Africa Trip Summary

Final post on our Africa trip- I wanted to gather everything in one place, all the link & stats.


Dubai: Half Day City Tour (Dazzling Dubai Skyscrapers, Atlantis Hotel , Al Fahidi Mosque, Old Dubai & the Ford , Spice & Gold Souqs ), Hotel (Harbor House) & Airport (Emirates Airline), Sand Dune & Desert Dinner Tour, Emirates Airline & Harbour Hotel
(tours through Arabian Adventures)

Cape Town: General Intro & Cape Cadogan Apartments, Half Day City Tour ( Table Mountain), Robben Island Tour, Full Day Peninsula Tour (Hout Bay, Botanical Gardens, Penguin colony & Simon's Town, Cape of Good Hope), Full Day Cape Winelands Tour (Waterford Winery in Stellenbosch, Grand Provence & Franschhoek, La Petite Ferme & Anura Vineyards in the Paarl Valley).

Safari at Lion Sands Private Game Reserve- River Lodge, Lions (Two Brothers & the Cubs), Elephants (& the Tree, Family) , Rhinos at Sunset, Water Buffalo, Giraffes, Hippo, Impala, , Other Animals (Monkeys & Birds)


Johannesburg- City Tour: Soweto, Constitution Hill), The Grace Hotel & Sunday Market, our art purchase

Mauritius- Hilton Mauritius Hotel, Full day South Island Tour (Chamarel 7 colors Earth, waterfalls, Black River Gorges NP & Temple, Chamarel Rum Factory, Bois Cheri Tea Factory & the Crater), Sunset Cruise & Dinner, Full day North Island Tour (Port Louis, Le Caudan Waterfront, X X X ), Mountains & Sunset, Around Flic-en-Flac


Number of Flights: 7 (to Dubai, to Cape Town, to Lion Sands, to Jburg, to Mauritius, to Dubai, & to Houston)
Total Flight Time: 53.5 hours scheduled air time + 6.5 hour flight delay in Cape Town + layovers!

Books Read: My Sister's Keeper, Their Eyes Were Watching God
Movies Watched: Taken, He's Just Not That into You, Confessions of a Shopaholic, Marley & Me, Seven Pounds, numerous episodes of Simpson's, Friends & Dexter.

Photos Taken: 2700+ tons I deleted in camera
Photos Uploaded: 917 photos in 5 sets on Flickr- Mauritius (213), Johannesburg (52), Lion Sands (263), Cape Town (235) & Dubai (154)
Days worth of blogging: 45 posts on "Africa"

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Our new lights & our new door are being installed today.

Mauritius Mountains & Sunset

We've FINALLY reached the end of our Mauritius posts! I'll leave you with a few photos of the natural beauty of the place, because that's what we enjoyed the most.



We learned quite a bit about history as we traveled the island, and saw first-hand my agricultural things we'd never knew about.



We enjoyed the people and culture of the island quite a bit, but over I was a little disappointed. I think I'm a bit spoiled because of all the beautiful islands we have in the Caribbean and the gorgeous state of Hawaii.



We don't regret traveling there at all, and it was our first experience in what I'd term an "Indian culture".



I can't wait to travel to another place and lay on the beach and watch the sunset.



As much as I love mountains, there is nothing as tranquil and serene a walking on a beach as the sunsets, smelling the water, hearing the waves crash on the beach.



Thanks for putting up with me as I posted all these picutres- I can't believe I procrastined posting the final pictures for so long.



I'm still behind on blogging- I have not even processed our Chicago pictures, but I'll hopefully get started on those later this month.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: It's finally cooling off a bit around here....I can almost smell fall!

Le Caudan Waterfront

We stopped around lunch time at the Le Caudan waterfront in Port Loius.



There is a modern mall at the waterfront and open-air market within walking distance, all surround by the mountains and water.



We always like to check out the local places, and this one was hopping on a Saturday- the streets were packed.



This whole way of shopping and deciding which of the dozens of vendors you'd like to buy potatoes or carrots or lettuce from is daunting.



So much fun with photographing the different colors and textures and people busy bustling about the Saturday morning errands.



There were so many fruits and vegetables that I'd never seen before.



In addition to all the fresh food, there were tons of trinkets and knickknacks for sale too.







The streets were filled with all types of knock-off goods.



The roads not full of people were full of cars on this busy day, but we enjoyed this nice esplanade on main street.



I think this is the oldest post office on the island.



I'm not sure if this was their entire naval fleet, but it was a pretty impressive coast guard boat.







The water in the harbor was a beautiful shade of green.



Apparently they allow gambling on the island.



There was a very cool street band just jamming on the mall part.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Awesome Saturday- painted a wall & watching a movie at home.

Top View

On our last day in Mauritius, we checked out and hired a tour car to take us around the North rim of the island and drop us at the airport. Our first stop (and all these photos) are of the capital of Port Louis. Although much of the island is of Indian descent, there is a large population of Chinese and a Chinatown.



In addition to all the Hindu temples we saw, we noticed quite a few Catholic churches, most of which were styled similarly to this cinder block building.



There was a very pretty Mosque downtown and this was the best shot I got out my car window as we drove past it.



Horse racing is very big on the island and there is a beautiful track on the outskirts of the city, with an even more awesome hill overlooking the entire town and waterfront area.



The city has a few high rise buildings and is nestled in between the mountains and the ocean.



Our guide pointed out this temple in a surrounding mountain- you can barely see it in the horse track photo above.



A nice town square with a beautiful monument, all in front of the Western wonder of Kentucky Fried Chicken.



The rest of the island is so undeveloped that these buildings feel out of place to me.



Great view from up top of all around & there is a cool old fort there (but we didn't get to explore it).



Looking further around our view, we see more of the big machinery in the port to handle all the cargo.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: I'm officially allergic to grasses, trees, a mold, cats & a dog! Luckily I've got 2 of the most adorable ones that don't bother my allergies too much ;)

Around Flic-en-Flac

The closest little town to our hotel was Flic en Flac. We wandered into town a few nights for dinner. This particular Asian-seafood restaurant was easily the worst meal we had our entire trip. It was so bad it was almost comical.



We tried to do a little SCUBA diving trip, but it didn't work out so well. Needless to say, I don't have any intentions of diving anytime soon in the future.



The water looks really beautiful here, but once we got out past the coral reefs, the water was pretty cloudy & very chilly.



There is a public park that runs along the coast between the main road and the beach. Many people from the town were just hanging out & enjoying life.







I loved seeing all the trees on a beach- it really reminded me of the California coast.



There were several groups of school kids on a field trip playing games at the park.



Lovely day for a horseback ride.



There were a few restaurants in town & we actually ate at this chain restaurant in Johannesburg too. We ate one night at the Sunset Garden, which is a quite courtyard area with decent food & a good atmosphere.



I have 2 things I love to photograph (besides Mia, Zoe and my hubby) and they are clocks and flags when we travel. I think the Mauritian flag is really pretty & it's my first purple flag.


GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Mia had her shots & is ready for class next week.

Sunset Dinner Cruise

We were overwhelmed with excursions & activities when we arrived at our hotel. I kept trying to talk H into a helicopter ride or a float plane trip. He wanted to go out in a boat, so we compromised be doing a private excursion at sunset that included a swank dinner.



We were picked up and taken to the harbor just down the road at Flic en Flac, where I had to walk out into the water to board the boat- always an adventure!



We got there a little earlier than they'd wanted us, but I was worried about missing the sunset. We started talking to our guides & realized this was the first sunset dinner cruise they'd ever done- it's usually daytime & lunch excursions.



We had to carefully *navigate* out of the bay & through the coral reefs surrounding the island before we could cruise down the coast.



I loved being out on the water & being able to look back at the island. We were on the west side, so the setting sun bathed the coast in warm yellow shades.



We past by a few waterfalls & started sipping on our wine. We just putted around- nothing fast at all, but it was really peaceful being out on the water.



We loved our tour guides! They had never met Americans before (like many people in Mauritius), but we had fun talking about American movies and music and learning a little bit about their island life.



We got lucky & had perfect weather- just enough clouds to make a beautiful sunset & the island was clear.



My favorite part was seeing all the mountains and peaks from different angle and watching how they changed as we proceeded north.



It was a wonderful, romantic evening & total splurge on our trip, but we needed to relax and enjoy the beauty of the island instead of running from sight to sight.



Between juggling our drinks, the bottle of wine, 2 cameras, a little blanket & appetizers, we managed to take quite a few photos of the sunset.







All the food was prepared fresh & we watched him make most of it as we putted out of the bay.. This was a pineapple filled with shrimp in some sort of mayo sauce- very yummy!



We were both VERY impressed that he cooked our whole dinner on this tiny grill in the back of the boat- including some lobster!



We were really treated to a gorgeous sunset that night.



NOM NOM NOM



Loved the beam radiating outward into the night sky.



The sun is just sitting on the horizon at that bright orange speck & about to slip away for the night.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Bought my paint yesterday- going to go big, bold and BLUE!