2013

Yes, I know, I am terribly sorry about just dropping off the side of the earth for a while. You were probably wondering what happened to Jangles? Well I assure you we haven’t disappeared, we just switched from sea to land for a while. . . well a year to be exact. 2013. . .what a year it was. It was a year of choices, changes, friendship and family. It was a great year for the Jangles family. The first major change is that my sister started boarding school at Pecanwood College in South Africa. My brother and sister-in-law moved into an apartment in Australia. And the rest of the clan, we were fortunate enough to have friends and family visiting from other continents.

Rebecca at Pecanwood

My dads good friend from Australia, Rick, came to South Africa with his daughter, Emily. They were here between March and April. It truly is the best thing when we get to show people our country and let them experience the beauty of it. I spent a bit of the trip with them as I was mostly stuck in the books, getting my school done. We took them to game reserves to experience our wild animals. To Cape Town to climb Table Mountain. When it was time for them to leave, we were happy knowing that they now had a taste for Africa.

Rick and Emily

Towards the end of Rick and Emily’s trip, my cousin Bronwyn arrived from Papa New Guinea with her husband and her three little girls. They stayed with us for a few days, and it was great to catch up.

Family

One of the highlights of my year was that I got to go on holiday with my best friend twice! The first time we went to swim midmar mile together. . . it was an eventful swim as I accidently swam into a lifeboat and we both ended up swimming at least 100m in the wrong direction! My friend also has a sense of humour as she stops in the middle of the swim and starts looking around. I asked her what she was doing and she said, “I’m taking this in cause I’m never doing this again!” We had an awesome weekend together.

Ashton and me

Leadwood group

Our second holiday was a week at Leadwood. . . and my word was this not the best experience I have ever had at a game reserve! There were 13 of us in total at this private camp. Two game drives a day, the game driver is an experienced tracker who also takes you off road! We saw a leopard almost every day, which is a rare and incredible experience if you get to see it! We followed the leopard into the bush and got to see him kill a squirrel. We were also lucky enough to see a pearl-spotted owl eating a giant centipede! We drove through a herd of 600 buffalo, and got to see a baby giraffe so new it still had its umbilical cord. We even got even with a monkey who was stealing our bread by filling it with hot sauce! I had the greatest time at this camp and I would jump at the opportunity to go again! But as all travel stories go. . . it was the company that always makes the trip.

peral spotted owl

The big wow of the year was that my brother and his girlfriend came to South Africa to have a wedding! As soon as we discovered this, my best friend and I were on pinterest planning their wedding! It was a July wedding and a great wedding at that. We were lucky to have beautiful weather. It was a small wedding, a group of 40 or so people. My sister-in-law looked so so stunning! And my brother didn’t clean up too bad either. It was such a beautiful, special day.

Reception

Josh and Alex

wedding guests

Tremisana night game drive

We had a really big trip through August, September and October. Robert Hayhurst and his wife Agi came and so did Travis Coco (my now boyfriend – happened on the trip lol). We met Robert in St. Lucia and loved him instantly! We were invited twice to villas in the Caribbean and had such a great time with him and his wife, that it was our turn to invite him to our home. I met Travis in Trinidad after my first sailing trip. This African trip was incredible, absolutely incredible. We started by going to a lodge called Tremisana for a week, where we were lucky enough to see the Big 5! Our trip then went to Mount Sheba, George, Mossel Bay, Knysna and then to Cape Town. We spent a while in Cape Town, going up Table Mountain, seeing my aunty Shelly and uncle Fuzzy, even shark cage diving with Great White Sharks!

Great White Shark

We spent a gorgeous day riding around Cape Town on Harleys. After Cape Town we went back to Joburg to prepare and provision for our trip into Botswana. At this time, Travis and I did a trip to Sun City and spent two nights there. We went down the world’s longest zip-line and rode on elephants. Once everything was prepared, we took our Jeep Wrangler with a trailer and another 4x4 vehicle into Botswana. We stayed at Chobe Safari Lodge for a few days and did trips down the Chobe River, seeing all the elephants swimming across the river. After that we took the vehicles into the bush and headed up to the Okavango Delta and Savuti game reserves where we camped at different campsites. We got stuck in the middle of a game reserve in the sand and had to have all the guys (my dad, Robert and Travis) dig us out. Our best campsite was this little spot by the river. There are no fences and sometimes even no toilet facilities in these isolated campsites. Just us a camp-fire and mother nature. There were elephants to our one side and we had seen a pack of wild dogs further down the river. We had two hyenas stalking us that night, which gave us the funniest image of Travis running around the campsite with a torch and a blunt axe. It is an amazing feeling to be out in the wild at the mercy of nature. We also probably had a first for all campers. . . Agi brought a stationary bike with her and cycled in the middle of the bush. Well she probably had the best view over the river. I’m sure Getaway magazine would love a picture. When our trip came to an end we were very sad to see everyone go, but were so glad for the memories we all now held.

Camping in Botswana

Getaway picture!

My last trip of the year was a week of partying with friends in Ballito. . . it is called Vac. I went with my very best friends to celebrate the end of high school and had the biggest jol ever. It was so wonderful to have my Granny Terry come to our rescue and take us food shopping and lending us mattresses for friends that we sneaked into our apartment. Memories I will have forever.

Vac

 And now it is 2014. . . can you believe it. To start the year I went to California for 3 weeks to see my boyfriend and to meet his family and friends. I was terrified at first, but his family are all so lovely that I wasn’t terrified for long. While I was there, Travis took me to Las Vegas to meet my favourite artist Vladimir Kush. We were both blown away by how humble and down to earth he was. It was great to be shown Travis’s home after I got to show him mine.

Travis and me with Vladimir Kush

And now, my mother, my father and I are sitting on Jangles in Trinidad.  We really miss all our family left behind. Wish you were all here with us. We are doing a few repairs to the boat and will hopefully be off on the water towards the end of the month. . . fingers crossed!