South Africa Bucket List
I’ve compiled my ultimate to-d0 list while in South Africa. The goal? Challenge myself to get out of my comfort zone and have make some amazing memories.
Make it to the top of Table MountainSee a penguin in Cape TownTour a vineyard in Cape Town’s wine country- Visit Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe
- Travel to Thailand
- See the Big Five in Kruger National Park (saw 3 of the five!) (saw four of the five! 3.10.14)
- Learn to say 10 phrases in Afrikaans – Still working on this, but I have learned a few and luckily Afrikaans people are quite patient with me. Here are the phrases I’ve learned so far: (1.Dankie *thank you*, 2.)plesier *you’re welcome*, 3.)ek is lief vir jou *I love you* 4.)nee danke *no thank you*
- Visit 20 different golf courses (8 as of 3.29.14)
- Travel to Durban and
dip my toes in the Indian Ocean(3.15.14 in Cape Town!) - Watch the sunset over Sun City
- Feed a giraffe!
Sunday, May 18th 2014 at 2:38 pm
Great idea to post a bucket list! HEre is some more I can think of:
– visit a township (I highly recommend ALexandra, but for the more fainthearted, an official Soweto Tour might be a better intro)
– Do a Johannesburg graffiti tour (for instance through Braamfontein, Past Experiences offers them)
– Go on a balloon safari in the Magaliesberg
– Do a canopy tour (there is one in the Magaliesberg, and another one at Tsitsikamma, another spot I can highly recommend)
– Go cage diving (no scuba license needed) with great white sharks near Gansbaai
– Visit the Elephant Sanctuary and be kissed by an elephant
– Pet a cheetah at the Ann Van Dyk Cheetah Centre at De Wildt
– Visit the Apartheid Museum
– Visit the Cradle of Humankind
– Raft down the Orange River (technically this could be considered Namibia, as the river splits the two countries).
These are a bit heavily skewed towards the Johannesburg area as that is where I lived (and I’ve detailed more of them in “What to do in Joburg” on Joburg Expat), but there is so much else to do in the rest of the country I’m sure the list will never end. Enjoy!
Thursday, May 15th 2014 at 7:54 pm
Afrikaans 101: “Ek kan nie baaie Afrikaans praat nie” = “I cannot speak much Afrikaans” – or “I cannot speak a lot of Afrikaans” – this should come in handy.
Afrikaans always has a double “no” (nie) in a sentence, unless you’re just speaking very casually – then the second no (nie) is simply implied but not actually spoken. Afrikaans also does not use the letter “c” – unless it is a Proper Noun (someone’s name – like Cathy or Chris or something) – however just to confuse you further, Canada would be spelt “Kanada” in Afrikaans.
“Tot siens” = “goodbye”; directly translated = “until seen”; so it means “see ya later”. “Gooie More” = “good morning”.
The “G” in Afrikaans is a very guttural sound – almost like hocking up something from your throat and it takes foreigners a while to get that sound right, and the Afrikaans “R” is also another difficult beastie to get right, it’s a long rolling sound (say it phonetically “a” [like a for apple] then add a few “r”‘s together [like a kid making a motorcycle sound] = arrrrrrr) – but you must have your tongue tip on your upper palate and the sound must travel over it that your tongue kinda vibrates – imagine saying “brrrrr” but instead of the “B” make the “a” sound first followed by the “rrrrr’s”.
Hope this helps. 😉
A lot like the Zulu and Xhosa pronounce a “X” and a “C” is also a very difficult sound to perfect.
Wednesday, May 7th 2014 at 7:33 am
Like you blog especially the braai confession. We have an friend from the states over here and she is going through the rigmaroles like you!
A little correction “nie dankie” means “not thank you” which does not make sense, “nee dankie” means “no thank you” and “plesier” actually means “you’re welcome”
Plesier 🙂
Wednesday, May 14th 2014 at 6:16 pm
Thanks so much for taking the time to read my blog. And thanks for the correction! Oops! Still extremely shaky with any Afrikaans as you can tell 🙂