Second in a Series: To celebrate the tenth anniversary of my first Round the World excursion I am doing a “Top 10” of some of the countries I visited on that trip. Today’s spotlight is on South Africa. Here are 10 of my favorite things about that country.
1. Hiking up Table Mountain (Cape Town) – You can take the cable car up as well, but if you are able, take the time to do the hike.
2. Skydiving over Cape Town – as beautiful as Cape Town is from the ground, seeing it from the comfort of a parachute is both beautiful and exhilarating.
3. Sundowners – the collective activity of grabbing a cold cocktail or beer and watching the sunset.
4. Rooibos Tea – every morning of my overland trip started off with a nice hot cup of rooibos tea with milk and sugar. Delicious!
5. The Xhosa language – I love the sound of a language with clicks.
6. The Baz Bus and Hosteling system – made it so easy to get from place to place with a warm bed waiting for you at the end of the day
7. Springbok shots – Amarula and Crème de Menthe. A hostel bar favorite.
8. Hike to the Hole in the Wall – From the Coffee Bay area, you can pay a local kid a couple of bucks and he’ll escort you across the wild open plains for about an hour to see the hole in the wall; a rock formation that was eroded by crashing waves.
9. Hogsback – this village in the Eastern Cape is known for its beautiful wooded areas, waterfalls and, if you believe…winged fairies.
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| Photo Credit: Ruth Burchell |
10. Johnny Clegg – ok totally kidding on this last one, but his music will always remind me of South Africa.
thanks for this appropriate summary, i feel like having a sundowner on a sanddune now 🙂
laughed out loud at the last point- it’s all douwe’s fault!
Great to hear from you Astrid and thank you for reading. Can you believe that trip was 10 years ago?? And it was absolutely Douwe’s fault! Hahaha.
Sad to say, I’ve heard about the extreme poverty of Cape Town,South Africa which distorts one’s perception. Thank you for opening my eyes to it’s beauty.
The issues with poverty in S. Africa are real and should not be overshadowed, but there are also many many beautiful people and areas that need to be celebrated.
You’ll just have to come back and visit again!
I so want to! South Africa is not the kind of place you only visit once. Thanks for stopping by and having a read!
Good one!
Thanks for sharing this with your friends.
And here’s something with a click for you: Sinqwenela uphinda sikubone kwakhona ( means: We hope to see you again soon), here’s how you pronounce it:
Sinqwenela – Seen(Click)were-ne-la
uphinda – ooh-pin-da
sikubone – see-koo-bow-ne
kwakhona – coo-ah-co-na (coo as in cool and co as in the abbreviation of company)
That’s fantastic! Thank you for sharing…I’m going to practice that for my next visit!