Tuesday 5
Summer holidays start one year old. As every year, For a long time, A "exotic" trip awaits me during the month of August; This year with some important peculiarities that I don't know how far they will affect me. This last year, for me, It has been a year of significant changes, The end of a long sentimental relationship, A housing transfer, Friendship relationship resituation, New Friendships, … in the end, emotional ups and downs that make it a particular summer.
The trip is by agency, unusual way of traveling in me. And the group includes people with whom many things have to be relocated at an emotional and relational level. Surely it will be a good experience to see how everything should evolve. We started the trip in the afternoon going to Barcelona airport to take the plane to Istanbul. We fly with the Turkish Airlines. We know the other people who will travel with us. And total, We are eight. We are already five, plus a couple and a girl traveling alone
Wednesday 6
After midnight we take the plane that will take us to Johannesburg. It is a long nine -hour journey, But it happens fast basically because I take half sleeping pill and after dinner they give us no longer wake up until they happen again with breakfast. It is one of the paths in which I have slept more and better. We arrived in Johannesburg in the morning and we are immediately with Javier, The boy who will guide us. We are all in expectation of what it will be. Sometimes these expatrified adventurous people are a bit cool, … The truth is that we see that he is a very interesting person. He is a journalist and works commissioned by some Spanish publications.
They take us to The Aviator Hotel, next to the airport, A correct hotel, with WiFi and the necessary services. Let's go to Soweto, One of Johannesburg's most popular neighborhoods. Soweto is the acronym for South West Township. Township are the neighborhoods that were built for blacks during apartheid. It is a pleasant neighborhood that has to improve a lot lately with the construction of new houses. The old shacks now rent them to the African emigrants who come from the rest of the continent, Especially Zimbawe. We visit Nelson Mandela's house, nothing special, But it has an important symbolic value. Is full of boys and girls in uniform, Mandated school visit to know the recent history of the country. In the same street is the house of Desand Tutu. We eat at a restaurant in the area and continue visiting the area.
The African British colonies suffered this separation between whites and blacks to inhuman points
The next stop is the Apartheid Museum. It is an interesting building, symbolic. The Jewish Museum of Berlin reminds me to some extent. The museum tells the history of this policy of legalization of the racial difference that took place in the second half of the twentieth century. South Africa was the only country that legalized this situation, But all African British colonies suffered this separation between blacks and blacks to inhuman points. The visit helps us to know the segregationist policy better, characters like Mandela, Tutu, The clerk, … and the whole history of the boers, the true responsible for everything.
We have a long time in the city center, en la Mandela Square, Johannesburg Neuralgic Center, full of shopping centers with the stores you find in any city in the world, Fruit of globalization: Mango, Zara, Applestore, … We had dinner in a steakhouse. Like an ostrich fillet, A tender and tasty meat, that I had already tried on some other occasion.
Xavier, guide, It is explaining things in the country, of the continent, of his adventures, … Nonetheless, South Africa is a model of what could become Africa. Colonization in Africa ended fatal with the expulsion of whites everywhere. In South Africa, Thanks to Mandela, He opted for coexistence between whites and blacks, And although they do not mix, They live in a "peaceful" way. This has allowed them to maintain infrastructure and progress economically. Whites are the 10% population. Most are third and fourth generation and feel as South African as the black population. On the contrary, los, They still remain, They believed that the country belonged to them and wanted to create independent territories (Transvaal, Orange) in which there were no blacks.
Thursday 7
We get up early, at six. We had breakfast and take the road to Blyde River Canyon. The roads in South Africa are very good, But that does not mean that we spend all day to do 500km. The landscape is quite ordinary, Nothing spectacular.
The Blyde River Canyon is a river that has excavated a cannon for water erosion, It is not very deep but it is wide. Throughout the river there are several water jumps, Some of them with strange forms due to the erosion that water has caused on the rock. We stop at Lisbon Falls and Bourke’s Luck Potholes. We finish the visit from a panoramic platform called Three Rondavels. From here it looks how the river and the capricious forms of the rocks are winding.
It looks how the river and the capricious forms of the rocks are winding
We take the road to the Kruger Park Door, So tomorrow we can already enter the park directly. We stayed at the Lodge Vista Rio, Wry by Gate Malelane, One of the park's doors.
Friday 8
We enter the Kruger, One of the mythical natural parks of Africa. They say that after the great parks of Kenia and Tanzania, This is the best to see wild fauna. I immediately enter we start seeing some animals, Facharhers, A lonely giraffe nibbling the acacias on the shore of the road and a white rhinoceros, enormous, With his long and pointed horn. Despite the legal protection of the Rinos, There are still poachers; Most are Mozambican who enter the park and hunt them to sell the horns on the black market.
We are making our way, We leave the asphalted road of the park to enter by tracks where elephants appear that want to cross the track before us; Later a black rhinoceros, A lone lion and everywhere, impalas, gazelles, kud, … A little chameleon crosses the road with its particular way of walking forward and behind. Life here goes to another rhythm, The parsimonious walk of the elephants, The rinos that graze the savannah, … A good contrast to our overwhelming day to day.
Come the lions, They begin to get nervous, Elephant alarm scream
After eating we continue from safari in search of more animals. Finally we see a couple of lions, lying in the middle of dry grass. On the horizon we see some elephants that are approaching, Come the lions, They begin to get nervous, Elephant alarm scream, strain, confrontation. In the end the lions get up and march.
We arrive at the sunset the Lower Sibie Lodge. South Africa has magnificent infrastructure to do tourism on your own. The sensation of the Kruger is as if it were in the middle of an animal theme park. At night we hired a night safari. You don't see much, It is a bit frustrating until two leopards appear in the middle of the road, spectacular, A mother and her puppy, Looking at how they are pre -stunned, what are you doing here? A couple of civetas and many varieties of antelopes.
Saturday 9
We get up very early. They open the Lodge fence at 6 And we are ready to go out in search of more animals. We still lack some … The park is covered with fog, The feeling is special; Suddenly we see a way that approaches us on the road, We don't know what is, It takes shape, A feline? A hyena appears before us, majestic, Do not flinch, It makes its way, Looking at us, Looking at her. We continue touring the park roads, We are crossing a herd of elephants, They go to yours, ignoring what happens around, Breaking branches of acacias, leaving a trace where they pass. Later we face a rhinoceros, More giraffes, Zebras, wildebeest, … Each one doing their way, We with the jeeps towards Mozambique; They sabana inside, Leaving us a good memory of the Kruger.
We leave the park with the feeling of having seen many animals. Everyone confirms that we have been very lucky. When you make a safari you never know what you will find or what animals you will see. It has been an experience. Is being a very interesting trip. Xavier, guide, is an interesting person, Madrid journalist installed in Maputo, Great knowledgeable of Africa. The adventures and experiences that he explains while driving the Jeep are typical of a traveler in love with this continent.
We arrive at the Sa-Mozambique border. Now we enter another Africa. There is a tail in customs, But progress quickly. A few meters away you already realize the change. Infrastructure are completely different. Mozambique is an immense country, destroyed by the civil war that was after the independence of Portugal. A war that lasted more than fifteen years, years in which the country's wild life is over. The territory is the immense savannah, But empty animal life, Not even a gazelle, nothing. Cotton and sugarcane plantations were also loaded. He had been the world's first producer of these two products. After war, The country was considered one of the poorest in the world. He has currently recovered a bit, But suffer the two great evils of Africa, corruption and lack of future vision.
Suffers the two great evils of Africa, corruption and lack of future vision
Many African countries live this false happiness from day to day, A naivety that does not allow them to progress, since it does not let them see beyond. Money is not invested in social infrastructure, No education, No health, … It is reversed to swell the pockets of the politicians on duty, swelling its purchasing power until it becomes immense fortunes in the midst of the local population that survives with one dollar a day. This makes me doubt the desirability of international cooperation and the future of this continent. Few meters separate a glimpse of another Africa. Is South Africa the model to follow? It is the European colonization responsible for African problems? Should European countries invest in cooperation projects that do not bear fruit because part of the budget is the corrupt politician on duty? Nonetheless, Hope must be maintained. As a Kuger tourist shirt said I believe in Africa.
