I know it has been a while since I have made a post, but I can assure you that I have been very busy. Some of you may or may not have known this but I took a much needed vacation. This time around I decided to pamper myself and go to Africa. I have to tell you that it was everything that I had imagined it to be. I would recommend that before you pass from this earth you should make a journey to Africa it is a magical place. For the remainder of this I am going to share a little bit of my journey with you. I am sorry if this is long but you simply can't describe this is in a couple of sentences. So let us start!!!
I started my vacation by going to Kenya. If you are interested in doing a safari I suggest you go to www.kenya.com there you will find all the information you need to start your own safari dream vacation. I stayed at wonderful hotel in Nairobi which is where you will find the best game observing. The name of the hotel was the Hotel Serena which is near the Amboseli Park which just happens to be home of the Maasai tribe. The park is a relatively small park by native standards. Now a quick history lesson: Amboseli means "salty dust" in the Maasai language. The park is just absolutely beautiful it has volcanic ash from the eruptions of Mount Kimimanjaro a millennium ago.
One of the parks we went to was the Maasai Mara. I was told that when it comes to game viewing there is nowhere in Africa richer in wildlife, or more eventful in encounters than the Mara. As its name would suggest the Maasai Mara is also home to the fabled Maasai peoples. Traditionally, the Maasai rarely hunt and live alongside wildlife in harmony is an important part of their beliefs. The Mara is AWESOME, a place where Maasai warriors share the plains with hunting lions.
On the second half of my vacation I traveled to South Africa, a place I have always wanted to see ever since I was a little child. Here I felt such peace, calm and reserve. I fantazied about moving there and just starting life all over again. This was probably my favorite part of my vacation. So with out any more hesitation let me share a little bit of South Africa with you:
South Africa boasts a unique cultural mix, a history marked by heroism and struggle and in impressive array of heritage sites. Not least the Cradle of Humankind, it is believed that this is the earliest ancestors came from. I enjoyed going to the town of Franschoek. Situated in the heart of the Cape Winelands, Franschoek is a little bit of France in Africa. Settled by French Huguenots who fled religious persecution in the 1700s, it is famed for its brilliant restaurants, five-star guest houses and excellent wineries (don't worry I brought enough bottles homes to open up my own winery). This area is second to Cape Town as the culinary heart of South Africa.
My most memorable part of my South African tour was going to Robben Island. Here let me give a brief history lesson: For nearly 400 years Robben Island was a place of banishment, exile, isolation and imprisonment. It was here that rulers sent those they regarded as political troublemakers, social outcasts and the unwanted of society. The most famous inmate at Robben Island was Nelson Mandela. During the apartheid years Robben Island became internationally known for its institutional brutality. The duty of those who ran the island and its prison was to isolate opponents of apartheid and to crush their morale. Some freedom fighters spent more than a quarter of a century in prison for their beliefs. But those imprisoned on the island succeeded on a psychological and political level in turning a prison "hell-hole" into a symbol of freedom and personal liberation. Robben Island, came to symbolize not only for South Africa and the African continent but also for the entire world, the triumph of the human spirit over enormous hardship and adversity.
I hope you enjoyed reading about my journey to Africa and I really do hope that one day you will make own journey to that magical and mystifying continent.
Until Next Time Kisses,
Cameron Leigh
