Good friends, good food...

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At the house... our internet connection is far too slow right now to attempt uploading more photos...
Tomorrow in between giving tours at Monkeyland, I will try to jump online in the office and add more photos
of our recent times here at Monkeyland and the surrounds...




I have spent the last 5 years travelling on and off throughout South Africa and it's neighbours. I have come toknow the smiles of the people all over this great land. I has wandered through the rolling hills of Natal and gazed at the sky that seemed so close... The people of the rural lands and townships has very little to their name yet will give you all. How many times have I been invited into someone's home, having just met them half an hour before and they offer unto me... cookies and Coke and anything else they can gather together. And all I can do to repay them is take photos of their family and watch the kids roll around in laughter when they see themselves on the view screen.
I have made my way across the farm land of the Free State, with ever expanding stretches of golden fields in the distance...there seems to be a different sun in that part of the world...one more red and longer lingering as if to spoil us a little bit longer with it's gorgeous setting into the earth.
I have spent a wonderful week with Elisha in the Medittaranean-esque city of Cape Town. We climbed to the top of Signal Hill to look down in wonder at the beauty of the Mother City. The contrast of the original Bo-Kaap district, with it's brightly coloured Cape Dutch houses, set against the clean skyline of the center city; then off set this with the gigantic Table Mountain towering behind us and the view of the goegeous yet icy Atlantic with waves crashing into white sands ahead... I have trekked through the lonely mountain kingdom of Lesotho, a century behind it's surrounding neighbour of South Africa, with very few paved roads and no stop lights...children riding donkeys to the KFC, which happens to bethe hotspot of the town. The relaxed vibes of the Eastern Cape and Transkei stirred in with a bit of final frontier edge made for a wonderful trip... the stretch of green fields off the highway dotted with little pink and blue Xhosa houses...and that is it. There is not much more and that is what makes it fantastic and different... delving deeper into the Xhosa and Pondo homelands, you find small dorps and beach towns with one main street and cows on the hidden beaches. The majority of people in Port St Johns either make their living by fishing or selling dagga.
Johannesburg, the city that has been scolded by the world and is feared by many who have never ventured inside... became a very close friend. I love the hectic central city, which looks like Brooklyn circa 1990, dotted with Zulu witch doctor shops shoved in between KFC and Fashion World, while Somali and Ethiopian immigrants sell anything they can get their hands on down by the corner.

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