Who would've thought that having an engine fall off the plane as you're taking off would be bad for business? That's what happened to South African carrier Nationwide Airlines late last year, and although they hit the skies again for a while, losing the engine was the beginning of the end.
As of yesterday, Nationwide Airlines has ceased to operate, another in the long line of airline victims of late. They also blame a 30 percent increase in fuel prices, coupled with the loss of business as a result of their "incident" last year. Nationwide was operating both domestic flights all over South Africa and international flights, including a regular route to London.
At this stage, passengers with Nationwide tickets are still stranded and in the dark as to whether they're going to get any compensation or assistance. But we're getting used to that this spring, aren't we?
For someone who can afford to travel around the world, Paris Hilton remains relatively... unchanged by the trips she has taken. She's on tour with Good Charlotte (and current boyfriend Benji Madden) and got the chance to visit South Africa where they were performing. Later, someone asked Paris what her impressions were of the country, and she said, "South Africa and West Africa, they are both great countries."
On your next trip, don't wait to look dumb until you get home. Ask the stupid question right away so you can look enlightened when you come home, even though you're not. It's a lesson lost on Ms. Hilton, but not on us.
Now that it's full-on summer beach fun time the New York Times figures an article about shark tourism is in order. And though these sharks don't swim near the beach, the piece still gives us chills.
Writer Joshua Hammer has the scoop on what it's really like to stare down a great white off the coast of South Africa:
Just beneath the surface a massive gray missile was hurtling toward us. The crew member pulled the bait line toward the boat; the creature kept coming. Then, amazingly, the great white lurched out of the ocean, eyes bulging, jaws snapping, teeth flashing. A 10-foot-long gray mass of muscle and cartilage, he twisted left, then right, in furious pursuit of the bloody chunk of yellowfin. The water frothed around him as he lunged for the bait, and as he slammed his massive body back down into the ocean, cold spray washed over all of us.
If that's your idea of fun, we've already covered some top shark scoping spots.
You might remember, our sister in sharks told you about this South African vacation option almost a year ago. Of course, we are too scared to actually do this ourselves, so thankfully Joshua Hammer did that for us.
Richard Chanters runs a small 10-bedroom B&B in the Livingstone part of Zambia called Chanters Lodge. As HotelChatter reported earlier today, Richard writes about life at the lodge on his Chanters Lodge blog, but he also does a lot of blogging on things to do in the area as well as about his personal travels.
Recently he took a trip to the UK and on his return to the Johannesburg International Airport, (soon to be OR Tambo) he experienced a bit of airport hell.
The place is a den of thieves as far as one can tell. When my luggage arrived at Livingstone, everything looked quite normal. The lock was undamaged. Then, on opening it, a cell phone and a dvd were missing, and inexplicably, a watch that I had taken to UK to have a new strap put on, had had the strap ripped off....The watch and the damaged strap were still there. How odd. Almost as if saying, we'll show you!
Richard then puts up a little poll asking if you have had thing stolen at Johannesburg Airport. Answers range from Yes to No to At Another Airport, so help the man out and vote. Although, we doubt it will bring his new watch strap back.
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by amandak
