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Believe it or not, the First Lady of mystery and the Big Kahuna had something in common-they were both innovators in the sport of surfing! Agatha Christie, as it turns out, was one of the first Britons to stand up on a surfboard, and she sharpened her wave riding skills in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii as early as 1922. Oh what a sight she must have been braving the waves of Waikiki!
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The Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University Choir treated unsuspecting shoppers at Greenacres Shopping Centre in Port Elizabeth, South Africa to a concert performance right there in the mall court. The stunt is part of a recruiting drive for NMMU. Link -Thanks, Marilyn!
These South African construction workers have mad skillz for throwing and catching piles of cement, shovel and all. They don’t appear to drop any!
via The Presurfer
In the Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling, the explanation for how the elephant got its trunk involved a crocodile that pulled on a baby elephant’s nose until it stretched out. That same scene was photographed recently in South Africa. A baby elephant was taking a drink when a crocodile, hidden under the surface of the water, clamped down on the juvenile’s trunk!
Hearing the baby’s calls of distress, the herd of elephants immediately went to its rescue, scaring off the crocodile by trumpeting and stamping the ground. After the attack the herd stayed with the youngster.
When the baby had recovered the herd crossed the waterhole together in safety, only yards from where the crocodile had been hiding.
These pictures were taken by amateur photographer Johan Opperman in the Kruger National Park in South Africa.
Experts said crocodiles don’t normally attack elephants. Link -via Fark
(Image credit: Johan Opperman/Solent News and Photo Agency)
Soccer fans have invaded South Africa -and they won’t go home! Local authorities had no choice but to segregate them and confine them to an area that came to be called District 11.
They are everywhere at the World Cup games in South Africa: vuvuzelas! The plastic horns sound like a swarm of hornets when thousands of people play them at once. The sound can reach up to 140 decibels, which can damage hearing, and hundreds of thousands of vuvuzelas have been sold this year.
The horns, FIFA officials said, were too much a part of the South African tradition to silence them. “It’s a local sound, and I don’t know how it is possible to stop it,” Joseph S. Blatter, FIFA’s president, told reporters. “I always said that when we go to South Africa, it is Africa. It’s not Western Europe. It’s noisy, it’s energy, rhythm, music, dance, drums. This is Africa. We have to adapt a little.”
Read about how the vuvuzela came to be such an integral part of the World Cup games at Smithsonian magazine. Link
(Image credit: Jon Hrusa /epa/Corbis)
The staff at Etali Safari Lodge in South Africa tried to find the leak in the hot tub for weeks, but didn’t find out why it was losing water every day until a guest took a picture. An elephant named Troublesome was drinking from the spa! Rangers from the attached wildlife preserve are familiar with the elephant, and say she is very inquisitive.
Susan Potgieter, owner of Etali Safari Lodge, in North West Province, South Africa, said elephants could drink more than 200 litres of water a day so drinking a whole whirlpool bath was no problem.
She said: ‘When I first saw the photograph of her drinking I couldn’t believe it. And then it dawned on me of course an elephant was drinking it.
‘It was something of a relief because we had been trying to work out why the pool had been draining so quickly for weeks but couldn’t find a leak anywhere.
The lodge is now providing drinking water for the elephant to keep her out of the pool. Link -via Bits and Pieces
Lawrence and Kerryn Munro were walking with their dogs along the White Umfolzi River in South Africa. When they stopped to dip their feet in the water, a ten foot long crocodile grabbed Lawrence by the ankles!
Mr Munro, 33, said: “It was a matter of seconds. I grabbed hold of the rocks and started kicking the croc with my right foot. He let go and grabbed again, getting hold of both feet. I tried to get to my rifle, but I had been dragged closer to the water and couldn’t reach it. Kerryn grabbed under my arm and around my neck and started pulling. Eventually the croc let go.
“My two-way radio had come loose and fallen into the river during the struggle so we couldn’t call for help,” he told the Mercury newspaper.
After pulling her husband free, Mrs Munro ran to the Makhamisa Base Camp for help. Mr Munro was airlifted to hospital in nearby Richards Bay, where he underwent operations to repair tendons in his right foot.
Kerryn Munro, who is five months pregnant, is resting up after the incident. Link -via Digg
(image credit: Flickr user Pandiyan)
This video footage of a meteor lighting up the night sky happened in Gauteng, South Africa, on November 21, 2009.
From South Africa’s Eye Witness News:
People in Gauteng saw the bright light at around 11pm on Saturday night, heading towards the north of Pretoria.
“We saw this big green ball of fire. it kind of came out of the sky, out of the blue,” one resident said.
“There was sudden
flash. Like an orange stripe in the sky, followed by a very bright
explosion where the sky lit up as if it was daytime,” another
explained.
Astronomers and scientists are still trying to find out where the meteor landed.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by Geekazoid.
Lion Safari Park in Johannesburg, South Africa allows cars to drive through the lion enclosure so people can see the animals up close. A family in a white Toyota drove through with the doors closed, but apparently failed to lock at least one back door.
Thier glee turned to horror as the 300lb lion firmly took the rear door handle with his teeth and pulled it open in one deft movement.
For several seconds the car remained still while the occupants digested the shock of what had happened before finally hitting the accelerator and driving off.
As they fled, the lion followed in pursuit until it reached the gates of the enclosure. There it was finally held back by a warden who hurled stones to shoo it back.
Richard Holden was in a car behind the Toyota and managed to take pictures of the incident. Link -via Arbroath
A new species of golden orb spider has been found in South Africa. It is the biggest spider ever found that spins a web -and what a web it is!
The female of the new species of golden orb weaver spider has a body one and a half inches long with a leg span of five inches and weaves a web more than three feet wide.
The tiny male, however, has a leg span of just one inch. The variation of the Nephila species, named as Nephila Komaci, was discovered by US and Slovenian researchers in Africa and Madagascar
Nephila Komaci has a limited range and is believed to be an endangered species. Link -via Unique Daily
carrier pigeon painting by Christina Lovering
Who’s faster at transferring data: a carrier pigeon or an internet service provider in South Africa?
In an experiment arranged by a frustrated IT company, an 11-month-old carrier pigeon named Winston delivered data 25 percent faster than South Africa’s leading internet service provider, named Telkom.
Winston, with a data card strapped to his leg, flew the 50 miles (80 km) from the offices of Unlimited IT near Pietermaritzburg to the coastal city of Durban in one hour and eight minutes.
Including downloading, the data transfer took two hours, six minutes and 57 seconds — the time it took for only four percent of the data to be transferred using a Telkom line.
Internet speed is painfully slow in South Africa because of limited bandwith, but is expected to improve with a new 17,000 km underwater fiber-optic cable that will link southern and east Africa to other networks before South Africa hosts the soccer World Cup next year.
Collage painting “Wanderlust Carrier Pigeon” by Christina Lovering
South Africa is apparently one really dangerous place. Case in point: ATMs there are weaponized – yep, weaponized – with pepper spray. What could go wrong? Apparently, this:
The technology uses cameras to detect people tampering with the card slots. Another machine then ejects pepper spray to stun the culprit while police response teams race to the scene.
But the mechanism backfired in one incident last week when pepper spray was inadvertently inhaled by three technicians who required treatment from paramedics.
Patrick Wadula, spokesman for the Absa bank, which is piloting the scheme, told the Mail & Guardian Online: "During a routine maintenance check at an Absa ATM in Fish Hoek, the pepper spray device was accidentally activated.
Previously on Neatorama: Anti Car Jacking Flame Thrower Car Mod
A hippopotamus in Alkmaar, South Africa was desperate for a dip to escape the heat, and climbed over ten foot walls to bathe in a water tower! Once in, he couldn’t get out on his own. A farm worker spotted him -or rather, spotted two big nostrils poking out of the water.
Equipped with a hydraulic crane and a cage, hippo hunter Chris Hobkirk and his team from the Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Association set to work. In a four-hour operation, they drained the tank and used poles to gently nudge the hippo into the 3m-long (10ft) steel cage before winching it to safety.
Mr Hobkirk – who has rescued more than 180 stranded hippos in the past six years – said it was a tricky procedure but he was glad with the outcome.
‘Maybe we got lucky with this one. In the past, I have removed hippos from small dams. In those cases, the water levels have always been much lower so this was different.’
