So what have I been up to? Why did I visit South Africa for the third time in twelve months? Where am as I write this?
After my visit to the Kruger and the great time with my cousins (thank you Gabi, JP, Milly and Nick!) I headed down to Cape Town where I was joined by my parents and my sister. There was a very special reason for this long distance family reunion: we celebrated my mom's 60th birthday! It was a special occasion and we celebrated at the beautiful Kirstenbosch gardens, one of my favourite places in Cape Town. Family and friends joined us and I'm sure that my grandmother was somehow with us, organizing a beautiful summer day in the middle of spring and ensuring that the flowers looked as stunning as possible. Once again -a little late-: happy birthday mom! You are the best!
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| Birthday mom and birthday sister at the Kirstenbosch gardens! |
We also went on a family outing to Hermanus with Paddy and Carol (who are like family to us). Hermanus is a pretty village that is two hours from Cape Town and can pride itself to have the best land based whale watching in the world from late September to November. Watching a Southern Right Whale -a creature that weighs as much as 5 African elephants- elegantly leap out of the water sending it spraying in all directions on landing is something truly spectacular. We set up a little pic-nick in a sheltered spot that was the envy of all the German, Swiss German and Dutch tourists in town! Ah, die hätten gerne mitgegessen!
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| whales breaching in Hermanus, no zoom used for this picture |
In Cape Town I managed to surf and catch up with friends. I also really enjoyed my sister's company, we went for long drives to the beaches of the Cape or visited the many malls in Cape Town. A big happy birthday to my little sister who turned 26 on the 6th of October.
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| that half a "surfer" is me! |
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| The worst surfer ever, but I do have the most fun! |
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| Me trying not to fall off the board |
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| Me taking off and heading straight into a wave that will close out on me | |
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| this pretty sign is in the parking lot right in front of my favourite surf spot in Cape Town :) |
On this trip I was reminded of the natural beauty of the Cape, froze my rear end off in the freeeezing waters in Kommetije-Long Beach and discovered that you cannot rent a car at Hertz if you don't have a credit card. You learn the hard way.
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| Long beach Kommetije, possibly my favourite place in Cape Town! |
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| Scarborough beach, beautiful! |
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| Me and two Tscherman tourists in Blouberg |
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| This sneaky fellow kept some Chinese tourists under siege for a good 30 minutes by sitting under their tour bus. |
Also I would like to congratulate my cousin Roberto and his wife Lindsey on the arrival of their beautiful twins Franco and Michela.
It was a special trip and it was made even more special by being with my family.
As I write this I am sitting on a bus in the busy megalopolis of Sao Paulo, the traffic is crazy and I am a little tired from the flight. I will be spending a couple of days in Sao Paulo and then heading to Florianopolis, which is situated in the southern state of Santa Catarina. Brazilians are super friendly and helpful even though they often don't speak a word of English. I get by with a ridiculous mixture of Itañol which sounds much like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB6GAEXdv4w. Absolutely pathetic, but so fun!
Sao Paulo is crazy, it is absolutely huge and so busy, it is very intimidating for me... the metropolitan area of Sao Paulo has around 20mio inhabitants... the whole of switzerland has 7mio and my village back home has 1'500, so when I flew in and saw the endless city composed mainly of high rise buildings my jaw dropped open. The traffic, the pollution, the speed... it is all a little too much for a little country boy. Tomorrow evening I will escape this urban delirium and head down to the island of Florianopolis.
ps: thank you Nati for the awesome pictures!
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