Went there at Christmas in 2003 and spent a week in Capetown with family who live there after fleeing from Rhodesia in the past. I got mugged but don't let that put you off, just one of those things that could have happened anywhere. Shit at the time but it happens. I loved Capetown its kind of like the Lake District with beaches in the middle of London. So you've got the best of all worlds and the weather is fantastic. Its a bit of a struggle seeing the poverty at first hand and that was hard to not let it affect your thoughts.
After Capetown we flew up to Hoedspruit which is an airbase of the South African Air Force. It is located adjacent to the Kruger National Park where we spent 3 days over the new year period on safari on our own just me, the wife and two young daughters with no guides or rangers or a prearranged tour. I often think back and think what the fuck if we'd have had a flat tyre etc... We had a VW camper van with a fridge full of meat and spent the whole time just exploring and coming across the most amazing wildlife you could ever wish to see. Two female lions trying to tear open the skin of a dead hippo whilst the male lion sat watching and other hippos coming out of the water to defend the dead body. Elephants crossing rivers or roads right in front of you. A myriad of amazing insects, birds so big it feels almost jurassic and the smell of a world far away from anything I've ever experienced. I will never forget toasting in the 2004 new year whilst standing on a bridge over the flowing river Letaba whilst listening to the night sounds of the African bush truly magical.
Quite simply breathtaking and by far the single most exhilirating experience Ive ever had the pleasure of doing. We then spent some time in Tzaneen with my wifes cousin who had her own fruit plantation and really felt like we experienced some of the real Africa although her husband said until we took a 4x4 into Angola and one or two other places then we were really only playing at it. I drove 5 hours to Johannesburg for the flight home and witnessed miles in the distant a lightning storm terribly frightning but one which we had no choice to drive into and come out the other side. South Africa is one extreme to the other, from the poverty stricken shanty towns you pass by with kids on the side of the roads selling dead crocs, snakes and various fruits, women carrying water bottles on their heads, flat back vans carrying more men to work on than you could think possible, termite hills, blood red sand and the stunning colours of the protea flowers to the waterfronts at Capetown, the colonnial architecture, the golden beaches and the Cape of good hope where the popular misconception is the Indian meets the Atlantic Ocean at Africans most southern tip which is actually at Cape Agulhas and Cape Point (about 1.2 kilometres east of the Cape of Good Hope), then there's Boulders Beach home to a colony of Africas vulnerable penguins.
I'd go back at the drop of a hat and will do so in the not too distant future. Once Africa gets into your blood there's no letting go.
