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Monday, June 14, 2010

Port Elizabeth straight to the Karoo!

I'm getting old.  It's 8pm and I'm calling it a night at Le Jardin Backpakin' in Graaff-Reinet.  I can't even stay away to watch "exciting" Italy play Paraguay tonight.  Well, even if I wasn't tired, I don't know if I could stay awake watching the Azzurri.

Enough about me, lets talk about South Africa...

The Karoo is an amazing place and only a drive from Port Elizabeth to Graaff-Reinet does it justice.  I have heard the springtime in this location is even better, but the beginning of the SA winter in the Karoo has left me in awe so I can only imagine.  And to top it off, upon arrival in Graaff-Reinet we took a trip to the Valley of Desolation National Park!  The view from the mountains up their explain Graaff-Reinet's nickname, the Jewel of the Karoo.  The Karoo is a semi-desert region of SA shown in this picture:


I can't describe the beauty of the Karoo with my underdevelopled vocabulary, so please just watch the movie from today!


We left Port Elizabeth this morning headed for Graaff-Reinet (273km):



Before we left Port Elizabeth this morning though, we had a wonderful chat with the owner of the guesthouse that we stayed the second two nights in PE.  Her name is Adrianne.  Turns out, every person we meet in SA is a world class athlete.  If you watch the video, you will see that in her backyard there is a diving board onto a trampoline.  Adrianne is a world class diving judge.  She judged the Olympic diving competitions in both Athens and Beijing.  Now I know the face behind the SA Flag in the diving scores!  After a brief tutorial in the extensive auditing and checks and balances in the life of a diving judge, we found out Adrianne did not attend the olympics alone.  Turns out her older daughter plays for SA for their national field hockey team.  Her brother Gavin, who now lives in Canada was also visiting while we were there.  Wish we had another night to have the drinks that he offered as he was very pleasant and funny.  Before we took off for Graaff-Reinet, our hosts gave us a try of Kudu Biltong, a South African Jerky.  Some of the best I have ever had!

Until manana!

Max




1 comment:

  1. I think you should go into the travelogue business

    ReplyDelete