♪ -Welcome to "Joseph Rosendo's Travelscope" where you join us as we accept the world's invitation to visit.

♪ -Come with me.

Today on "Travelscope," I head back to my first African adventure when I safari through South Africa for close encounters with its animals and people.

♪ -"Joseph Rosendo's Travelscope" is made possible by... EVA Air flies from eight cities in North America to Taiwan and with one stop onward throughout Asia.

It offers premium economy class in a cabin all its own, in between business and economy classes.

EVA Air -- a Star Alliance member.

And No-Jet-Lag -- jet lag prevention.

-From elephants to wineries, join me on "Travelscope: South African Adventure."

♪ -Welcome to South Africa.

South Africa!

-My South African adventure begins in Cape Town, South Africa's mother city, so called because it's the country's oldest.

In the shadow of the city's landmark, Table Mountain, lies South Africa's oldest wine country, where you'll find some of Cape Town's finest vineyards and most exclusive accommodations.

♪ What fun!

Wine country -- one of my favorite places to be in the world.

And when in wine country, this is one of my favorite places to be -- in the vineyards.

The Steenberg Farm is the second oldest farm in South Africa, and the Steenberg Winery is the oldest wine-producing farm in South Africa.

-Our climate is ideally suited.

It's a cool climate from the sea on that side.

This is ideal for Sauvignon producing.

With whites, I've always believed that grapes should ripen in shade, not in the sun with a forced ripe.

If you force a thing ripe, it'll never taste the same as when it ripens gently in the cool of the vine, no harsh sun on it.

Just a gentle fit from the inside into the berry and you get your better flavors.

-Makes sense.

-So obviously go for your reds in the warmer area and for your whites in the cooler areas.

What's important to me is not to listen to the winemakers.

I think you must make up your own mind.

Decide if you like the wine, if you don't like it.

If you like it, buy it again.

If you don't like it, don't buy it again.

I think that's the whole thing behind wine drinking.

You have to enjoy it.

♪ -Established in 1682 as the Cape's first farm, they've had centuries of experience working the land.

I head out to the winery to sample the fruit of their labors.

-This is the white wine cellar, and these are stainless steel tanks that hold 15,000 liters of wine in each tank.

So we transfer it from here into barrel for a short period of time.

This is Sauvignon Blanc country.

That's what we're famous for.

Joseph, I'm going to take you into the barrel maturation cellar.

Please follow me.

-Now, this reminds me of, like, the [indistinct] of France.

So I know that something very special is done down here.

-Well, this is where we mature the wine in the barrels.

Right inside is our Cabernet Sauvignon.

Over here is the Shiraz.

And my favorite, the Merlot, on the right, which we'll be doing for tasting shortly.

[ Glasses clink ] Cheers.

-Cheers.

-Happy imbibing.

I'm gonna take you upstairs to our public tasting room to try some of the other wines.

-Anita, you twisted my arm.

-This is the 2007 Loire clone.

-Mm-hmm.

Beautiful.

Now, is this the wine that you're famous for?

-This is what we famous for, yes.

-Sauvignon Blanc.

-Sauvignon Blanc.

-It has a nice flora... -Fruitiness, yet -- It's fruity, but dry.

It's got the gooseberry on the nose.

This is lovely with your seafood and poultry dishes.

-It's been very nice meeting you.

Thank you for your hospitality.

-Lovely meeting you.

♪ It's difficult to leave wine country pleasures, but historic Cape Town awaits.

-Welcome to Cape Town.

Welcome to South Africa!

South Africa!

[ Laughs ] -You know, Cape Town was set up in the 1650s as a refreshment spot for the East India Company, for their crew that was sailing to India, and Greenmarket Square, where we are now, has always been a trading spot.

The farmers would bring their goods in and trade with the ships, and it still continues today.

What are they made out of?

-It's made with bubble wrap.

-Bubble wrap?

-Bubble wrap, yeah.

-Bubble gum wrap?

-Yeah.

-Wow.

That's pretty creative.

-You can feel this one here.

-Yes.

-It's light.

Very light.

-Are these made in villages or manufactured...?

-No, in villages.

-Just outside, you know... [ Indistinct ] -80?

70.

-[ Indistinct ] -Well, you're a hard bargainer.

Green Street Market is a great place to come to pick up some crafts, but there's a place in town where some of the crafts that are here are being made.

Let's go check it out.

♪ Sometimes the solutions to problems are closer than we think.

Streetwires elevates a local handicrafts to art and helps the people help themselves.

♪ -This is the wonderful depiction of Mr. Nelson Mandela.

He was made here at Streetwires.

-What is Streetwires?

-Streetwires is a job employment project that is creating sustainable employment to a lot of unemployed artists.

-The purpose behind it is to go into the townships and give people employment.

Now, is it going back into the township, the profits, or is it helping them support their families?

-For every one person employed at Streetwires, they're supporting up to about eight people back at home.

-Why this particular kind of art?

-It's because we've grown up with it.

This is what we know, we've been doing ever since we were kids.

We used to make wire [indistinct] at the townships, and then it's the same technique that we've taken from the time we're kids to the time we've all joined Streetwires.

-How many people do you have working for you?

-Streetwires employs about 120 people.

-That's a wonderful success story.

-Thank you.

-Thank you for introducing me to it.

♪ It's just a 30-mile drive from Cape Town to the tip of the African continent and the Cape of Good Hope.

♪ It looks pretty calm today, but I bet sometimes it's pretty rough here.

-Yeah, this can get pretty rough.

It's not called the Cape of Storms for nothing.

-It's called the Cape of Storms?

-Cape of Storms.

Yeah.

-I thought it was called the Cape of Good Hope.

-It's now called the Cape of Good Hope, but, you know, marketing has to take place.

Who wants to come to the Cape of Storms?

[ Waves crashing ] -"The most south-western point of the African continent."

-That's right.

-We're here.

-That's right.

We made it.

-Cape of Good Hope.

These waves are magnificent.

Of course, if you were a sailor back in the old days, you wouldn't have like to see these rocks here.

-I don't think you would have.

There's actually a shipwreck not far from where we are.

-Really?

-You see where it's foaming up there?

-Yes.

That's called Bellows Rock.

There's about 80 shipwrecks all around here.

-Wow.

Look at the birds.

-They're cormorants.

-This is beautiful!

The southwestern most tip in Africa.

-This is it.

-This is it.

-Right where we are.

Sir Francis Drake.

-Sir Francis Drake.

-He said this is the fairest cape and all the circumference of the world.

-Well, it certainly is today.

-Yeah.

-The fairest cape in the whole circumference of the world.

What's that ostrich doing here?

-Ostriches are native to Africa, as you well know.

-But I thought they were in the desert.

-Yeah, they are desert animals, but they move down from Egypt up to 1,000 years ago.

-In Africa, I expected lions, elephants and crocs.

But ostriches and penguins too?

Oh, my.

Between Simon's Town and Cape Point is Boulders Beach and its a colony of 3,000 African penguins.

So tell me about these penguins.

Now, that one looks like he's losing his hair.

-They're molting at the moment.

-They're molting.

-Yeah, they get new growth.

There's babies as well who get their adult coats.

So they do that because a there's an oily covering that the -- the feathers have to keep them waterproof.

-I understand that this colony of penguins are somewhat distantly related to the ones that are running around in Antarctica.

When the continents split, they came here and the other ones went south.

-Yeah, the [indistinct] the land, yeah.

-I think they did much better.

The ones over there are probably thinking how they can swim and join them here in Africa.

-Isn't that so?

-Yeah.

Here they come.

They're gonna jump.

They're gonna jump.

Boom!

Boom.

Boom, boom.

That was good.

There's bigger game than penguins to be seen in South Africa... ♪ ...and I head to the Eastern Cape to find them.

♪ It's a 45-minute drive from the Port Elizabeth to the Shamwari Game Reserve -- a 61,000-acre preserve established in 1992.

In comfort surrounded by Shamwari's animal residents, guests can enjoy an African bush adventure.

With its refined elegance, Long Lee Manor, one of six different lodges, captures the spirit of South Africa's colonial past.

♪ [ Insects chirping ] [ Birds chirping ] No matter how civilized your accommodations are, Africa is just outside the front door, calling to you.

Let's go.

Hey, Keir.

Good morning.

-Hi.

-I'm with Keir Lynch here at the Shamwari Game Reserve.

And we're off on a game drive.

-Yes, let's head out there.

-Let's do it.

Every day begins with a game drive, and I'm more than ready.

-All of the animals came from existing national parks or nature reserves.

So they've never known any type of confinement in their lives and all roam freely throughout the reserve.

So animals have been setting up territories for themselves, predators all hunting to make a living, all your antelope species all avoiding the predators as best as they possibly can.

And the ebb and flow of life from the reserve itself has been carrying on as it has been within Africa for thousands of years.

-Warthog.

-Have a look.

One of the easiest ways to sex them when they're looking at you like that is the males always have two sets of warts.

They've got the set next to the eyes and then a set lower down the face, as well.

So, you'll see the one on the right there doesn't have it.

That's a female.

She's only got the one set up towards the top.

And then the male, the one on the left -- he's got the two sets.

They've normally got that second set further down the face.

As long as you treat the animals with respect, give them the right-of-way, allow them to decide to work at their own pace, you're not going to impact on them at all.

-And, of course, in the distance, then, we have like six giraffes.

-Breeding herd of giraffe.

Number of females within that group, and there will be a couple of males moving around with them, as well.

If you watch the way giraffe walk, they walk much the same way as camels do.

They'll swing both left legs, both right legs, both left legs.

And it's one of the techniques that lions will start utilizing when they specialize in hunting giraffe.

Get one of those legs to slip out, you can bring that big body crashing to the ground.

So, you see, if you want to grab that, Joseph.

-Carefully.

-Carefully.

That's the way that they have to eat it -- incredibly carefully.

It's known as an Acacia karoo tree, is its botanical name.

The common name for it is a sweet thorn, which, when one looks at it with the amount of thorns on it, isn't a name which we generally associate with it.

-No, I wouldn't call that sweet.

-But the reason that it's got that name is it's one of the most nutritious trees within Africa.

Giraffe is quite lucky because they've got these incredibly long necks, so where they eat, from the top of the tree, it's normally not as well-developed thorns.

So, they've got that 45-centimeter-long tongue, and they'll wind that around the branch and then just pull it backwards into their mouth.

And they normally leave most of the thorns behind.

Elephants -- very, very tough mouths.

They don't bother too much.

They'll just break a whole branch off and shove it in, eat it thorns and all.

-It looks like an African traffic jam.

[ Laughs ] A welcomed one.

Oh, my gosh.

Look at the baby.

Look the baby.

Look at them.

Wow.

That's quite a large herd.

Oh!

-Yeah.

Being bullied by his older brother.

A little bit of dominance hierarchy between each other.

♪ ♪ -Since some humans can't seem to help loving Africa's animals to death, Shamwari has its own anti-poaching team.

-You can see they're just up ahead on the right, through that clump of bushes there.

You can see there's one coming through the end.

There's a total of three here.

Every rhino has its own ear-notch pattern that we've put in place with the conservation department.

So it helps us to recognize which female this is, which bull is with her.

Is he the father of this bull or is it a new bull?

If he's a new bull, is he being aggressive?

All of those interactions you can only start to figure out when you know every single individual animal.

We see that one is going to be this one.

Call him W-34 -- big bull.

So he's a big, dominant bull.

-Okay.

-So, this starts getting you into the process of how we do this.

-This is about as close as we can get?

-To be honest, there's no point in going closer.

This is the ideal situation where you can watch, go and view your animal, and leave without the animal knowing you're there.

Then you've done a good job.

As soon as you disturb that animal, you're watching a disturbed animal.

That animal is reacting to your presence.

-I see.

-So it's not a natural situation anymore.

You know, we as humans have a concept of personal space.

So do they.

So it's just a matter of respecting that concept.

But, I mean, that's where you look at Shamwari and you look at the history of it and where all these animals were decimated, and now you look at the species that we have back here.

So it's a huge conservation story, not just for rhino, but for every species across the board.

Ultimately, you take the the tourists away, and this will disappear.

♪ -I'm told you can hear about 10 different species of birds right now.

It's much more than worthwhile to get up in the morning to take in the natural sounds of South Africa.

♪ ♪ -[ Speaking indistinctly ] -Zebra, zebra.

There's so many animals.

Look at all of the giraffe.

Oh, my gosh.

-The collective noun for those groups of giraffe is a journey of giraffe.

Zebras also have got a beautiful collective noun in terms of a group of zebra.

A little family group like this you'll refer to as a dazzle.

Dazzle of Zebra.

Of course, this is a great meal for a lion.

We see if we can track some of those down?

-Alright.

♪ ♪ ♪ -He's got a fantastic bloodline.

His father was enormous.

Mother's one of the largest lionesses that I've ever seen.

And so he's got an absolutely incredible bloodline within him.

In a sitting position like that, you can see why they're the most fearsome predator that we've got in Africa.

♪ Now walking.

-He's walking by the Jeep, about 25 feet from us, 30 feet, headed towards the pride.

-So, as he comes over, he'll more than likely head over to the female and process and see exactly whether she's in -- ready for breeding or not.

It'll be another year wait for him until those youngsters are close on two years of age.

She won't come into use just before then.

-Amazing.

There are three of them lying together.

Keir, one of the reasons you can do this, I think, is because the animals have a kind of a natural fear of people.

Why is that?

-Well, you'll find with the vehicles itself is that, generally, the animals get quite used to the presence of the vehicles.

And with that, there's no real association with us as human beings.

And one can then view them very relaxed, get quite close to them, as well.

You'll find, when you get out on foot, that the scenario changes quite a bit.

One, of course, because just our silhouette and the body shape.

Bipedal animals looks quite a bit different to anything else that you'd find out here.

Then, of course, just the positioning of our eyes -- exactly the same as any of your big cats, the predators.

And then, most of us do tend to eat meat, and with that, the ingestion and the meats, that does tend to sweat through your pores.

That will carry along the wind, as well, and then most of your antelope will pick up on that and actually think that there's a predator around that spot.

-Oh-ho-ho!

There they are, both of them.

The one behind the bush is kind of looking at us.

♪ She's onto something in the bush.

-There's a black-backed jackal down the road.

-There she goes.

-Now, those are jackal pups that they've caught there.

That's the mother looking on.

♪ The other female's collecting the rest of the youngsters.

She doesn't look that hungry.

They've killed that for basic competition.

That and because, at the end of the day, they're killers by pure instinct.

Something moves, that's what they want to do.

-She won't eat it?

-No, she won't eat it.

-Now?

-Not at all.

You will find that lions often don't eat prey that they have from other carnivores in terms of if they kill other lions, kill leopards, kill cheetahs.

They very, very rarely actually feed on it.

But they'll kill it, it's just basic competition.

-If you had known those pups were in the bush, would you have interfered?

-So, at the end of the day, we'll never interfere within the lives of any of the animals.

It's unfortunate if you're a jackal.

But at the end of the day, once you start interfering with the animals' lives, you get to a stage that they're going to start reacting to you.

And once we get to that point, then we've lost the ability to be able to view them the way that we want to, as though we're not even there.

-The Shamwari success story is about more than animals.

On the edge of the reserve is the town of Alicedale.

In the mid-1990s, the railway abandoned Alicedale, creating 96% unemployment.

Tourism, attracted by Shamwari and the newly built Bushman Sands Hotel has given the people another chance.

♪ ♪ -We're busy on an upliftment program to create jobs and cultural tourism.

It's trying to bring cultural tourism and people into Alicedale for cultural tourism and do things like cultural cooking, cultural dancing.

-Fabulous.

-I did one at Shamwari last Sunday.

-It sounds like exactly the kind of thing people should be interested in and see when they're here.

-Yes.

♪ -Pretty good.

It's easier than I thought.

-[ All singing indistinctly ] ♪ ♪ -Reverend Jonas was telling me that the church is an integral part of the community.

There is a place where people can even cook.

who don't have facilities and where they can store their goods.

As you can see here, there's actually a garden.

Reverend, a lot of people are working at the hotel that's here and working with the game reserve now.

So things are getting better.

But there are still some difficulties here in town for you, right?

-Still a lot of people who is not working, and... -Mm-hmm.

Right.

That's great.

-[ All singing indistinctly ] ♪ -Predators kill by instinct.

We choose whether to attack or embrace each other.

Choice is what makes us human and allows us to celebrate our connection.

-[ All singing indistinctly ] ♪ [ Cheers and applause ] [ Cheers and applause continue ] Thank you for joining me on my South African adventure.

There's talk that by flying and traveling less, we can minimize our carbon footprint and help save the planet.

I think that by traveling less, we help no one, certainly not the planet's inhabitants.

Travel is a bridge between peoples, and as we've seen in South Africa, wildlife conservation flourishes because of tourism.

Communities that once survived because of the demise of animals today thrive by protecting them.

In this way, tourism has helped create a world that works for everyone.

We have clearly proven that we can destroy nature.

What makes us human is deciding to preserve it instead.

Sustainable tourism helps us to continue to make that decision.

Until next time, this is Joseph Rosendo reminding you of the words of Mark Twain -- "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness."

Happy traveling.

-"Joseph Rosendo's Travelscope" is made possible by... EVA Air connects eight North American cities to Taiwan, where, with one stop, travelers can fly on to destinations throughout Asia.

EVA Air -- with business, premium economy, and economy cabins.

EVA Air, a Star Alliance member.

And No-Jet-Lag -- jet lag prevention.

-From travel tips and destination explorations, to exotic adventures and intimate tales, "Musings: The Short Happy Pursuit of Pleasure and Other Journeys" is a collection of entertaining, humorous, and inspirational stories drawn from my travel and life experiences.

For a copy of "Musings," call 888-876-3399 or order online at travelscope.net.

Now that we've explored South Africa together, learn more at travelscope.net, where you can follow my worldwide adventures through my e-magazine, blog, podcast, and on social media.

Stay in touch -- 888-876-3399 or TV@Travelscope.net.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ -My dream is to have the biggest hat in the world.

[ Laughs ] ♪