In August 2009 we highlighted the following southern African travel blog postings:
Elizabeth takes a well deserved break in the Sussosvlei, after spending a year in Cape Town working for an NGO which supports women who fall pregnant and new mothers living with HIV. |
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Sean Brown travels from New Jersey to Johannesburg and Cape Town with 74 students, taking in the good and the bad of South Africa. |
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Lindsay spends 5 days teaching photography at an orphanage in Kitwe, Zambia, where she taught a photography workshop, before jetting off to Cape Town and then Botswana to teach more photography. |
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Sheila drives to Chitwa Chitwa Private Game Lodge where she sees leopards galore. |
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Shaun takes a Greyhound bus to Maputo (Mozambique) where "nothing seems to have been painted in the last 50 years", and where he had to help pushstart his taxi which didn't have a battery. |
And our winner is Sean Brown, who found his heart in Africa. Sean's words say it best:
"My mind could not escape the thought of the deplorable conditions that the hundreds of thousands of people that lived in what they call townships, but we would call slums or shacks."
"Living in Camden, a city known for its violence and poverty, the bad experiences can stretch from annoying to dangerous. I will never look at my home the same again. In South Africa, including Johannesburg, 1 out of 3 women are raped and never report it."
"Traveling on the bus, watching young girls walk home from school with their dusty school uniforms, I could not help but wonder how long it would be before those young ladies had their innocence snatched from them."
"I asked a friend that I met in Cape Town about public transportation. Trains? “That’s what you get on if you want to get shot,” he remarked matter-of-fact
"I am glad that my first time out the country, I was able to be a proud ambassador instead of an ashamed tourist, forced to explain the actions of #43."
August's winner is Emily's tale of getting hustled in Mombasa, eating traditional Swahili food, snorkelling in the marine park and having her hair braided . She also spotted an anti-corruption suggestion box (we could probably do with one in South Africa too, Mr Zuma).
"Lady in London", who visited Namibia's Etosh National Park, where she "woke up at 4am each day to the sound of mating lions" - Namibia's own little red light district in the wild. When not hearing the lions she was seeing them, and even had an encounter with an ultra-poisonous black mamba snake. Scariest part of the trip was going on a game walk with guide and a rifle, whilst "Lady in London" pictured herself "getting mauled by a lion, cheetah, leopard, or even a tiger on holiday from India".
Amy & Kate, intrepid fourth year medical students from Van der Bilt, were our May 2009 winners - the power of their pictures of Africa won us over. Here are our favourites:
On their way up to Uhuru Peak in Tanzania. |
Mount Ile. |
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Buried on the beach - these gals also know how to have fun! |
Fishermen in Mozambique. |
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Expat's visit to the Sani Top Chalet pub for her Mom's birthday (actually, a little after her Mom's bday - being a teacher, the visit needed to coincide with school holidays). Before flying from Johannesburg back to snowy cold London in uncomfortable cattle class, Expat & Mom loaded up the 4x4 and headed towards the mountains that breath with dragons (Drakensburg) - or uKhahlamba (barrier of spiers) in the vernacular of the never-been-conquered Lesotho Mountain Kingdom. They stayed first at Mkomazana Mountain Cottages before taking the trip up the notorious Sani Pass - a dirt road with sheer drops and hairpin bends into the impenetrable Lesotho Mountain Kingdom. The Sani Pass has some interesting names like “the St Peters bend” (more people pray on this bend than they do in church) and “the whiskey bend” (you need a whiskey after turning this bend).
Alexis Grant's tale of Abdul & Mahesh's unwanted week at Douala Airport, in Cameroon. We've all heard stories of having to bribe officials in African countries, but this one trumps all others. On inspecting the mens' travel documents, officials at Cameroon's airport realised they had been invited by a diamond company (they are diamond cutters), and insisted they pay a "fee" to board their plane (4000 euros at that!). Abdul & Mahesh refused to pay the bribe and the uniformed officials refused to let them leave. For a week they slept in the only chair in the airport (see photo), until their company and the Cameroon government came to the rescue.
Our favourite travel blog posting in Feb 2009 is Marie's - not many tourists get wedding proposals (including one to become a 3rd wife!) whilst here, and even fewer take photos of butchered cows' heads which help remind me why I'm vegeterian! Add that to the fact that she met up and conversed with Hector Pietersen's sister Antoinette, and I get the feeling she soaked up plenty SA culture during her stay her.
January's winner was Colleen's blog of her expedition to go teaching in Lesotho, which started with her having to jump airport lines to make her connecting flight from Johannesburg to Bloemfontein. Below is a photo of her on top of Thaba Bosiu (translates to "Mountain of the Night" in Lesotho), a sandstone plateau where all but one of the Basotho kings are buried, and which King Moshoeshoe used to defend his nation from Zulu invaders (colonialists?) in the 1820s. Colleen has been teaching grade 1 - education is the cornerstone of the civilised world and from us at SouthAfrica.TO, we'd like to congratulate you on making a difference - you are a great example for others to follow.
With dreadlocks forming from a buildup of Namibian sand in his hair, braving a cruel 12 hours in a combi-trip from hell (filled with sweaty people), and having chats with a philosophising englishman amongst Swakopmund's lego-like structures; Sebastian Modak's account of his Namibian travels was our travel blog of the year for 2008.
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