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January 16, 2008

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WHERE'S JOHNNY JET?                                 Hot Air Balloon Safari
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SHANGAAN CULTURAL VILLAGE
For dinner, I drove an hour and 45 minutes to the Shangaan Cultural Village. It would have been fine if it was nearby it is definitely not worth the almost two-hour drive. The Shangaan Cultural Village offers day, lunch and evening tours but after visiting a village in Fiji, I found this to be like Disneyland. I don't want to rag on it because all the guests (mainly Europeans) really seemed to enjoy it, especially the older and younger folks. It's also helping to keep the kids who work there off the streets.

SHANGAANS
In case you aren't familiar with the Shangaans (who is?), they are a group of people who live in the area mainly between Kruger National Park and the Drakensberg mountains in South Africa's Mpumalanga and Northern Province. The village celebrates the cultural heritage of all their people. Chief Soshangana and his family host the evening festival, where choirs, actors and dancers gather to tell the story of the Shangaan people. The music, dancing and setting are cool and the food was surprisingly good. It's served in iron pots, clay bowls and grass baskets. The menu offered up a wide range of traditional dishes like: pot-roast of beef stew, honey-glazed sweet potatoes, baked butternut squash, traditional mieliepap and samp with sugar beans. Shangaan Cultural Village; Tel.: +27 (0) 13 737-7000-6970.

A MAGICAL BALLOON SAFARI
I ended my stay in Hoedspruit in style by going on a hot air balloon safari. I was a bit nervous about going since I have a fear of heights. It helped that I had gone up in my first hot air balloon last April in Albuquerque. That was a huge step for me and I enjoyed it immensely, especially when we stayed close to the ground. But I hated when we went up 1,750 feet. So before getting into this 18-person basket, I asked the pilot if we were going to go really high. He said, "No, stupid. It's a balloon safari. The lower we are the better visibility we have of the game." OK, he didn't call me 'stupid' otherwise I would've knocked him out but you get the point. Sure enough, we didn't go higher than about 300 feet and most of the time, we hovered just above the treetops. In Albuquerque, we saw a coyote running below us, which was a huge thrill so you can imagine what it was like to spot herds of giraffes, zebras, impalas, monkeys, warthogs and buffalos out in the wild. It was magical to watch them run from this unique view. We even spotted a badger, which our pilot said was a score since he had only ever seen one once before.



EMERGENCY LANDING
The ride was so smooth and peaceful. Our pilot said that at times we were going 25 knots but it sure didn't feel like it. We flew over private game reserves and traveled about 15 kilometers (9 miles) on the hour-long ride. Not once did we hit turbulence and I didn't feel unsafe at all ... until we landed. Just before we were ready to touch down, the wind picked up so we needed to land immediately. If the conditions had been like this in the beginning, we never would have set sail, so we got lucky. I quickly learned that it's difficult to fly a balloon in South Africa because there aren't a lot of open spaces to land. There are so many trees and bushes and of course, you also have to worry about wildlife.

A TOAST
We went in between a few trees and the pilot told us to take our brace position (ducking low in the basket). We touched down in an area so remote that our chase crew couldn't get to us. So the three guys (moi included) had to jump out and push the basket and grab the rope to make sure the balloon envelope (I guess it's called the envelope because the pilot kept yelling, "Pull the envelope!") didn't go into the trees. I gotta tell ya: running down the sand embankment, high-stepping like Dion Sanders to avoid any poisonous snakes, made me feel like l was in an action thriller. It was a combination of Indiana Jones, Planet of the Apes and The Apocalypse. I was just waiting for an ape or one (if not all) of The Big Five to jump out of the bushes and make a quick breakfast out of me. But we saved the balloon envelope from ripping and 20 minutes later, the chase crew showed up, bubbly in hand, and rescued us. We celebrated, proudly holding our flight certificates and making the traditional balloon toast. It was an incredible experience just like everything else on this trip to the Hoedspruit area. Otters Den River Lodge; Tel.: (015) 795 5488. 2,100 Rand ($300USD) per person, children under 45kg (99 lbs) in weight are half price.

VIDEO
Check it out! This is my favorite video to date. It's a four-minute Johnny Jet video of this week's journeys. We also have all the Johnny Jet videos ever made on YouTube.

NEXT WEEK
Next week come along for the ride as we head south to the Garden Route.

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Happy Travels,
Johnny Jet

*PLEASE tell us what you think of this week's newsletter!

All information presented here is accurate at the time of publication but prices, dates and other details are all subject to change. Please confirm all information before making any travel arrangements.

All images are the property of Johnny Jet Inc. and cannot be reproduced, in whole or in part, without our express permission. If you would like to reprint an image, please contact us at info@johnnyjet.com for image re-use rates.

Note: This trip was sponsored by the South Africa Tourism board.





Copyright 2007 JohnnyJet, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Pictures From

The Trip

 

Shangaan People

 

Hot Air Balloon Safari

 

Hovering

 

Giraffes

 

Smooth

 

Peaceful

 

Help!

 

Chase Crew

 

Some Bubbly!

 

Cheers!

 

NEXT WEEK!

MEDIA ALERT
SOME OF LAST WEEK'S READER AIR-eMAIL
  • I hope you're enjoying South Africa. I want to go as well. I heard about Botlierskop Lodge near Cape Town, where the last part of the journey to the hotel is made on the back of an elephant. Check it out if you can! I looked at MostTraveledPeople.com, and those are some crazy people. My total is 116, including 54 countries, but I don't know where people get the time to visit 600 locations. Trust fund? Mike M - NYC


  • Hello. This is my 2nd time writing and must tell you that I'm overjoyed that you're writing about South Africa because I am going there in March. I have yet to take care of all the medical issues (malaria pills, typhoid shot, etc), so I'm actually pretty curious as to how you found things to be over there. I have been doing research on the pills, and have already decided to steer clear of the ones with the nightmares...I'd rather spend money than have psychotic dreams...and don't really want to play with my mind. I don't think that not taking them is a good idea, however, because mosquito’s seem to love my blood. I realize the places where it is necessary to take the medication only cover a very short part of the trip (2 days in & around Kruger Park & a few days at Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe), but I'm very interested in your take on the whole medical issue...typhoid and all. I know you're a very experienced traveller, so I'm actually surprised that you haven't had to do any of this anywhere else. Any info you can send me would be helpful...if not, I look forward to the next newsletter. Keep up the good work, Hilary W - Paramus, NJ


  • I'm interested to read your next newsletter to find out if you took the malaria drugs or not. My sister took them when she was in the Peace Corps in Cameroon and said that she hallucinated that someone was trying to strangle her and said she could actually feel hands on her throat. She decided to stop taking them after that! Ann H – Colorado.


  • Thank you for the feedback on the malaria drug. I had no idea of the danger. I like your reporting, however, personally, I would like to see less pictures of signs and more pictures of the culture. Keep up the good work. If you ever need an assistant. . . . . . . Dave

  • Johnny, Your web site is awesome!!! I'm a die hard aviation enthusiast and just love the airline/aircraft photos!!! Boy, you get around!!! Keep up the great work!!! Ken J - West Hollywood, CA


  • Travel on young man - I'm living though your eyes :-) Rebecca H. - Key West, FL


  • I just checked the new website touted in the latest JohnnyJet Email newsletter named “FabSearch.com”. For the cities I checked (Munich, Frankfurt, Salzberg, San Diego) this website leaves a lot to be desired. Ken H - San Diego, CA


  • I've been subscribing to your newsletter for several years. Excellent work! They're always fun and informative. My question is related to your mentioning you had asthma and had taken all types of medications. My boyfriend also has asthma and oddly enough it developed at the age of 43. Despite an entire pharmacy of medications, steroid pills, inhalers, nebulizers, antibiotics, etc., he is still having trouble. We are avid travelers and this has really thrown a wrench in the works. I'm sure you're time is limited, but if you had a few moments and could tell me what you found helpful in your case, we would really appreciate it! Best, Alyse -- Holmdel, NJ. If you would like to include my name, please include my web links if possible. I'm a self-employed photographer. REPLY: I sympathize with him. One of my greatest achievements was being cured of Asthma in 2006 by a Chinese doctor in Malaysia. Read this story.



    FEEDBACK FOR MARC
  • Thanks for the coverage on the A380, and an entertaining article to boot. Great to see so many photos...exactly what you'd want to see. I will look forward to follow-up stories on this. Will US carriers ever bite? S – Philadelphia


  • Very well done! This is a nice piece of writing by Marc. Edward S - Los Angeles, CA




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