heidij123's Journal, 09 August 2017

You can't post enough photos for me. I absolutely love them all. It's great to see the animals in their natural habitat, and the views and the people - everything 🤗 

Oh my. I agree with Doobrie.  

I also want to know if you had any interesting different foods? 

Great pictures!!! 

Jeri, we were mostly staying at places that did European-style cooking, so the only things that were unusual were the game animals that kept appearing on the menu. In the lodges it was generally a set menu each evening, and we ate springbok, eland and oryx, all of which are types of antelope. There was zebra one evening, which I honestly didn't want to eat, so I asked if there was a vegetarian option, and as I hadn't pre-booked that, they offered me some fish (hake). Mike had the zebra, and I tried a bit, and it was pretty much like lean beef. For breakfast sometimes there was boerewors, which is a meaty and spicy sausage, which I enjoyed. We bought some biltong to snack on, which is dry-cured meat, I think you have something similar in the States - pemmican? We bought some canned chakalaka when we were self-catering but didn't want to actually cook! You might want to look that up 😀 Also at the cheetah farm, I nearly forgot, they gave us bobotie, which was not new to me, as I had a recipe and used to make it a long time ago. But actually it was very good, and good to eat an authentic one! One hotel we stayed at had a basically German menu, with things like smoked pork and sauerkraut with mashed potatoes. I enjoyed that! Didn't come across any unusual fruit or vegetables though. And didn't try the maize meal porridge - sounds a bit like your grits, doesn't it? 

Glen, we do have a few of those stories. The best one is the one where Mike busted his one in the mountains in Chile, and I had to walk back to fetch help.... Another one would be when we got on a bus in Rajasthan and realised I had left my shoulder bag containing passports and other valuable items on the roadside. We got it back, but there's a long tale behind that 😀 

Heidi, You know me I would have been hunting down local food.. Interesting that staying in European geared places they had native game, but I imagine their customers would like that. I would imagine antelope would be similar to deer (venison). Biltong sounds interesting it is similar to our jerky with different seasonings. The chakalaka I think I have seen canned or in jars in a local shop geared toward African cuisine. The porridge I also believe is similar to our grits at least the one is in a cookbook I have for North African cooking.