Back in Sunny Warm England

Our adventure is now over, but here's some more pictures of our travels after the VMF (Vervet Monkey Foundation).

Cape Town

Our trip is nearing its end, but that's not stopping us from enjoying our tourist status to the full.

On Saturday we braved the Atlantic to have an afternoon surfing and I have to say wet suits are one of the best inventions of ever. Professional surfers make it look so easy but really, it's not. There's far too much to think about, paddling to reach the same speed as the wave, waiting for the wave to catch you, attempting to stand up, then staying up - very complex opperation. But in 3 hours I managed to stand all the way up once and onto my feet but still clutching the board a fair few times. Really good fun, I'd definitely recommend it, even just to float about on a surfboard in a wet suit for the look!

We finally made it up table mountain yesterday, in the cable car. The cable car was made by a Swiss company and they did a great job, the car rotates 360 degrees so that wherever you stand you can see everything there is to see. The top of the mountain was ok, stunning views of cape town, but definitely table mountain is best viewed from afar to appreciate the whole thing.

A trip to Cape Town is not complete without a trip to the winelands and today was that day. We were taken to 4 wine estates and tried over 20 different wines and amazingly are still able to tell the tale. Our guide, Grant, taught us how to be proper wine snobs - so we are now qualified to swirl our glasses, smell the esters and savour the flavours. My favourites were the fortified wines and luckily we only tried 2 of them as they are stronger. One wine estate is just a hobby for a multi-millionaire and is capable of producing over 4 million litres of wine each year, but only produces about 1.3 million as he's not really interested in the profit side of things - oh to have that much money!

Tomorrow is our last full day in South Africa so we're planning to do shopping, pop into the Castle and have a whizz round Robben Island, no more adventure sports for us - as far as we know!

Last stop is Dubai for a few days to catch up with our uncle and some last minute tanning, then home we return to sunny, warm England.

Rx

Me and my skunkey E babies

Even more photos

Pictures at last

Jasper trying to extract the seeds from a seed pod - this task is theraputic for vervets and volunteers alike!










This is us doing the Big Swing - during the 70m free fall part.









This is us at the 3 rondavels in Graskop rather pretty I think you'll agree.








We're staying in what is officially the best youth hostel in the world (judged by me). In our own private twin en-suite room, which is huge with a lovely modern shower room. This morning we left our room at the crack of eleven and treated ourselves to an oversized brunch, then consoled our stomaches by buying most of the contents of the Green Market Square in addition to a few items from the surrounding shops! Once the clouds had cleared we noticed Table Mountain which we can see from our room, we shall be going up in due course. Tomorrow we're off on a tour of Cape Point then there's the possibility of surfing lessons, the obigatory wine tasting and maybe even some time to do nothing on the beaches - it's a hard life being us at the moment!

Rx

Zimbabwe and the Zambezi

At last a decent internet connection. We're currently in Zimbabwe at Victoria Falls have a rather smashing time of it all. We arrived yesterday lunchtime and after a stroll into town, went on an elephant back safari ride. All the elephants have been rescued and have got themselves a nice little life at the camp. They live in the National Park, no fences so they're free to leave if they really don't like it, take tourists on a hour trek once or twice a day, get fed treats at the end of the trek and then spend the rest of their waking hours wandering round the bush mainly eating and pooing.

Today though was our best day yet - we white water rafted down the Zambezi River. We did 21 rapids in all (not including the ungraded ones) and several of those were grade 5, there was one grade 6 but even the crew don't do that one at this time of year so we walked round that one! For the morning we were joined by two 60+ Spanish men who didn't speak very good English so their morning passed in a blissfully unaware soggy blur clutching onto the rope at the edge. We were doing exactly the same at the front of boat but we knew exactly how long the rapids would drag us under for if we let go of the boat so we didn't.

This afternoon we 'helped' paddle the raft through the remaining 11 rapids and only on the 18th rapid the raft almost flipped and kate and 2 crew fell off but somehow I and another guy stayed on. Luckily that's a 'nice' rapid to fall off at, so we all jumped off the raft and let the current drag us down the river. We saw 3 or 4 crocodiles throughout the day mainly sat sunning themselves on rocks and fortunately none fancied us for lunch so we're still here to tell the tale.

Tomorrow we're finally off the see the Falls so we'll next be reporting from Cape Town.....

Rx

Farewell my primates

All good things must come to an end and sadly yesterday was the end of our stay with the Vervet Monkey Foundation. We spent our last day playing with our favourite monkeys and eventually had to say goodbye, but not before we'd had time to take many, many photos and videos which should be on here in the next few days.

Although we have left the foundation, we are still going to try and help carry on the work as much as we can soooo..... if any of you are stuck for ideas for Christmas pressies why not adopt your loved ones a Vervet Monkey they come in all shapes, sizes, ages, though colours are limited. It's now baby season and we have it on good authority that there are many freshly orphaned youngsters in need of love and care. If you don't fancy sponsoring a monkey you can always help in other ways. Your money can be used to buy corn, bananas, fruit, veg, bread, baby milk and other yummy foods the monkeys depend on or there are many construction projects taking place that could use some extra cash. Why not sponsor one of the new sick bay enclosures, help update the main feed area, supply tents and lanterns for the volunteers or even contribute to unstarted projects such as renovating existing enclosures or the purchase of the Vervet Forest for the upcomming release of the Skunkey and Goliath troop monkeys.

All of these will not only give you a warm glowy feeling inside but you will also receive a card/certificate specifying details of your monkey or sponsorship. Just contact us and we can match you up with a monkey of your choosing!

Rx

Skunkey E Babies

I met some new monkeys yesterday. All the enclosures have introduction cages round the outside and some of the babies have moved to the E cage next to the Skunkey enclosure and so I was introduced to them. What an odd bunch of monkeys. There's the 4 babies and two older females and at last I have some rank status with a group. The females, Harmony and Yorsie, are very timid and quite scared of humans so they're easy to keep in line and the babies are such wusses, Tandy, Armstrong and Nelson all huddle on my lap in a squeaking bundle of fluff when anything scares them, which is a lot and Dusty, who's the alpha male, just sits around keeping above everything, but occasionally joining in the cuddling - but not because he's scared of course, just to make sure everyone else is ok!

They're all quite chilled and noone bit me at all, so they're now my new favourite monkeys!

Rx

Monkey News

We're working mainly with the monkeys in the Baby Care Unit where there's currently 7 babies around 11 months old. They have a very strict ranking system so you have to make sure you pay attention to the right monkeys or they get upset and you get a bite to put you back in your place.

Amber is queen bee at the moment and has her little entourage of Felix and Lily to make sure she's ok. Almond is a bit bigger than the others but he's got a gammy leg and is a bit of a wuss so he's been moved back in with the others. Monks is evil and hates me and always tries to give me a little nip when i'm not looking, he normally apologises after but we have a mutual agreement to keep our distance. Jasper and Sammy are quite quiet and Sammy seems to get picked on most, but is a very happy soul so doesn't seem to mind.

As it's so hot at the moment (we hit 42 the other day and it's still spring) they all have a mad hour of running around, swimming in the water bowl and generally causing trouble, then they all settle down in a little heap of monkey and fall asleep which is absolutely the cutest thing ever. What's not so cute is when they pee and poo on you or fall asleep on your ankles so your legs go dead. And if you dare to wake a sleeping monkey god help you! Anyway off to see the little darlings now.

Rx

Pictures!!!!

Anita and the bush baby











Having fun with the toilet paper











Me and Amber