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Western Cape Road Trip in South Africa
The Western Cape of South Africa is home to some of the Africa’s most awe-inspiring scenery. Defined by its wildlife-rich coastline, its towering flat-top mountains, and its vineyard-clad valleys, it is a place where exploration and relaxation go hand in hand. Cape Town justifiably gets much of the area’s tourist attention. The city is one of the most dynamic and scenic in the world. It is steeped in history, pulsing with nightlife, encircled by beauty, and inhabited by a diverse population. But the area’s charm’s don’t end with the confines…
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Exploring South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headland on the southern end of South Africa’s Cape Peninsula.The spectacular cape has long been associated with the southernmost tip of Africa, where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans collide. A common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope lies at the southernmost tip of the African continent. The misbelief has led the area to become one of South Africa’s most popular tourist attractions. In reality, however, the southern terminus of Africa lies 150km East, at Cape Aghulas. But I don’t think…
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Cape Town in Three Days: A Land of Contrasts
After a year of living in rural Namibia, Cape Town hit me with a large dose of culture shock. The city seemed, on the surface, to be everything my dusty, northern corner of Namibia was not—cosmopolitan, diverse and teeming with things to do. My friends and I fell in love with Cape Town immediately. The food was tantalizing, the air was crisp, the mountains were stunning. It was difficult to believe that just a few days prior, my friends and I had been navigating the dusty streets of Ovamboland, and…
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Pony Trekking in Lesotho: Malealea to Ribaneng Village
“Ummm….are we going to try to go down that on our ponies?” I heard Mariella ask our guide as my horse pulled up to the edge of a canyon. I looked at the road in front of me—at the loose scree, the vertical slope and the twisting path. “I hope not” the voice inside my head replied. Our guide dismissed our fears and assured us we would be okay. Lesotho’s ponies are meant for this kind of terrain, he assured us. Lesotho Pony Trekking The sure-footed Basotho ponies have adapted…
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Malealea Lodge: Lesotho’s Sustainable Ecotourism Retreat
Throughout the year I spent living in Southern Africa, I was constantly struck by the disparity between the continent’s luxurious hotels and the living conditions of the local population. I began to question the efficacy of tourism in Africa as a vehicle of providing upward mobility to the continent’s residents. I’d seen the failure of international aid time and time again. And when travelers to Africa passed out candies to children and brought ‘gifts’ for their host communities, I often found myself often questioning whether international visitors—while well-intentioned—were truly helping.…
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How Big is the World?
Academic sources would have us believe that Earth is approximately 510,072,000 square kilometers and that thousands of ethnic groups speaking millions of languages inhabit its surface. Growing up, we learn that there are seven continents, six of which support human life and five of which consist of multiple countries. We are told that the world’s people live in a wide variety of different habitats; from the polar regions blanketed in ice to the steamy rainforests near the equator and from remote atolls in the turquoise seas of the Pacific to…
