Adventure in Southern Africa

25/04/2020

Schaut euch diese wunderschöne Vielfältigkeit des Tafelbergs an. Man könnte glauben in einer ganz anderen Gegend zu sein, dabei ist es "am gleichen Berg um die Ecke". Und es gibt noch unendlich viele schöne Ecken dort zu entdecken. Wir freuen und darauf wenn's nach der Ausgangssperre endlich wieder los geht!😍😀
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Look at these beautiful diversity of Table Mountain. It looks like being in a complete differnt area, but it is "at the same Mountain around the corner". And there are many more beautiful areas waiting for being explored. We're looking forward when we are going out again after the lock down! 😍😀


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06/04/2020

Wunderschöne Stimmung am "Centinel" bei Hout Bay im Western Cape.
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Beautiful mood at the Centinel above Hout Bay in Western Cape.

26/03/2020

26/03/2020

Privileged to be able to share my passion. AiSA gives me that. Check out what we can do.




@ Table Mountain National Park

21/03/2020

Devil's Peak im ersten Sonnenlicht.
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Devil's Peak catching the first sunlight.

08/03/2020

Meet Britta
Britta, the most determined, person I have every had the privilege to work with!
Britta has MS (Multiple Sclerosis) and can only walk 1 kilometer with some difficulty. It was her dream to share a hike on Table Mountain and to sleep under the stars in the South African wilderness with her husband Uli.
We created a specialized tour for them that made it all happen!
Uli could apreciate the excitement of scrambling up on of Table Mountain's most exciting ascents and descending through the cool forests to Kirstenbosch Gardens. We met Britta at the top of Table Mountain, thanks to the Cableway, shared the views of Cape Town and explored the unique Table Top. After a snack and a rest Uli and I carried on to Kirstenbosch while Britta rode down and drove round to meet us for a delightful picnic in the Gardens.
The next day was tough, Britta braved 2 kilometres of trail plus 1 kilmetre of off trail hiking to get to a spot next to a stream and pool. This was their wilderness campsite. Absolutly no sign of human habitation! Crystal clear skies. More stars than anyone could believe possible!
What a woman! 3 tough kilometres in and 3 tough kilometres out and she did it! One foot in front of the other, slowly but steadily. An example of determination. An Inspiration to us all!

06/03/2020

FLEXABILITY and SHARING
It's just not about stretching!
It's about meeting your customers needs. It's about sharing your passion with people of different abilities. Last month was a a dream of sharing and flexability. Britta and Magdelena gave us the priviledge of taking them onto the Mountain and into the wilderness.

28/01/2020

AiSA
Adventure in Southern Africa
NEWSLETTER - JANUARY 2020

This year, 2020, started like a crazy roller coaster, with Ute and Andre clinging on and loving the ride! Already this year we have recced new routes and trails, found specificly functional campsites in the wilderness and investigated new traditional food ideas. We keep adding activites to our archive of adventures! Every tour we do is different, unique to each group of clients, so we have to keep updating, improving and expanding our activity base. These are some of the adventures we have added to our archives:

HIKING/BACKPACKING

We spent Christmas and Newyear in the Grootwinterhoek Wilderness area and came back with new campsites next to crystal clear mountain pools, wild trails into gorges with waterfalls, caves and San Art sites and the option to sleep in remote historical cottages build in the 1820s.

MOUNTAIN BIKING

The trails around Cape Town have felt our tyres on numerous occasions, as we revisited some of our favourite trails. We have also researched and found some incredibly remote almost unused mountain passes that we will be going to Recce as soon as we can get out from behind this dreaded computer!

KAYAKING

As guides we are continually training and practicing skills of every sort. Kayaking is no acception. Ute has experienced her first sea paddle through the surf and will soon be proficient to join me on the sea. We have sourced better craft that will open up a wider variety of Kayaking oppertunities for our clients.

GENERAL IDEAS

Oh good grief, this is a complex business! Just writing this make me realise just what each tour entails! But let me tell you something... The core element in this whole adventure business is SAFETY! Every single thing we do is recced, tested, practiced and broke down into detailed sections. The purpose of this is so that we, as guides are prepared for any eventuallity, and have a “Game Plan” for everything.
The other core element of adventure guiding is FOOD! Our stomachs are very close to our hearts so we are continually looking for food scources, different places to eat, new tastier trail food and restaurants that haven't been discovered by major tour operaters.
That's just the tip of the ice berg! There is so much happening and so much to talk about, but I guess that's the price we pay for being so passionate and excited about what we do.
More next month.

Cheers
Andre and Ute

21/12/2019

NEW ROUTES, NEW TOURS
Adventure in SA! That's what's happing to Ute and me. We are continually exploring new areas. Looking for new routes. MTB, Hiking, Scrambling or Backpacking, we are continually looking for new exciting routes, way off the beaten track. Let's face it, at AiSA we don't do normal. We don't do the tourist trap. We create the most exciting, unique adventure tours for our clients.
hey don't have to be hardcore, just relaxed exciting. But one thing is for sure, they won't be on the usual tourist route. If we go to a restaurant, it's local. If we hike it's wilderness. When we mountain bike it's local, different and exciting. We MTB single track, jeep track or mountain roads. We have found 4 x 4 trails that we have driven and ridden. We have swum in mountain streams and deep pools. We've seen snakes, reptiles, buck, jackals, and zebra. We've slept under the stars and been soaked by the rain. We've had happy clients who enjoyed their time with us. Met amazing people in the most unexpected places. But the entire purpose of this exercise is to be able to provide the most exciting itinerary for specific clients. Every group has their own preferences and limitations. We feel that now we can provide an adventure tour for every requirement.

27/10/2019

Our November tour starts on Tuesday the 5th. It's going to be really good to have German guests again. First evening Sunset on a Sanddune and then into a nonstop adventure.
I cant share the itinerary but there is MTB, kayaking, hiking, overnight off-trail backpacking. I'm so excited to be sharing my passion for South African outdoors with guests from Germany, keeping them safe and happy!

07/08/2019

Becoming an Adventure guide is not just a spur of the moment, "Oh that's cool let's go do adventure guiding" type of thing. It's a serious commitment to training, education and professionalism. Even after many (45) years of hiking, trail running, mountain biking, even owning my own white water rafting company I was astounded at what I didn't know and how I had just been running on instinct.
Now I have the formal qualifications, years of experience and my own Adventure Guiding business with-in a niche market in Europe and a totally professional German partner. How exciting is that? Well, it's not all mountains and adventure! Every business has a downside. Every business has admin! Adventure People are NOT usually admin people. (Well... do the maths!) So here I am back in SA after a very fruitful trip to Germany, doing the admin for upcoming Adventure Tours. Struggling! But soon Ute will be in charge of the hard work!

17/07/2019

Back in South Africa! Being an Adventure Guide isn't just about riding singletrack, camping in the wilderness or hiking on Table Mountain. Unfortunately, like any job, there are the downsides. Admin and training. As a guide, you have to be on top of your game for both skills and fitness. For me, it's back to paddle training on the Century City Canals. What an amazing place. Reed beds full of birdlife, still deep open water and even some traffic to increase the entertainment value. Tomorrow? Probably MTB on Table Mountain, depending on the Cape weather!

12/07/2019

Ute and I had the flight of a lifetime on Wednesday! Paragliding for the first time in 28 years in a tandem, in the Alps with Tomas and Yvonne of FlyTeam. Talk about a professional business and great pilots! Talk about a dream come true, but wait there's more... way more.
The venue was totally breathtaking just to visit, never mind fly off. We took the cable car up the Tegelberg Mountain to 1720m. Massive cliffs, forests and huge dropoffs. The takeoff site was very compact, but my totally organized pilot had us in the air with a minimum of fuss, in no time at all. (Not like a lot of the other pilots ahead of us who struggled to take off.) Once we were flying and I felt the movement and lift kicking in I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared. In fact, for the first few minutes, I had very big eyes until I realized that this glider, like all these modern gliders, could really handle the turbulence and wasn't going to collapse like the old wings we were flying in the 80s
Can you just imagine my excitement to be in the air again? Then, Thomas the pilot, found a column of lift that felt like an express elevator, and was about as fast! We spiraled up to cloud base at 2400m. in no time! The flight had just started! We flew for about 2.5 hours in total, reached the cloud base a total of 5 times. As Thomas said... "There's no base like cloud base!"
Then to cap it off we did a bit of ridge scratching after the lift dropped and Thomas was about frozen. Hee Hee, he forgot to put on his long trousers. I think my crazy enthusiasm and excitement distracted him.

08/07/2019

No Gorillas in this mist, just a paddler from Cape Town loving riding in the rain. This little road followed the river for ages. I couldn't help imagining what it would be like with another meter of water and a nice red kayak! We went to rent a bike from a guy in the next village and ended up chatting about our business and he was fascinated. We left him with a whole bunch of leaflets and his enthusiastic promise to send us business. This area in Southern Germany is absolutely great. It's drop-dead beautiful, the people are small-town friendly and there are wonderful adventure opportunities.

08/07/2019

We hiked past a restaurant in the forest and heard the Alpine Horns being played. With all due respect to Alpine culture, the best part of the recital was this picture, as they packed up their incredible instruments. Even the stumps have a sense of humor, and of course, we are surrounded by moody peaks.

08/07/2019

Hiking in Bavaria! What an incredible privilege to be able to do this. To experience first hand the difference between South Africa and summer in The South of Germany. Moody storms, lightning, thunder, flashes of sunlight.... and Bambi came to visit! Today we travel a little, drop off leaflets, rent a mountain bike and meet more people. Tomorrow we go Paragliding. What an exciting time. It's like living one of our own AiSA Adventure Tours in Bavaria!

08/07/2019

07/07/2019

Adventure in Southern Africa is the reality of a dream I've had for many years. With Ute's participation, we have brought my dream into reality. It's been an inspirational, humbling experience, but what it has done is reinforced my eternal belief that we all have to dream, and we all have to work to reach those dreams. I've learned that life is a continually changing dynamic. It grows and develops all around us and if we don't grow and develop with it, we never grow, we never fulfill our dreams or potential.

04/07/2019

04/07/2019

We're Alive! Adventure in Southern Africa is now the real deal. Andre Hawarden and Ute Greiner have got together and started AiSA - Adventure in SA, customized adventure tours to suit your specific needs. Mountain Biking, Hiking, Abseiling, Kayaking.... the Cape offers any type of adventure and we can design the tour of your dreams!