Only when my plane was about to touch down in Frankfurt did I finally realise that my time in South Africa was over… Since then it has been two weeks… I’ve almost settled down in Germany again (even if I still walk on the “wrong”, left side of the pavement). The first few days were quite exciting – it was great to see my family and my friends and I continued doing what I did on my last days in Cape Town…
Going out and having a good time with my mates! Before I knew it, it was already Monday and I had to start work. Besides sports and sleeping that’s what my life basically consists of at the moment (work!), which isn’t too bad since I therefore don’t have much time to mourn Cape Town. But every time I show people my photos I become “homesick” and really wish to go back – even if it is only for one night on Long Street or a day on Clifton 4th 
But for now I have to be content with my memories and the thousands of pictures I took – especially during my“Southern Experience” trip with Jenman Safaris from Victoria Falls through the north-western part of Botswana, Namibia and South Africa back to Cape Town. Although the pictures are just amazing they don’t even come close to the reality. Thinking about this tour I’m still overwhelmed by all the spectacular game sightings, cultural experiences and landscapes. Everything was so totally different to what I’d ever seen before and it’s impossible to choose only one highlight. After the first two days on which I did white water rafting on the Zambezi River and visited the Victoria Falls – which are just breathtaking – I thought it couldn’t get better. But I was already proved wrong the next day when we did a boat cruise on the Chobe River in Botswana, where we saw numerous hippos, crocodiles and big herds of elephants and buffalos; to name just the most impressive ones. And the tour continued like that; every day we saw something fabulous…
My personal highlights were Etosha National park, Sossusvlei, Swakopmund and the Cederberg mountains.
Etosha is Namibia’s most considerable conservancy and the density and variety of animals is incredible. We sometimes saw almost ten different species at one waterhole at the same time! There were giraffes, zebras, wildebeests, ostriches, oryxes and many other kinds of antelopes. At the waterhole which was next to our campsite we also spotted rhinos and elephants and on one of our game drives we saw a pride of lions which tried to hunt a giraffe. The attempt remained unsuccessful but the tension when the lionesses crept up on the giraffe was so intense that we didn’t even dare to breathe.
After many days of excellent game sightings the tour focused on Namibia’s gorgeous nature and landscape. One day we visited Sossusvlei, the famous red dunes in the Namib Desert, which are the highest of their kind in the world. Covered in the golden light of the sunrise the dunes are sweeping and it was worth every step up to overlook the entire area of red and orange dunes – furthermore running down the slopes of the dunes is a lot fun as well.
Very interesting – in particular for Germans – is the coastal town of Swakopmund, which is known as Namibia’s most German town. Even if the Germans left Namibia almost hundred years ago you still find many German street signs, shops and buildings. Therefore I had to go and buy a copy of Namibia’s oldest newspaper – which is German of course!
Besides all the history you can find in Swakopmund you can also do a lot of fun activities like sand-boarding that I did. Except for the boots and the board you can’t compare it to snowboarding – but it’s just as much fun and especially the lay down version gets your adrenalin flowing when you slide down the dune at 75 km!!!
On our second last day we entered South Africa and went into Cederberg Mountains. In contrast to the dusty and dry landscape in Namibia the Cederberg offers lush vegetation and huge citrus farms. It was great to overlook the tree-covered mountains and to breathe in the fresh air.
The next day it was already time to end our 3 week trip in Cape Town which welcomed us with the brightest sunshine and unusual warm temperatures for winter.
What a finish for an unbelievably awesome tour that I’ll definitely never forget!
And the weather stayed nice so I could even spend one of the last 4 days in Cape Town on my beloved beach. The rest of the time I had to do some souvenir shopping for the family and a lot of partying !
These were the last 4 terrific weeks of my time in Cape Town. I really fell in love with the city, South Africa and Namibia.
But that’s also down to my great colleagues from Jenman Safaris who were lovely and welcoming from the very first day on.
Thanks a lot guys, it was a pleasure to work with you – and to go out with you as well!!!
Also thanks for my farewell present – an adidas World Cup jacket. It’s really cool and I’m looking forward to wearing it soon as it’ll be a bit colder here, which won’t take too long anymore.
I hope you’re all doing well and hope to see you soon!
Tobi
