tiistai 16. kesäkuuta 2015

Cape of Good Hope and the funny little African penguins

Beach full of African penguins bouncing around is something you need to see youself. Relatively cute. 





I saw the Cape of Good Hope just enough for one pic. It was freezing cold outside and so windy that I thought some of the light-weight Japanese tourists would just take off. 





Scenic Garden Route 62 around South Africa

3 day tour on the road called Garden Route. Truly scenic. Heaps of animals (picked up heaps of Australian expressions from my Australian yoga mate already so I am prepared to enter the country next week. I actually had to google 'heaps'.).

Most memorable by far was the true catwalk through the ranch with young lions (4 year olds might be young but relatively big). They're not drugged or leashed, but well trained and conrolled by the personnel and chunks of raw meat on the head of a stick every once in a while. I.e. very safe (however on the very same day some American tourist was eaten by a lion in another safari park close to Johannesburg - if they tell you to keep the windows closed I would follow the rules...).





We did also visit among other places an elephant orphanage.







As well as a proper wildlife ranch.

Fighting rhinos below.





And some random animals as well as a black spot in the pic which is a black impala (iphone not the best camera for this purpose). Presumably very rare in wildlife. Because of the colour the black ones get always first eaten by the lions.













Vineyards in South Africa

What can you do on a rainy day other than kick it off with some wine and cheese?
Obviously, a proper tour in the wine region is mandatory.



On the fifth (sic) vineyard we got to taste the amazing Merlot hand picked to the Prince Albert and Charlene's wedding in Monaco (wine later cleverly re-branded as Chalbert). 'Pearls for the pigs' at that point one would say in Finnish, although it's quite clear that the wedding was not a miserable disaster due to bad wine. 



Africa - finally!

Traveling in places with very poor wifi connection does not really encourage updating a blog. So be the parts of Africa and Indonesia quite short.

Capetown

Beautiful. So many places to see. And so many left unseen. It was so foggy all the time that I couldn't climb Table Mountain and so stormy that the boat to Robben Island got cancelled just before boarding (on my last day).

The famous balcony where Nelson Mandela gave his famous speech about forgiveness (it's not SO long ago and it seems that everyone over 40 y.o. you talk to was there in person).




Heaps of historical landmarks from Apartheid era.



maanantai 6. huhtikuuta 2015

Talking about a bucket list*

I've always wanted to travel around the world. It's probably the biggest (currently achievable) dream that I have.

My trip is not really planned in any geographically intelligent way. I just picked out the places I've never been to but wanted to visit (and so many are still left out) and figured out the most reasonable way to travel from one country to another.

So:

Helsinki
Capetown, South Africa
Ubud, Indonesia
Sydney, Australia
Cook Islands
Vancouver, Canada
Havanna, Cuba
Helsinki


*A list of things to do before you die. Comes from the term "kicked the bucket".



sunnuntai 5. huhtikuuta 2015

Here it is

I decided to start a blog. Coming up with a proper name was hard. So I just wrote down three things I like in life (among other stuff).

I'm leaving for a round-the-world trip on May. Talking about a bucket list! Hard to think yet what I will start dreaming about after I'm back.