the world that exists solely above 1,000 meters. So there's no low elevations in this country. It is a beautiful mountainous country. It is one of the only countries in Africa where they get snow fairly regularly. ⁓ Yes, and they do have a ski resort there.

Um, and when we arrived, it was funny. They're telling us, you shouldn't be too bad. You're not coming next week. And it's supposed to snow next week and I was like, but I don't want snow. grew up Buffalo. I've seen it. I've seen enough snow. I don't need to see snow in Africa, but I know it's a big time novelty. Um, we stayed in a place called Maliba Lodge. M-A-L-I-B-A Lodge. Now this is a super unique place. It's inside of a national park in a very remote mountainous.

area in Northern Lesotho. I recommend this place too. Boy, is it interesting. You feel like you're on another planet. I have not seen the stars so well as this is Malibu Lodge. You're in the middle of nowhere and you're staying in a rendezvous. So a rendezvous is if you picture in your mind, ⁓ looking at like a national geographic magazine from 50 years ago of like where Africans lived and the type of dwellings that they lived in, they're called rendezvous and some of some rendezvous and some villages are made from like, you know,

Palms or things like that, but they're traditional sort of African dwellings. And these are traditional African dwellings you stay in, completely pimped out inside where it's like a luxury, luxury hotel where it looks like from the outside, a traditional African dwelling that belongs in a rural village in Africa. But inside you've got the all modern columns as you guys would say in Great Britain, right? And I love this place. I went on a tour here. ⁓

I want to give a shout out to my guide here. ⁓ his name is Holly. This guy, Holly took me on one of the best tours I've ever had in my life in Lesotho. We spent a full day with him and he works out of the Maliba Lodge. ⁓ but I've got his phone number on my vlog. So if you look at my YouTube channel and you watch my videos about, ⁓ about, ⁓ about Lesotho, you will see his phone number, his WhatsApp phone number in the, in the show notes and on the screen.

Okay.

If you go to Lesotho, you gotta promise me you'll hire this guy. He does not charge a lot. He's very reasonable. He gave the most mind blowing and excellent tour I have ever had. He took us to, you'll see if you go to my YouTube channel, you see where he took me. But first of all, we went to a school and we spent a couple of hours at a elementary school in Lesotho. I cannot tell you how much I love that, getting to meet all these children. They sang for us, danced for us. We got to feed them lunch. We got to see.

how tough life is for people in Lesotho. This is one of the poorest countries in the world. Okay. And again, with politics intervening with things right before we got there, the Trump administration levied the biggest tariff of any country in the world on Lesotho. Just randomly. Lesotho's tariff rate that was slapped on them was number one. Listed 193 U.N. countries. Lesotho was at the top, baby. Number one highest tariff we levied on them of any country in the world. Now, thankfully,

after several months of negotiation, they were able to whittle that down. So they did not end up getting levied with the number one tariff, but they were threatened with such. And so when we arrived there, they declared a state of national emergency, a state of disaster based upon this tariff threat. Because just based upon the threat of those tariffs that they were coming in a few months or whatever, all of these textile factories and others started closing down. And so a lot of people in Lesotho were already losing their jobs when we visited, right?

And so I wondered again, like, how are we going to be greeted as Americans in this small country? And they just slapped them with the highest tariffs in the world. The state of emergency has been declared and it's all because of us, right? And there aren't a lot of American tourists there. I wonder, are people going to want to string us up when we get there? And once again, not at all. know, people don't, they don't blame you at all. Nice people in Lesotho, but it is a super poor country. And when you visit a school there, we, my family, we were able to, they said, okay, you're going to help us feed the children because everybody there.

gets a free lunch, which is provided to them. All the school children get a free lunch provided by the government. The government sends workers out to every school in the country and gives children. It's like a, it's almost like a gruel they're being served. Like what you would imagine. It is like a porridge they're being served. It's called pop and it's like a cornmeal porridge and it had peas on it. So the only protein they were getting were like a splash of peas, right?

Yeah.

And each child brings his own little bucket and they give him something. And some kids didn't literally didn't even have a bucket. I had to share the bucket with other people. And the amazing thing is none of them complain about it like, cause they don't know any better, right? No one's saying, well, I would rather have like some McNuggets or a burrito, right? Because they're getting that same gruel every day. And the principal told us that a lot of these children, that is the only meal that they will get that day is the government lunch they're being served, right? But.

So you'd think the kids would be moping around and unhappy, but they're not because they're children. And they're still running and playing and having fun and singing for us and doing all these things. And you're thinking like, you understand, you get such an amazing perspective traveling in a very poor country. And we were in a very rural area of Lesotho too. We did not go to the capital city of Lesotho, Massero. We just went to this rural area up in the North. And so we're in a rural area of the poor country and we spent time at the school. We spent time.

We went to go visit a medicine woman, a fortune teller slash medicine lady in a very crazy rural village. made a video about that too. And I dubbed her the world's least accurate fortune teller because every single thing she said about us was completely incorrect. But I loved it anyways, the whole experience of it, being in her hut, being in her hut and she was rolling these bones and doing all this wild stuff. I couldn't, I loved this woman. could not get, she was

spectacularly inaccurate, but I love listening to her. And then we went to a, ⁓ like their version of a craft brewery, which was a family, couple of married couple who lives in like, ⁓ who lives in a room that's let's say 10 foot by 10 foot large. And they've got their bed in one corner of the room and of that, of like this corn beer that they brew or no, not corn beer. What's it go? Sorghum beer.

that they brew in the other corner of the room that they live in. And they got a bunch of regulars who hang out there and drink this stuff all day long. they have it in big vats and they pass it around to each other. So when we were there, they had a group of regular drinkers who I imagine this is like their everyday job. They go there at 10 a.m. until their wives call them home for dinner each Sunday. But they go there and they pass it around. so we got to taste the sorghum beer and meet all the Lesotho alcoholics who were hanging out day drinking in a bar.

I mean, it was, and then the best part of it was though, so this is a country full of shepherds, okay. And herders, cattle herders and such, right? And so the big thing about Lesotho is the major element of their culture are the blankets. So the herders and the shepherds there wear these very beautiful blankets, which if you go to my YouTube channel, you will see, I interviewed many of these shepherds. These guys look so great. I'll tell you, mean,

There are beautiful people to begin with in Lesotho, right? They're all basically from the same tribe, the Basoto tribe. They're very handsome. The Basoto are very handsome people to begin with, but they've got these beautiful blankets that they wear, right? The rural people wear these beautiful blankets. And the interesting thing is I got to talk to so many of them and learn their culture. There's very detailed stuff about the blankets there. Blankets are a very big deal in Lesotho. Even the king wears blankets there. And the number of blankets you wear is based upon the number of cattle you have.

And so if you're a big honcho who has a lot of cattle, you can have up to three blankets that you wear draped on top of each other, right? If you're a small time guy who doesn't have very many animals, you get one blanket, right? So, and I asked them, what about in the summertime when it's very hot? Do they take off the blankets? No, no, no, no. If you are a big enough man, if you're a big man who's got three blankets, you wear those three blankets, even if it's blazing hot, if it's 35, 40 degrees Celsius.

Huh?

And so because of the matter of stature and pride, the blankets and Lesotho. And so that's something I purchased a blanket when I was there, a Lesotho blanket. And that's a really important element of the culture is these blankets. And so when you were driving around rural Lesotho, James, and I know you're the traveler who's just like me, you love to go somewhere really different. I've never been in a place in my entire life where I wanted to photograph every single person that I drove by. Lesotho was such a place. The most

Mmm.

Photographic, photogenic people I've ever seen in my life. You're driving around and you're seeing these shepherds and these herders in their colorful blankets. I stopped the car for like every shepherd in Lesotho. And met so many of them and they're nice too. And ⁓ it was amazing. I loved Lesotho.

Okay, so for Lesotho, definitely worth a little diversion.

Absolutely. I stayed there two nights. I would have liked maybe one more.

Yeah, but quite a small country I'd imagine though. But mountainous.

You

know what, you know what, it looks like a small country on the map. It's a very large country when you get there because of the roads and the mountains. like we stayed up in a rural corner of the country in the North and Maliba Lodge. There were other areas of the country at points of interest that I wanted to visit James. But then when you'd plug them in Google maps, you'd like, wait a minute, it's seven, eight hours away. What? could that be? Yes. So there were places I wanted to go.

Yeah.

⁓ right, yeah.

that were a seven or eight hour drive away I didn't have time for. Seemed like a small country, but it actually isn't.

Yeah.

Okay, how would you get there if you didn't have a car?

So you can fly into the capital city. The flight connections are not great. There are flights into the capital city from either Cape Town or Johannesburg.

Bye.

See you.

Bye. Okay. Yeah. Okay. You can do that way, but to get around the country.

But

once you get there... absolutely.

Yeah. Okay. Got it. ⁓ let's go to Eswatini, known as the former name of Swaziland back in the day. If people can reference that.

Yeah, to-

monarchy, which means that, so what it means is that everything that happens in this country is at the behest of the King. So there's other Kings in Africa, but they're like figureheads or figureheads or they have, or they might have some power, but they don't have absolute power. The King is an absolute strong man. The is the man in Eswatini and he's got 17 wives and we got to crash your birthday party.

What's up?

where one of his wives, think it was his ninth or tenth wife, they said, was there. So we got to catch a glimpse of her. ⁓ So that was interesting. We caught a glimpse of the king at this one ceremony too, but like the king is the man there.

Yeah.

Why stop at 17 wines? Why not go to 18? What's the process for that?

So first of all, he's going to, he's not done. He's absolutely not done. So we met someone, we met someone in Eswatini and I can't tell you who they are because she, you know, she still lives there. So I don't want to sell anybody down the river, but she told me that, that her daughter, okay, is a high school student in Swaziland. one of her classmates was picked by the king. So this is what he does is they have something every August there called the Reed ceremony. Okay. Where thousands of virgins come to the capital city.

And they participated in this reed festival, okay, where they are topless. And the king chooses, often chooses girls at this reed festival to be a wife of his. Now, a couple of years ago, he chose this high school girl who was in the same class as her daughter to be the wife number 18. And her family did not want to do that. She did not want to be wife 18.

⁓ interesting.

And so, but you cannot refuse the king. So they actually fled the country. ⁓ Very sad, but that's the way it works. If you get chosen by the king and you don't want to be chosen, you are out of luck.

Go.

So is it a society where you can't even obviously say anything against the king or the royal family? That's a big no-no. ⁓

Oh,

absolutely. So I love reading local newspapers wherever I go. And one time when we were there, we were at the supermarket and there were a bunch of different local papers. And I asked a guy, said, which of these papers is the most interesting or best one? He said, oh, he said, to be honest with you, they're all garbage. I really? Why is that? And he said, because you can't print it. He said, because the government controls everything and you can't say anything negative. He said, it's all propaganda. He said, you're easy. And he said, where are you from?

Yeah.

I said America, said, ⁓ no, he said, you wouldn't want to read, you wouldn't want to read any of that. It's all propaganda, he said.

Okay.

So there's another place we should talk about. I'm blanking out on the... I'm just checking my YouTube. Here it is. ⁓ Dumbaya? Yes, thank you. Dumbaya Gamers. Boy, you've got a good memory. He's better than me. I actually went there and I forgot the name of the darn place. You never mentioned...

I saw your videos and I thought this looks incredible. So I to ask you.

So this was a very different kind of safari. So this was the third safari. This was the third safari we went on, but this one was so different than the other two because, this place, Dambia, this is a very small game reserve. Okay. And it's run by a, just a delightful couple, an American woman who has a British husband. So American British duo who founded this place, but with a lot of help from local people. And so this place, it's kind of like an Airbnb sort of setup where they've got several different, ⁓

freestanding houses. So, ⁓ cottages or whatever, and you are out in your own area with your own cottage. Right? We had a two bedroom cottage out there, right? Man, watch my video people. This place was so nice. and this was totally unlike the other safaris because no game drives, right? No predators, no predators, no game drives. These are hiking safaris. So they've got lots of animals there. They've got

Yes.

zebras, they've got warthogs, they've got giraffes, but none that will kill you. So they've got hiking, they've got hiking trails all around the place and a great variety of bird life. the couple who founded this place, they're big time birders. They're a wonderful couple too. And they've got, um, they've got little birding huts set up for you to watch the birds and things like that. And they've got all kinds of walking trails. So in this experience, we got to walk right like steps away from giraffes.

Alright? Huh. ⁓

And like I've been around giraffes before, like in zoos, you you've seen them in zoos and things like that. But just to be out on a hike, on a hiking trail and come around to Bend and, my God, there's three, four, five, six giraffe. It's a wild experience. And then you feel a little sense of fear, like, wait a minute, should I be doing this? But then they tell you, you'll be fine. Like, you're not going to kill you. And it's a really...

interesting feeling. And also with the warthogs too, you ever seen what a warthog looks like? They're kind of like ugly, funny little animals. They're super cute though. They're kind of really quite cute. So when we first drove up to our cottage, there was warthogs all over the place in our yard. There's like all these warthogs. And then as we drove up, they scattered. They kind of went running, but it was like, this is so cool. I've never approached, imagine yourself approaching your Airbnb. And as you're pulling up into your driveway, there's like

There's more than a dozen warthogs. Sling, sling. Super neat. I love that place.

That's so unique. Wow.

It's so unique. that place too, that's another interesting place too, because they give you your own firewood and there's, they do not provide any food there. Okay. And so you got to bring your own food with you. stop at the supermarket before you get there and you make your own food. You've got your own kitchen and stuff like that, but you've also got your own rye. So they've got, they provide firewood for you. You can cook over an open flame outside of your cottage. ⁓ my gosh, man. Preparing your own barbecue. This is a completely different experience to the organized support.

Cause the organized safaris, they're barbecuing for you and everything, which is also super nice. But also kind of cool. This is a DIY kind of place. You bring your own groceries and they provide you with the firewood and with, you know, outdoor braai, but you make the fire yourself and you're cooking your own grilling, your own meats over open fire. And it's such a rural area too. The stars, you see the stars beautifully there and you can hear animals too, while you're outside grilling.

You can hear the warthog snorting and like other animals that you don't even know what the hell animal it is. noises and stuff. And it's like you're out in the middle of nowhere too. It's a nice feeling.

Wow, that's such a unique feeling.

And

I will also say one last thing I'll say about Swaziland too is I don't know if I've ever been to another country in my life with better handicrafts to buy at a lower price. I'm a, I love getting souvenirs, especially unique ones, handmade stuff, handmade dolls, handmade bowls, handmade ceramics, glassware, art. It is an awesome country to buy unique souvenirs for a very low price.

wow. Okay. And is there anything you want to say for those two countries before we go back to South Africa to finish the episode?

⁓ No, but do you have more if you have more questions about those two countries, I will answer.

Well, Dombea was the big one, but I got both here for budget. mean, I imagine these are going to be great value for money.

Yes. And so we stayed, example, before we went to Dombay, the other place we stayed at in Swaziland, we stayed at a completely pimped out, like I would say four star resort. And it was about a hundred bucks per night, a hundred US dollars per night. And that's from four people, including breakfast. So if you're willing to spend around a hundred US per night for a family, you can do quite well there. ⁓ and also, ⁓ and Lesotho, yeah, it's,

It's inexpensive, but the only thing I would say about those two little countries is though South Africa has so much tourism infrastructure. Yes. Your selection of accommodation is way better in South Africa. Yeah. So you might think, I'm going to get even cheaper prices in Swaziland and, and, and, Lesotho than I would in South Africa. Cause they're poor countries a little bit, but that's actually not true because there's, there's less selection of good quality accommodation. South Africa has such a large selection of accommodation.

I think the prices are actually even better in South Africa than they are in the two middle countries.

wow. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. I think people would want to know safety. I guess you felt safe with your family in both those countries.

Yes, those two little countries, I think they're even safer than ⁓ South Africa because there's no big cities in them.

You know? Yep. Okay. Fair enough. Um, background to South Africa. got a few more questions about South Africa really, um, based on my research. Um, how would you say on the whole, I know you had a good experience with this, but tourists I've viewed in South Africa, are they an important part of the economy for local people or are they looked down upon a little bit?

no, they're not looked down upon. mean, man, need the tourism there. I'm telling you. mean, the unemployment rate there is absolutely staggering. It's somewhere between 35 and 40 % unemployed. If you look at the youth unemployment, it's even higher. I could be wrong, but it's in that range. It's a staggering. They absolutely need tourism there and you are very welcome as a tourist there.

know, orbitourism is a big thing in a lot of different countries where tourists are resented. And you know, it's really interesting as an American too, because Americans, when we're traveling abroad, Europe is the big thing, right? I mean, people, Americans travel to Europe like crazy and we love Europe and for good reason. And I'm not trying to slide Europe off. love Europe too. But you will find way more anti-Americanism in Europe than you will find in South Africa. You will find way...

you'll be resented much more from an over tourism perspective, regardless of whether you're American or what the hell country you're coming from in many European places, right? Cause there's too many tourists in Europe. There are not enough tourists in South Africa and there's nowhere near enough tourists in Lesotho and Swaziland. And there's so many damn places to visit. ⁓ Listen, they need you down there and they want you to come. They really do. And they welcome you. They need you.

Okay. And admin point of view, any vaccinations for the trip?

So ⁓ we did not get any special vaccinations for the trip. Now we did take malaria medication ⁓ and yellow fever as I believe is recommended, but I had already had that one. So once you've taken yellow fever once, you don't need to get it again. And we did take our malaria pills. ⁓ Now, if you are not going on safari up near Kruger, if you're just going to Cape Town and like Drakensberg,

I don't think you even need the yellow fever or the malaria. It's different part of the country, different climates, whatever, but it is recommended to have the malaria pills if you're going up near Kruger National Park. So we did take those.

OK, and cash or card or both.

And so I used a credit card everywhere. I'm trying to think when did I have to use cash? I had to use cash ⁓ in certain situations when you're buying things, street vendors, things like that, but not too, too often, mostly cards. I did bribe a police officer once who pulled me over for speeding. That was a cash trend action. have video about that on my channel. I shouldn't laugh about it. I probably shouldn't have done it either too, but by that point I'd already had one other speeding ticket.

And we were actually heading out to a game drive. Like, so we were driving to Kruger actually, Kruger Shalati. And the game drives are at four o'clock and if you don't make it there on time, they leave without you. And so I thought it would be worth it to, he was, you know, strongly hinting that he wanted a bribe. And so I paid it. It was like 10 US dollars. I paid that in cash. Right to him. Yeah.

Okay, yeah.

Yeah. Okay. And to finish the episode, it's been a great chat about this area of the country. So much more to talk about and to see, but luckily you vlog all your travels so people can head to the show notes, click the links on all the places that we mentioned today. And obviously subscribe to your channel and watch those videos and like, and leave a comment. That'd be handy as well.

I'll mention too that like, so, ⁓ mad traveler also, this is one issue too, is that you folks, the Brits spell traveler with two L's and we spell it with one L. So it's, ⁓ if you're British or you, or you use British spellings, remember mad traveler with one L, not two L's.

We do.

Do you have that tag in your YouTube account where it's two L's just in case people search for that?

I do not. I've never, you know what? I should, shouldn't I?

Yeah, yeah, apparently it helps.

Why can't we just agree on spellings? It doesn't make sense to me. I don't understand. you know, we got the language from you folks. We should just use your spellings, I think. I don't know why we have different spellings. So weird.

I am not an English expert, but a sound of it, travel, luh, needs two L's. But hey, I'm no expert.

Well you read that book, Bad Traveler, you can't change that right?

You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. right. Okay. been great talking to you, buddy.

my gosh. I wish I knew. So, okay. We have a family tradition that we've done the last few years of going on a Christmas cruise. I think over the Christmas holidays, it's going to be some sort of a cruise, but I do not have it booked yet. I'm so last minute. I'm terrible with these things. And so I don't know the answer to that question, which really stresses me out. I hate it when I don't have my next trip booked, but I'm going to be going places. I assure you of that, but I do not know where they are at the moment. What about you?

Okay, so.

Yeah.

I'm off to Bhutan this December. no way! ⁓ I am, it's expensive, but I'm off.

Hey!

my god! I'm not your nose!

I think the time comes out ⁓

my god, I want to go there so badly. Can you tell me real quick how much is it?

Well, I've been in touch with the tourism board and I've managed to negotiate a waiver on the daily fee for exchange of content. So that's a US dollars saved a day. Yes.

No way. Can

you send me their contract information?

I wanna do it. Yeah, I can send you the contact as well.

Whatever

you're dealing with, send it to me. thank you. I want to go there so badly.

But you do have to book a tour slash a tour guide, right? Yeah. So that's coming through. I've not got the full price of that yet, but I'm worried, but I've got 10 days.

Yes, I know that, yes.

You don't know the price yet?

Between 3 4 thousand US dollars I'd imagine. For ten days.

10 day so today that's not that bad but what about the airfare though that's the hard part right yeah

All in.

So

my god.

And

you have to get to Bangkok, so it doesn't factor that in either. Yeah. It's a problem. Yes. Yeah.

See, that's why we've never been there. That's for us to be times four.

Are you going alone or with your partner?

No solo, going solo. Yeah.

So, and then you gotta get to Thailand, which would be another thousand or 15.

I'm flying from Australia, which is about 700 Canadian dollars one way. Not too bad.

Wait, first you're going to Australia?

Yeah, watch cricket.

And then Thailand?

Yep, and then Bhutan, and then back to Thailand.

God, man. So envious of you. then Mexico. I'm so envious of you, Don't you have a job?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Expensive.

Yeah, do. Yeah. Managed to negotiate five weeks off.

Are you serious? ⁓ Man, man, you're my role model. Five weeks. And are you going to take that all five in one shot? Are you going to split it up?

That's true, yeah. ⁓

No, that's, that's all in one go. Yeah. think I'd go on the 20th, 25th of November, be back sort of like third of Jan, something like that. So fine. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

So you're gonna take the five weeks all in one shot?

Yeah. But then they'll expect you to work for an entire year without taking any time off of that.

no, I'll some more time off next year,

So you think it's a clock will start all over again.

Yeah, but I'm in Minus, so the first six months next year, no travel. So I'm getting all in.

Ooh, you're going to play the cards out. See, I love that. I absolutely love that. However, I know how I would feel on the last day of your trip, coming back to work and being like, my gosh, I have six months now with no travel.

Yeah, and it's like crap weather here as well. I can't even travel anyway.

That is so funny. Man, that is going to be so epic. And as a follower of your podcast and your channel, I'm looking forward to that. Even though I won't be coming with you, at least I'll get to live vicariously. That'll be awesome.

Yeah, I appreciate it. Yeah, it's gonna be a good trip and it's been on my list for five years. Number one, Bhutan is so expensive. I want to it properly.

I wanted to go there so long. So there's a book about Bhutan that I read years ago, written by a, think she might've been a Canadian woman actually, who was a teacher, I believe in Bhutan. I read it. Zepa? Jamie? What's her name?

Yeah.

No, no, no, I read the book. It's called, is it called Midnight Bhutan or something?

I don't remember, I feel like her last is her last name's Zepa.

It rings a bell. It's got a blue cover, I think, on the book. ⁓ That inspired me to go because I've asked my tour group to go and take me east. Like the west has got the normal stuff people see, but I want to go east for four days and see that side. Because in this book, apparently it's like super untouched. Really?

Why is that?

my gosh. Tell me the name of the book because I want to know if it's the same.

Butter tea at sunrise. I read that book.

I don't think that's the one I read.

⁓ that's by the author. Is it good? Britta Das. She's German. I loved it. Gave me a sense of what East. Well, it's in an area called Mongar in the East. thought, do know what? I want to go there. So yeah, that's kind of what I've asked them to arrange.

I'm looking it up right now and is it good?

Okay. So I read a different book. I'll have to figure out what the hell it was and send it to you. That also was quite good. And I will say also too, we watched a, we watched a wonderful movie too, which I'll recommend to you. again, I do not know the name of it, but I'll send it to you offline. I look it up, you watched a wonderful movie that was set in Bhutan where it was about a teacher from the city, from the capital city who was sent out to a extremely rural, to a very small rural village to be a teacher.

And it won some awards. It's a wonderful movie. Something about a yak. The word yak isn't the title of the movie. I remember that.

rings a bell. Have a sinness.

this rings a bell somewhere. Yeah.

But

it's a fantastic movie and the cinematography, the scenery of Bhutan, you gotta see it.

And I don't know what you think about this. Yeah, thanks. I need a recommendation.

Yak in the classroom.

The name of it might be Yak in the classroom. Hold on one second. You've got to see this because the cinematography is so beautiful. it gives you an idea of the geography of the country too, because this teacher had to, he had to hike for like three days to get to this village because there were no roads leading to there. Here it is. It's actually called a Yak in the classroom. Lunana, a Yak in classroom.

Yes, and let me know if you enjoy it. will enjoy it.

amazing. I think butane

Yes. And they have all those decorative penises there too. There's decorative penises all over the country, which that's very nice. like that.

Also, before we finish, I'm leading a tour next year to El Salvador in November. No way!

Yeah. 10 days, 11 nights, 10 nights, 11 days. Yeah.

Send me the information about that. Yeah. Cause I've never been to El Salvador and you're an El Salvador expert. would love to go. All right.

⁓

Cheers, dude, coming on. Appreciate it. It's been a great chat. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to the podcast episode today. If you've been inspired by today's chat and want to book some travel, if you head to the show notes, you'll see some affiliate links below which helps support this podcast. You'll find Skyscanner to book your flight.

Thank you so much, James. Cheers, buddy.

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