I just returned from an amazing trip to South Africa, Zambia and Botswana.  I loved the diversity of this trip.  We visited beautiful cities, countryside, the falls and the bush.  Cape Town is one of the most beautiful cities that I have ever seen. It is on the Waterfront and has views of the Mountains in the background.  We drove down to Cape Point and the scenery was so beautiful on the way.  The white and sandy beaches were on one side, while the majestic mountain range was on the other side.  As we traveled up the mountain the view of the beach was spectacular.  We saw baboons on the side of the road and we visited a colony of penguins at Boulders Beach.  Cape Point is the southwesternmost point of Africa; just beautiful.  We stayed at the Cape Grace hotel which is in the best location in Capetown.  Right on the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront.  The waterfront has lots of shops and restaurants and activity going on.  Because of the location this is one of the best hotels in Cape Town.  From here we visited the wine country which is also beautiful country with Mountains and such greenery. Stellenbosch is South Africa's second oldest town.  This is a University town today and also has galleries shops and wine.  They have red and white and their own version of Champagne.  We stayed in Franschhoek which is a lovely small town with cute shops and hotels.  Our hotel was Le Quartier Francais Auberge, which is a Relais and Chateaux.  I loved this property.  It is small and very European. Our room was very large and we had our own butler here as well.  The restaurant is one of the top 50 restaurants in the world.  We enjoyed small plates and shared everything.  The food and wine was amazing!!  After enjoying the city of Cape Town the wine and food of Franschhoek we flew to Kruger National Park to see what Africa is known for- the animals.  Our first night on Safari we stayed at Mala Mala.  This is one of the original Camps and needs to be refurbished.  However, this was one of the most exciting days we had on Safari.  Our guide Matt was fantastic and we saw so many amazing animals in their natural habitat here.  We followed a pack of wild dogs as they hunted an impala.  We flew threw the bush in our land rover and thought we were going to see a kill.  At the last minute the dogs changed their mind and let the impala escape!!  We saw a herd of Elephant and Giraffe here; hippos and Rhinos as well.  From here we moved to Lion Sands River Lodge.  This was a really beautiful property that I would highly recommend. We saw our first sightings of Lions here and a Hippo that was standing in the water but was dead. There were crocodiles coming out of its mouth. I can't believe that I thought this was really cool!  From Mala Mala we flew to Zambia to see Victoria Falls.  Victoria Falls is one of the 7 Natural wonders of the world.  It is the only waterfall that instead of the water flowing away it goes in an opposite direction.  The force of the falls is so great that you can see smoke coming from the falls.  The African name Mosi-Oa-Tunya means  "the Smoke that Thunders."  This describes the huge spirals of spray that can be seen for many miles.  I loved the beautiful rainbow that can be seen at the falls, it really reminded me that this is an amazing wonder of our world!!

​- Judy