Our first 2750 kilometres through South Africa

Two weeks have gone since we last reported on our blog. The main reason is that a very few hotels in South Africa offer internet facilities. We found this very strange because in Asia and South America we had WiFi connections in almost every hotel.
It took Malaysia Airlines less than 7 very comfortable hours to bring us from Argentina to Cape Town which appeared to be a beautiful city. Unfortunately the weather was bad and for this reason we could not visit Table Mountain and Robben Eiland where Nelson Mandela has been imprisoned for more than 20 years.

But we have made a nice trip over the Cape Peninsula to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope where two oceans meet, a highlight for every (old) seaman. A very few can say that they have been to Cape Horn and Good Hope during the same trip.
It is springtime in the Southern hemisphere, trees are in bloom and flowers can be seen everywhere, in the fields and along the roadsides. This year we have experienced Spring twice during our trip, in April in Japan and in October/November in Argentina and S. Africa.
From Cape Town we drove in our rented car through the wine region where we stayed overnight in two lovely small cities, Stellenbosch and Swellendam, enjoying the good things of the region.
After we had passed a mountain range we reached the Kleine Karoo, a semi- dessert area and the city of Oudtshoorn with its numerous ostrich farms. From the Karoo we reached the coast and stayed in Knysna with its little port and famous lagoons. In Addo we visited the first National Game park where we have seen hundreds of elephants and other animals. It was very exciting to explore the park on our own and to meet suddenly eye to eye with an enormous elephant bull that crossed the road.
We visited the former “homelands” Ciskei and Transkei, home of the Xhosa, which were reunited with S. Africa in 1994 and stopped in Qunu, the tiny village where Nelson Mandela was born, to visit the museum. Village where Nelson Mandela was born

After a two days rest in Coffee Bay in a beach hotel at the Wild Coast, facing the Indian Ocean from our room, we drove to Underberg in the province of Kwazulu Natal from where we made a trip with a 4WD over the well known Sani Pass to the kingdom of Lesotho. We will never forget this breathtaking trip over the worst road we have ever seen, steep, slippery, rain, thundershowers, cold!

Sani Pass between S. Africa and Lesotho

We do realize that we will be visiting several game parks in the coming days but that we will leave this beautiful part of the world within 2 weeks!

See also our Dutch blog www.jan-margreth3.blogspot.com

Our last days in Argentina and four days in Brazil

De Quebrada de Cafayate

Once more we have travelled and seen a lot since we have published our last report.
We will never forget the journey from Cafayate to Salta in the most Northern province of Argentina. Our path led us through a beautiful canyon ( see picture above ) about 60 kilometres long, with walls of red sandstone up to 100 metres high. Along the way are canyons and rock formations sculpted by wind and water, never before seen by human eyes. We have seen this wonder of nature in the parks of Utah, but here we felt alone while the parks in the USA are visited by millions every year.

From Salta we flew to Buenos Aires, where we had a day to walk through the streets of this enormous city. We concluded that Argentina is a really beautiful country with a great diversity in environment, nature and the countryside. This enormous country has only 40 millions inhabitants, of which 14 are living in and around Buenos Aires. Apart from some other cities the country is virtually empty! Since the financial crisis that hit the country in 2002, Argentina changed from one of the most expensive countries in South America into one of the cheapest. Because it is so widespread , we had eight flights by Aerolíneas Argentina that proved to be a reliable company. We really had a wonderful time and recommend everybody to visit Argentina.
From Buenos Aires we flew to Rio de Janeiro, where we would stay for four days. We had booked a good hotel in the Copacabana area where, after eight weeks travelling, we took a well deserved rest during the weekend. Of course we have seen a lot of Rio.
The city is surrounded by the sea at three sides, giving it a number of very wide beaches with well-known names as Ipanema and Copacabana. Furthermore the city is divided by mountain ridges of which some of the peaks are a thousand metres high. Rio de Janeiro is famous for its natural settings, its carnival celebrations, samba and other music, and hotel-lined tourist beaches, along with its favela slums. Some of the most famous landmarks in addition to the beaches include the giant statue of Christ ('Cristo Redentor') atop Corcovadomountain, named one of the New Seven Wonders of the World, Sugarloaf mountain (Pão de Açúcar) with its cable car; the Sambodromo, a giant permanent parade stand used during Carnival and Maracana Stadium one of the wolds largest football stadiums. The city also boasts the largest and second largest urban rain forests in the world: Floresta da Tijuca, or and (almost connected to the first) the forest in Parque Estadual da Pedra Branca, or White Stone State Park, more than 32 square kilometres in total.
We had time to visit the above mentioned places and paid our daily visit to Copacaba beach where we had our meals.

We have often written that we do not favour large cities but Rio appeared to be an exemption.

On 3. November we flew back to Buenos Aires, where we had one day to reorganize the suitcases (Margreth) and to update the blog (Jan) before we would fly to South Africa in the evening of the fourth of November.
Reflection of the Catherdal of Rio in opposite buildings

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