A day off to see the Cape of Good Hope, a name that has resonated since childhood. On the way, took the chance to visit boulder beach's Penguins.
I arrived at the conference early to take part in a Sirenian workshop. The day after was free so we went out to wine country. The surroundings were most conducive to sampling the local libations!
After the conference, I took a train to Jo-berg and then bus onto Kruger National Park. The local bus option in Africa was small and unpredictable. You just wait until the bus is full and then it leaves...not before. Here is the bus station at Maputo, the capital of Mozambique.
Whenever the buses stopped, we'd be mobbed by a host of food sellers
Kruger was pretty spectacular. A huge expanse of park with most of Africa's renowned wildlife species. It was definitely a treat to drive around, seeing a host of mammals and about 80 species of bird. Many come to see the "Big 5" of which we saw 3, elephant, lion, and buffalo. Leopard and rhino remained elusive.
Nevertheless, we were lucky to see many other great sights. Maybe one of the most special was the first, Sable which are regarded as very unusual. Unfortunately no pictures of them, so I took this off the web.
Hippos had been my most desired sighting and we saw them everywhere in the park. Periodically they'd trumpet, a sound I'll always remember.
Kudu
After Kruger, took a bus up to Tofo in Mozambique, a sleepy little surfer spot that was an idyllic place to relax. It was also a good relax after the crazed Rasters who drank a bottle each of Brandy on the bus north. At one point the whole bus was screaming and shouting at each other. I'd periodically hear the word "Tourista" and wonder what on earth was going on. After a few hours of this (of the 9 hour ride), the rasters were let go, their confiscated machete thrown unceremoniously from the bus after we were a few hundred meters away!
Tofo was wonderful, and gave the chance to swim with whale sharks. This seemed like such a pipe dream, but was worth every bit of the trouble to get there. I swam with the shark for about 40 minutes, close enough to touch. The sharks are inquisitive and would stay close so I spent more time trying to avoid it than find it!! I took this picture from the web as a close approximation of what this all looked like.
The flowers of Africa were also captivating...here are a few of my favorite pictures:
And then there were the kids!
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