Penguins

African Penguins

Cape Town, Waterfront

Waterfront
 
.Nobel Square - opened in 2005. And four Nobel Peace Prize winners, from left: Albeon Luthuli (1960), Desmond Tutu (1984), FW de Klerk (1993) and Nelson Mandela (1993).

But this red statue on the background a few hundred meters away is made of Coca-Cola boxes.

Pretoria Zoo

To visit a Zoo in Africa?? Who is the one that is going to visit a zoo in Africa?? Isn´t it so that the etiquette foresees to visit animals in Africa in the wild? Only - the Pretoria Zoo is really worth a visit, and according to one of the world rankings, is among the 10 best zoos http://www.ratestogo.com/blog/best-zoos/.

And some very rare animals are hard to meet even in the wild in Africa. Like this one.



Okapi, or forest giraffe. Lives in Ituri Forest, DRC. Was such a modest creature and in the meantime it seemed that there will be no way to get him in the picture, but then the local staff came for assistance and with fresh green leaves coaxed the animal to come and pose in front of the camera.

Mossel Bay

Having visited the Cango Caves the next stop was in Mossel Bay. To visit the museum that exhibits the full-size copy of the ship in which Bartolomeu Dias in 1488 made a journey from Europe here, to the top of Africa. Namely - to celebrate the 500 th anniversary of the journey - a copy of the ship was built in Portugal, and this ship started its journey from Portugal on November 8, 1887 and arrived at Mossel Bay on February 3, 1988.

The ship found its place at the Maritime Museum in Mossel Bay, where everyone can visit it.


Its length is 22.5 meters and a width of 6.62 m. The team consisted of 17 men (formerly there were 33 team members on Dias)

Cango Caves

Cango Caves are located in the southern part of South Africa's Swartberg mountains, near the town of Oudtshoorn. The Caves were visited the next day after crossing the Swartberg gorge. The total length of the passages is more than 4 kilometers, but only one-quarter of it is open to visitors, and even that with a guide only.


The caves were discovered in 1780 by a local farmer Jacobus Van Zyl. It`s more correct to say that re-discovered - as the entrance of the cave had been inhabited in the Stone Age already.

Cape Town

And Cape Town it is. Coming here by car it took me 371 days and 41.000 kilometres were covered.

Cape Town is different, as if it were not real Africa. Africa as such is usually associated with villages and towns of quite different looks.

In the Swartberg Mountain Range

For a change some pictures of nature from the southern part of South Africa, here in this post there are mainly mountain roads of the mountains of Swartberg.

While looking at the pictures of the roads they just confirm that one must visit the place. And fortunately here they have not been able to put down the asphalt everywhere as it could spoil half of the fun.


The signpost promised a bit more interesting part of the road.

Cape Agulhas

Day 369
41,437 km since the beginning of the journey

Cape Agulhas is the place you could not help visiting it, as it is the southernmost tip of the African continent and also the place where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet. Portuguese navigators named of the cape Cabo das Agulhas or Cape of Needles, because the magnetic and geographic north direction coincide here.Link


The southernmost building of continental Africa is a lighthouse, built in 1848.

Kimberley – The Big Hole

.
Day 364
39 993 km since the beginning of journey

This morning the journey continued towards Kimberley, because there is the Big Hole, the most famous and the deepest hand-escavated hole in the search for diamonds.


So it looks like, the city of Kimberley is in the distance and the Big Hole is really huge.

More about Pretoria

Day 362
39398 km sinve the beginning of the journey.

I'm still in Pretoria. The formalities with the visa are not over yet and so I have enjoyed the town and its places of interest.


Church Square in Pretoria.

South Africa

Written in South Africa, Pretoria.

The checkout from Swaziland was as easy as the entry to this country had been. In the queue for 2 minutes, one more stamp in the passport and that was it. A couple of hundred yards ahead the next country was waiting, South Africa. The paper work took more time there. I asked how long I could stay in the country and I was told that until January 31. Up to that date I was supposed to have the right to enter the country. It was something unexpected and new to me - because in the majority of the countries I had visited, the visas are issued for a certain period of time – either one month, or 90 days etc. And the period starts in the moment one enters the country. To be quite sure I asked it over once more and the answer was the same this time too.



And as the day was soon over I drove to Komantipoort ,the nearest place of a larger population, and it was supposed to have a decent mall, and camping place as well - and so it was. .