I am finding it very difficult to think about work after 6 months of Adventures in Africa!
Tuesday 30 October 2012
Johannesburg
Again, I spend a few days in Johannesburg courtesy of MMG (the mining company that I work for). They have these awesome paintings in the lobby of the Kinsevere mine in the DRC and the Exploration geologists. There are 4 people working from this office at the moment and a full time cleaner who cleans over the top of clean desks.
I am finding it very difficult to think about work after 6 months of Adventures in Africa!
I am finding it very difficult to think about work after 6 months of Adventures in Africa!
Monday 29 October 2012
Cape Town, South Africa
Dare I shout it?.....
I REALLY REALLY want to live here!
I REALLY REALLY want to live here!
View of Table Mountain from the Waterfront
View of Cape Town from Table Mountain
View of Cape Town from Robben Island - where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated.
On the top of Table Mountain, Robben Island in the background.
Saturday 27 October 2012
Wine tasting at Stellenbosch, South Africa
Friday 26 October 2012
The Garden Route, South Africa
The Garden Route is perhaps South Africa's most internationally renowned destination after Cape Town and Kruger National Park, and with good reason. Within a few hundred kilometers, the range of topography, vegetation, wildlife and outdoor activities are breathtaking.
There are excellent beaches providing activities from boating to good surfing and fishing. Inland are picturesque lagoons and lakes, rolling hills and eventually the mountains of the Outeniqua and Tsitsikamma ranges that divide the Garden Route from the arid Little Karoo. The ancient indigenous forests that line the coast from Wilderness to Knysna offer adventure trails and hiking, birding, canoeing the rivers, sliding through the tree canopy and even bungy jumping. All in all, the Garden Route is great, but if you leave South Africa without having seen it, it isn't a disaster. If you leave having seen nothing else, it might be!
There are excellent beaches providing activities from boating to good surfing and fishing. Inland are picturesque lagoons and lakes, rolling hills and eventually the mountains of the Outeniqua and Tsitsikamma ranges that divide the Garden Route from the arid Little Karoo. The ancient indigenous forests that line the coast from Wilderness to Knysna offer adventure trails and hiking, birding, canoeing the rivers, sliding through the tree canopy and even bungy jumping. All in all, the Garden Route is great, but if you leave South Africa without having seen it, it isn't a disaster. If you leave having seen nothing else, it might be!
Tuesday 23 October 2012
Lesotho
Lesotho is called Southern Africa's 'kingdom in the sky' for good reason. This small but stunningly beautiful, mountainous nation is nestled islandlike in the middle of South Africa. Traditional culture is still strong, it consists largely of the customs, rites and superstitions with which the Basotho explain and enrich their lives. Music also plays an important part in their lives.
Poverty and death, is ever-present in Lesotho. Life for most people is harsh, with the majority trying to eke out a living through subsistence agriculture, especially livestock; unemployment currently stands at about 45%. The spectre of AIDS is high - the infection rate is estimated at 24%. Most Lesotho in rural communities lives in rondavels, round huts with mud walls and thatched roofs.
Poverty and death, is ever-present in Lesotho. Life for most people is harsh, with the majority trying to eke out a living through subsistence agriculture, especially livestock; unemployment currently stands at about 45%. The spectre of AIDS is high - the infection rate is estimated at 24%. Most Lesotho in rural communities lives in rondavels, round huts with mud walls and thatched roofs.
Monday 22 October 2012
Drakensberg
If any landscape lives up to its airbrushed, publicity-shot alter ego, it is the jagged green sweep of the tabletop peaks of the Drakensberg range. This forms the boundary between South Africa and the mountain kingdom of Lesotho, and offers some of the country's most awe-inspiring landscapes. Drakensburg means 'Dragon Mountains'; the Zulu named it Quathlamba, meanthing 'Battlement of the Spears'. The Zulu word is a more accurate description of the sheer escarpment but the Afrikaans name captures something of the Drakensberg's otherworldly atmosphere.
What a mushroom! It popped up after some serious lightening & thunder. It was huge (and hard in texture). Before the baboons found it, we grabbed it and later grilled it up with butter.. delicious!
Sunday 21 October 2012
Saturday 20 October 2012
Zululand, South Africa
We get to experience a real Zulu wedding while in the Valley of 1000 Hills, a beautiful picturesque area in the outskirts of Durban. Zulu culture is still quite strong in a very urban/westernized South Africa, their language is a cool sounding one with funny clicks in the middle of words. We sleep the night with a local family and get to cook (the women of course) and enjoy the local pub (only men) and visit a Sangoma (spiritual healer) who reads my 'bones' and tells me that I am going to get a pay rise, marry a tour guide and have twin girls! We take a walk around the neighbourhood and get invited to a wedding, wow. An older looking couple had been married many years ago in a Christian ceremony but now they wanted to marry traditionally, so that their own children could marry.
We, the mlungu (rich people), were made to feel very welcome and with all the neighbours and acquaintances for the groom on one side, the bride on the other there was a cow slaughtered, zulu beer drunk and a dancing competition! Quite a spectacle.
We, the mlungu (rich people), were made to feel very welcome and with all the neighbours and acquaintances for the groom on one side, the bride on the other there was a cow slaughtered, zulu beer drunk and a dancing competition! Quite a spectacle.
The bride on the left!
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