East London, South Africa

East London seems to have pride in itself and it shows. The streets were clean and the street vendors that I saw were more neat and organized than we had seen thus far. The roads were good but fairly empty.

In many ways it looked very much like home, except that the fake trees were of a different species.

Their museum seemed to be a centerpiece of the city and it boasted several unique exhibits related to the area. I wish I could remember all that the curator told us but since I can’t you’ll have to google the ones that interest you. The coelacanth was first discovered in East London in 1938 and named after the then curator of their museum. It had previously been known from fossils and had been thought to be extinct for millions of years. Since then a couple of hundred have been found and there’s great interest in studying them. Note the interesting things about their reproduction.

The museum had a large collection of sea creatures from their local waters. I liked this one best:

Other unique exhibits were sandstone slabs from a nearby beach containing what many believe to be the oldest human footprints ever found and what appears to be the last Dodo egg, kept for centuries by locals.  They all make good stories if nothing else. Most interesting to me, though, was that the guide told us there are more “poachings” of cycads than there are of rhinos. Here’s my picture again of the cycad in the botanical garden. I thought it was a unique and beautiful plant when I took its picture but now I must raise my estimation of it even higher, I suppose.

This strange tree fruit attracted our attention but all we could find out about it was that it was poison.

The beach looked lovely but for once we didn’t have time to feel the water on our toes.

We were told that this ship contained at least 3500 new cars (some carry up t o 5000 cars). This region of South Africa is a major auto manufacturer but they apparently have huge labor issues as the work ethic here is quite unlike in the USA or Europe.

My city tour was in the afternoon when I was exhausted from the morning’s rough safari ride so forgive me if I didn’t do the city justice. Honestly, the safari was more exciting!

Even the outlying areas of East London seemed to be cleaner and neater than the others.

We were welcomed to the game reserve by the colorfully clad women, as usual.

Our two hour game drive turned out to be very productive even though when we started out in thick brush I wondered if we’d ever see anything but the termite mounds. Which were interesting, by the way. Like an ice berg they have 10% visible and 90% below the surface. These termites aren’t just eating wood. They collect all sorts of organic matter and allow a fungus to grow on it making a liquid which they then eat.

I was thrilled to see the giraffes! They are so graceful when they run and except for their long neck sticking up above everything they can hide just a few feet away from you. I had to laugh when I looked at this picture on my computer. I said to myself, That looks just like Africa. And then, Duhh! It is Africa!

It’s very sad that the game park sees the need to cut off the horns of their rhinos to save them from poachers. Like many other problems unique to Africa poaching doesn’t have any easy solution and so people just continue on the best they can. The political situation in South Africa is so sad you want to cry — all the people are hurt and those who could possibly help seem only to care about themselves. I admire the people who are trying to be positive about it and some of them say that tourism is the best hope for the country. So come on over and see all of these beautiful animals!