Best travel blog - Mar 2010

Here are the blogs we highlighted in March.

5 Mar 2010	Brittan and her buddy did a tour of some major tourist attractions in Cape Town, after settling into Long Street Backpackers - "Long Street was definitely the place to be, as it is the toursity central of Cape Town, meaning that things are open late, there is tons of food, and the street is completely lit up all night making it the safest street in town". They hiked up Table Mountain, saw the penguins, Cape Point, the wine route and practised their bartering with street vendors.
12 Mar 2010	Karen travels from Cairo to Joburg to PE.
19 Mar 2010	After watching Harry Potter 6 on the trip to Cape Town (" TERRIBLE dumbledore sucks"), Scarletyouth began exploring the area, taking in "tabletop mountain" ("I kept saying 'masyallah', God's greatness indeed"), the colourful streets of Bokaap, the V&A Waterfront, penguins (" there are penguins in africa! who would have thought!?", the beaches, the University of Cape Town ("i love the universities with the brick and ivy look"), a township school and even got in a game drive ("the buffalos scared the sit out of us"). She was interested to learn that there is a contingent of Malays in South Africa, and that in Cape Town there are a million muslims (Ed: Jip, we're a true melting pot of cultures in the Mother City).
26 Mar 2010	Dan & Francesca saw the the Garden Route in the finest style - driving - and discovered the South African tradition of slower cars pulling onto the shoulder and passing vehicle using your hazard lights to thank them. Near Hermanus they did some shark-cage diving, and at Oudtshoorn they rode on the ostriches. They cited the diversity of landscapes as being the most impressive thing in driving the Garden Route - Las Vegas like deserts to Tuscany like scenery.

And our winner for the month is Karen's trip from Cairo via Johannesburg to visit a missionary family in Port Elizabeth, and enjoy the town's "wide and clean" beaches and "beautiful blue" seas. Karen visited the Waterfront, the Kragga Kamma Game Park ("I couldn’t believe there is a place like that so close to town"), the Addo Elephant Park, drove to Plettenberg Bay (saw Monkeyland and the Plettenberg Bay Game Reserve), stopped at Bathurst to see the biggest pineapple in the world, the war memorial at St George's Park, the Donkin Reserve, Fort Frederick, the Boardwalk shopping centre, the cannon from "The Sacramento" and the township of Kwanobuhle.

cannon from The Sacramento in Port Elizabeth

And the best February 2010 Travel blog

The "Roving Cameraman" from Edinburgh, Scotland. Virgin Premium and Upper class were fully booked so the GMTV production crew sucked it up in economy class, whilst Emma Crossby enjoyed the luxury of Virgin Upper Class (aint it wonderful being the star of the show). And there was even drama up in the skies, with one of the GMTV crew catching a lady that suddenly collapsed, started shaking uncontrollably and turning a "strange purple colour" - the Virgin cabin staff were quickly dashing around with oxygen cylinders, portable defibrillators and findif there was a doctor on board (somehow there always seems to be one). The lady's problem was diagnosed and brought under control rather quickly.

Emma Crossby at Cape Town's V&A Waterfront

After 12 hours of flying they they landed in Cape Town, where the hotel they specifically booked as as it was the only one which would guarantee to let them check-in early, let them down in this regard. Without much sleep, they went to the V&A Waterfront to shoot footage of the beautiful Emma Crosby with the (also beautiful) Table Mountain backdrop.

Top Jan 2010 travel blog

Stephen Hayes' touching account of growing up in Ingogo, a small spot in KwaZulu-Natal (then Natal), about halfway between Johannesburg and Durban, overlooked by three hills - Majuba, Inkwelo and Mount Prospect. Stephen spent several months in 1948 (a pivotal year in South Africa's history) at the Valley Inn Hotel. He swam in the river, learned how to play marbels, went for rides on ox wagons that came past laden with fire wood and went riding on donkeys. They were in Ingogo during the landmark 1948 general election when the National Party got in, and according to the "grown-ups" the one good thing coming out of the election was that they would be able to buy white bread again (the Nats had promised that they would bring back white bread if they were elected. During the war Stephen's mother used to buy brown flour and sifted it to make white bread). Thank you Stephen for drawing the past out into the light, for sharing and for ensuring that these memories are not lost to the sands of time.

donkey ride in Ingogo, South Africa

Best travel blog posting in 2009

The size of Sean Brown's heart and the power of his pen made him our winner for travel blog of the year for 2009:

"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."
"I want to be more patient and forgiving. I want to take advantage of the blessings and privileges of being an American. I want to use my education to get a job where I can learn from the world’s mistakes and be an active part of a movement to bring social, economic, and environmental justice around to world. I want to do whatever I can to assure that no more girls are raped, no more activists are jailed, and no more oppression expands. This is what I owe the world for allowing me to inhabit it."

Best travel blog posting in 2008

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.

Sebastian at the ocean in Namibia