Explorers Club creds

Finally got my credentials and member's lapel pin from The Explorers Club!

And in true explorer fashion, they had quite an adventure getting here. They traveled from the headquarters in New York to Denver, Colorado by mail and then from Denver to Washington, DC to Frankfurt, Germany to Johannesburg, South Africa via courier (my niece Jill.)

The club had tried mailing them directly to my post office box in Benmore, but TIA. Still haven't received them. And probably never will.

(Hope this doesn't break any rules, but a lapel pin is not really my style so I had it made into a charm for my travel charm bracelet.)

It's a process

My sister took these pictures of my shoes still in Colorado!

I first heard about TOMS Animal Initiative rhino design shoe when they introduced the winning pattern design on Facebook in August 2014. TOMS had put forth three patterns for the shoe and had asked for votes on Facebook. This colorful pattern had the most votes.

The shoe introduction was to be another partnership with World Wildlife Fund to provide financial support to its global conservation efforts including those dedicated to protecting rhinos, my pet project since moving to South Africa. The shoe was to be released in the Spring 2015 season.

TOMS & WWF

TOMS finally introduced the shoe for purchase last month in April. I immediately ordered a pair online - they sell out fast! - and had it shipped to my sister's house in Colorado. TOMS does not deliver to South Africa. Not even to my PostNet box.

My niece Jill is coming from Colorado to visit South Africa and will bring them to me in June. Almost a year later! It's a process.

I got my postcard!

Anytime I get actual mail delivered to my post office box in Benmore is cause for celebration. And today, my Blue Train postcard arrived! Woo hoo!

Let's see, I wrote it on March 11 and I am sure our compartment butler Liphert mailed it promptly on March 12. So that would make it 23 days or approximately three weeks for it to travel from Cape Town to Sandton. In TIA Africa, that would equate to a pitch perfect performance! (Really, I was just hoping to get it by our real birthdays in another month!)

Well done Post Office!

Blue Birthdays

Vince and my birthdays are in May, three days apart actually and we usually plan a weekend away to celebrate them together. We were planning to take the Blue Train in May to celebrate our birthdays this year, but when I called to book our reservations I found out they were having a big special offering discounted  travel for South African residents before March 31. The seasons are so confusing here anyway and it is actually quite easy to pretend it's May when it's March. So we hopped aboard the Blue Train two months early for a pre-birthday trip.

Je suis arrivé

There are several options for itinerary and even travel direction on the Blue Train. We chose to go from Pretoria to Cape Town with a stop at Kimberley and an excursion to see The Big Hole. You can also choose packages which include accommodation in Cape Town, return flights and a limo ride to the Blue Train Station to begin and/or end the trip. We didn't need the hotel or the flight but we took the limo to Pretoria.

We had been to the Pretoria Blue Train Station before for A Murder on the Gautrain evening during Bloody Book Week but that time we naturally took the Gautrain from Sandton. After a smooth ride in our Mercedes limousine, we were met this time not by a dead body but by friendly butlers who greeted us with welcome cocktails and whisked away our luggage to a compartment. Much better reception!

Vince boarding the train

settling into our compartment before the trip commences

champagne on ice and a birthday card from The Blue Train

Our compartment butler Liphert offered to post our mail. Wonder if I will ever see this postcard again. I am still waiting for the one I posted in 2013 from The Post Office Tree in Mossel Bay. TIA indeed.

Once we got underway it was time for Brunch in the Dining Car, followed by Afternoon Tea in the Observation Lounge, Sherry in the Bar Car after visiting Kimberley and finally Dinner back in the Dining Car.

Elegant dress was called for at dinner. Which in South Africa by the way means the same as in the USA. A little black dress for ladies. Jacket and tie for the gentlemen. There was at least one couple I saw in black tie but mostly everyone else were just dressed elegantly.

Brunch in the Dining Car

The trip took 26 hours - not including the two hour stop in Kimberley. Outside of Gauteng, the train skirted the eastern edge of the Northwest province, went through the heart of the vast Great Karoo in the Northern Cape, and through the picturesque wine valleys and mountains of the Western Cape.

flamingos on Campher Dam

vines of the Worcester Valley

At only one point - in the Hex River Valley - were we able to see the front of the train around the bend. It was at the Bainskloof Pass near Tulbagh.

We spent alot of time in the non-smoking bar car!

Kimberley station

There was a smoking car in the front of train with cigars and a whiskey bar. I did not check it out but Vince did. He said it looked like a gentleman's club car.





 



We stopped in Kimberley for an excursion to see The Big Hole. The stop was not guaranteed, a point which they made repeatedly in print and speech. Schedule permitting. I didn't think they really meant it but our tour guide said the Blue Train hadn't been able to stop in Kimberley for the last few weeks due to train delays and other unforeseen problems. That would have been a bummer!

We also made a ten minute stop in Worcester to change train engineers after the long night's journey. See you again in a couple of days Worcester!

a rooster weathervaned steeple in Worcester

The food was delicious and the amenities were first class. When we came back from our very formal dinner, there were chocolates and champagne waiting in our turned down rooms.

birthday cake in Cape Town

I only had one almost near-disaster. As dinner was ending, the wait staff began coming out to deliver cakes to other dining car tables for birthdays and anniversaries. Not a novel idea to take the Blue Train to celebrate a big occasion I guess! Along with the cake came the requisite song which we were all encouraged to join in. "Happy Birthday to you!"

I panicked! I hate having Happy Birthday sung to me in a dining room with strangers. But lo and behold. No one brought a cake to our table. At first I was relieved and then I was angry. Hey, keep the song but where's my cake?

We stopped in the bar car to drink our dessert wine before retiring to our compartment for the night. When we did, we found a beribboned blue box, a blue bag with two more bottles of the wine we drank with dinner and a gold-wrapped box containing a miniature blue train carriage clock. Nice and private! How did they know? That is service!

relaxing in the observation car before arriving in Cape Town :(

Champion Trees of South Africa

The Champion Tree Project of the South African Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries is the only one of its kind on the African continent. Each year a panel of experts evaluates trees nominated by the public according to strict criteria - age, size, historical significance.












We saw the Giant Yellowwood in Knysna Forest and a champion Baobab in Limpopo.

And we also visited one of the most famous of the many trees of historic importance in South Africa, the "Post Office Tree" of Mossel Bay.

A sprawling milkwood (Sideroxylon ineme), it covers a half an acre of land! The story goes that in 1501, a letter of the Portugese explorer Pedro Cabral was found in an old shoe at this tree by the crew of a visiting ship, in which he recounted the loss of Bartholomew Dias and his ship at sea.

There is a  post office box erected at the base of the tree and you can post letters ...

 or a postcard using a special commemorative stamp.

We did!

I am sure I will receive this postcard a lot sooner than the one I "posted" at Post Office Bay on Floreana Island in the Galapagos. There you leave your letters and postcards in one of the wooden mailboxes. Historically, the mail was picked up by  passing ships who posted them when they reached an inhabited port.

Nowadays, eco-tourists visiting the Galapagos are encouraged to pick up letters and postcards addressed to a place in your home country or some other country you might be visiting in the next year and post them when you get there. I picked up some postcards to mail in the United States and some for Vince to mail in Switzerland where he had an apartment at the time. I also picked up some addressed to France and Germany since we would be spending part of the Christmas holiday there that year. And of course, I left behind a postcard addressed to myself at home in NJ.

I did receive my Galapagos postcard eventually and still have it in storage with my trip scrapbook. A little more reliable than a message in a bottle.

You Haven’t Got Mail, But You Do Have a Post Office Box

“Street deliveries of mail are not common in South Africa. The service is usually available in older suburbs close to the city. Even where mail delivery is available to your home, it is not necessarily reliable or secure and we therefore recommend you rent a Post Office Box.” So said the Mobility Guide given to me by the Corporate Relocation Service to help me adjust to my new life in Joburg.

Now I have always been a big fan of the Unites States Postal Service. At the time of my leaving the US, the PO Department was considering eliminating Saturday deliveries and I hope they do not. The PO provides an amazing value and service. For less than a half a dollar you can send a letter or card anywhere in the entire US of A, including Hawaii and Alaska. Amazing! 

I can see why the US Post office is having its problems though. Between email, i_books, i_newspapers and i_magazines, and banking online, we really had cut down on the actual mail we received. I did still prefer to write thank you cards by hand and send and receive handwritten cards for holidays and birthdays but that is probably a thing of the past for me living in South Africa anyway.

So I did my research and decided to get a PostNet post office box at a shopping center near my apartment that also contained two food stores, a pharmacy, a dry cleaner, my bank and the spa that carries my Dermalogica face products. This way I only have to park once, pay once, and add it to my already established errand round. PostNet said they will SMS or email me when any mail arrives but since they did neither when my keys were ready to be picked up which they also promised, I will probably just check it from time to time. 

parked in front of the main post office on 8th Avenue in NYC

Not that I am expecting any mail any time soon. I have no one here to write me yet. I had the same feeling when I moved to Florida from NJ with my family in 1971. I did not want to move and cried non-stop on the two-day drive south in our Town and Country station wagon to our new home in the Sunshine State. My father tried to stop my crying by promising me I would have my own room in Florida (up until then I had shared a room with my sister since I was five when she was born) and that I could decorate it however I wanted. He also promised me I would have my own telephone with my own phone line separate from the house line so I could chat on it all day uninterrupted.  

After we moved, he kept his word. I did decorate my own room myself and got a new pink princess phone with my own private line. But as I explained to my father who came in to find me crying yet again in my room, “I have no one to call!” I kind of feel that way here about my post office box.  But having one does make me feel like I actually live in South Africa now. And that is something.