Liyapilly on the road to stardom!

Exciting news! One of my pictures from my trip to South Africa recently was in the paper!! I sent in some pics when I was making a photo album and then promptly forgot about them. THEN – My mom came across the picture in the newspaper the other day and told me she had paused at that photo thinking “this looks familiar” when she noticed the name beside it… my name! That’s right, my real first and last name in the paper beside MY photo. That made my day! Until… the husband questioned whether it was he who took the photo, or me. Hmm.

I’d put a link to it here but can’t find it online. Comments have been turned off, email me for details if you care

I think this is a nice conclusion and closure on my South African travel posts that seem to be never-ending. Time to start blogging about someplace else in the world.

The V & A Waterfront of Cape Town

The Victoria & Alfred Waterfront in Cape Town is a pretty shopping area by the ocean, very busy with tourists in the summer. It reminded me of our Toronto harbourfront  area that gets packed with people during long summer days and how much I’m really starting to dislike big crowds. I used to like being able to blend in with the crowd to disappear, so nobody would notice me, now I just want to have space to take my pictures, or sit down and admire the view without seeing tons of heads in front of me.

Above: Mandela, moi, and some kind of coke carton sculpture in the background

I’ve never been a fan of travelling to go shopping and wouldn’t go out of my way to visit a mall, unless I’m in a place that’s all about malls, such as Dubai or some kind of fascinating marketplace, like a Morrocan souq. I know some people can get very excited about crossing the border to get great deals from the States but even that has never really appealed to me. Everything I need is right here in the major shopping mall across the street. If I’m travelling, it’s to experience a different culture and country, not to experience their shopping. So keeping this all in mind, I can’t really say much about the stores and shopping on this trip because the only thing we bought was ice cream. I can however comment on the beautiful weather and how nice the mountains looked in the background, and the pretty sea on the other side.

I was pleased with our last trip to Africa in the spring, Egypt was not crowded with tourists at all. We just booked our summer travel. I’m predicting less crowds than this country is known for especially at this time of year. Another case of political instability I guess you can call it. I don’t want to give away many clues. Can you guess where we booked?

Visiting Robben Island

You might know about Robben Island because it is where former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela (and many other political prisoners) were imprisoned during the apartheid. The island is about 8km away from Cape Town and ferries regularly take boats of tourists to the former prison to learn about the site. Two things I found surprising: 1. ex prisoners conduct the tours, 2. people still live on the island. I can’t imagine how one can conduct tours of the very place where you spent your worst time…

Above: View of Table Mountain & Cape Town from the island

Above: Entrance, Nelson Mandela’s cell, barbed wire fence.

Visiting Potholes

In the Mpumalanga region  of South Africa, the Drakensberg Mountains create landscapes that look like they could be right out of British Columbia with a dash of the Grand Canyon sprinkled in. It was somewhere here that we visited a placed called Potholes.

Such a strange name but well-suited.

 

These “potholes” in the ground are naturally formed and have become a tourist attraction for their odd shape in the scenic landscape around. I don’t know the science of these how these holes came to be, but it was really nice walking on the many pedestrian bridges that connect over them and provide view points to the water and rock down below.

This was one of my favourite places on the trip.

Visiting “God’s Window”

We arrived at the starting point for this hike up to a view just as soon as they were closing the gates. After explaining that we had come all the way from Canada, as though we had driven all the way, they let us in. A quick hike up (since we were already in the Drakensberg Mountains…somewhere and quite high already) and we were presented with the most beautiful view that really can’t compare to any other view I’ve seen.

Called “God’s Window,” here we could see over parts of Kruger National Park and all the way to Mozambique.

Just so you’re aware, we’re nowhere close to Cape Town at this point, I’m going back and forth a bit here. We’re actually on the other side of the country. And, like I said, quite high up… not the best photo, but just to illustrate how far off into the distance we could see:

The Other Animals.

I realize it’s been awhile, school has been incredibly busy… but that’s no excuse! Let’s pick up where we left off shall we? I’ll leave you with some photos and few words of some of the other animals/birds/creatures spotted on our safari:

Below: A kill

Below: a cheetah

Below: wild dogs

Below: Pumba! (also found a dead Timon on the road)

Below: one of my fav pics

Below: this tree was filled with different birds

Below: just to give an idea of how different animals share the same space

Below: sneaky hyena in the grass

Below: one of Vick’s great shots!

Below: Zazu in the tree and then in flight

Below: The view (the park is too big to describe with any picture)

From our night safari as well, below a female lion on the hunt:

Do you have a favourite pic?

If you’re just reading now, check out my post on the BIG 5. We saw too many animals to list, I’m not even sure what half of them were. A very cool experience. If you’ve never been on a real African safari – do it, you won’t regret it!

Leaving AGAIN

It’s already been 2 weeks since I last blogged?! Man, where is time flying?? I was on a good streak too!

Well I’m soon leaving the country once again… this time with 50 students (never travelled overnight with school before). I’m excited about all the free perks (transportation, accommodations, all entrance fees to museums/sites, entertainment, and most of my food will be paid for) and I’m pleased that we have a tour guide so I get to sit back and enjoy a bit too. When I get back I hope catch you all up eventually…