Our Blog - South Africa Safari 2019We've wanted to take a safari for a number of years, but never did while we were working (for a variety of reasons). Now that we are retired, we decided to go ahead and just "bite the bullet" and go. We decided on South Africa as a start, and we did a trip that combined a Safari with tourist sites and cultural things. It gave us a good overview and allowed us to determine if we want to do additional safaris in the future. We also decided to go with a group tour and went with Gate 1 Travel, which was recommended by Tom's sister. A little overview before we jump into the pictures. South Africa is the country that makes up the Southern part of the African continent. It has quite an interesting history which explains a little bit on why there are 11 official languages. Prior to Europeans landing in South Africa, there were a variety of native tribes each with their own languages. In the early 17th century, the Dutch started colonizing the area bringing the Dutch language (these were called Boers, which means farmers). Next came British colonization, especially in the area around Cape Town. In the 19th century came a few wars ... the Anglo-Zulu War (British and native Zulu tribe) and then two wars between the native tribes and the Boers (the First and Second Boer Wars). In the early 20th century, South Africa gained independence. Probably what most people think of is the years under apartheid, from 1948 to 1994. We'll get more into apartheid later when we talk about Nelson Mandela and the Apartheid Museum (Day 10). Now, on to the pictures!! You can either go to each page individually with the links below, or if you start at Day 1, each day will link to the next day. Warning: we did this purely with the camera in my iPhone. When our previous camera broke, we decided to try with just the camera in the iPhone. Based on pictures we saw from some other people, it would have been nice to have a better camera with a good zoom function ... but then again ... you have to drag yet another thing with you. Day 4 (South African wine region) Day 6 (First safari game drive and into Swaziland) Day 7 (Glass factory and Swazi cultural village) Day 9 (Panoramic drive to Johannesburg) |