ALASTAIR + LALEINIA

Slightly rested from the last few days of excitement and adventure, we woke up as the Eurostar was arriving in Paris and headed out into the Parisian capital. This was to be a test not only of our traveling endurance, but also our French language skills. Both of us had taken lots of French in high school, and we enjoyed giving it a go after so many years. Long story short, we were terrible but much better than we thought we would be! We gave French a fair effort throughout the day, but almost all those we spoke to reverted to English for us. The plan was to start the day with our bucket list in mind by climbing the steps of the Eiffel Tower. We figured that if we went straight there, we wouldn't have to worry too much about queues. We arrived, realized how cold it was, saw there was no line, and left in search of warmer clothes! This was the day that Laleinia forsook her fashion over function mentality (although she still looked really cute). That's what cold, we...

After saying our goodbyes to Dad, Mum, and Connor in Johannesburg, we boarded the impressive but uncomfortable Airbus 380, flew through the night to Paris. As soon as we arrived, we made our way to one of the main train stations and got on the Eurostar, bound for London. Alastair hadn't stepped foot in his own country for almost six years, and hasn't really lived there for almost a decade. He was as excited to be in England as Laleinia, who would be in London for the very first time. Hollie (part tour guide, part photographer, part sister, part sister-in-law) met us at the station. We were all in for a long and exciting day and got straight to work. We bought our tube passes (well, Hollie did - thanks again) and headed over to Buckingham Palace. Our tight schedule meant that we didn't have time to chat with the Queen, and so we made haste to our next destination, Trafalgar Square.  One of our favorite things about London was getting from place to place. Of ...

It is impossible to summarize our African experience and do it any justice with words, but we have to try. As we were creating this video, we were amazed and so appreciative of all the things we have been able to see and do in these last few months. What an experience! We have been able to see such an incredible range of things, from animals to cities, mountains, people, art, and culture. We have traveled in cars, on planes, boats, quad bikes, buses, cable cars, safari trucks, even elephants! We have slept in a beautiful house, nasty (and some nice) hostels, a rondavel, safari tent, cabin, and the back of a car. We have traveled almost constantly, and have even eaten crocodile on more than one occasion. We have had the time of our lives. Being in Africa has strengthened our desire to experience as much of the world as we can. We will definitely look back often with happiness at our time in Southern Africa! And we must say that we wouldn't have been able to enjoy all that we d...

The very last thing that we really wanted to do in South Africa was to visit an informal settlement, which we refer to as a shantytown. These areas are home to thousands of people, and are the the most poverty stricken places that we have ever seen. We have heard stories of rapes, murders, baby killings, etcetera that occur in these areas, and so we knew that if we were going there in our relative ignorance, we would need to go with someone who was in the know. At one of the primary schools that we visited, we met a teacher who was willing to take us around. He knew people and had a good rapport with the community, and so we were excited to go with him. The first thing that we did was to go straight to a ladies house close to the entrance. From what we could tell, she was in charge in the community, and our friend was asking her if it was ok for us to enter and take pictures. She was friendly to us and allowed us to go in! The houses were amazing. They were built fro...

Our last day in Cape Town started early for Alastair and Connor, who woke up at 4:30am to climb Lion's Head to see the sun rise. The hope was for some photos similar to those we took a few nights before, or to be able to climb above the clouds and see a sea of cloud below, but it just wasn't to be! After battling the darkness (almost all without a flashlight) and reaching the top, the sun rose, or at least we think it did since we didn't actually see the sun for a few more hours! But every cloud has a silver lining, and in this case, the cloud itself was its own silver lining. Alastair has always wanted to be in a cloud, completely surrounded, and this was definitely the case up on Lion's Head. After spending a while admiring the cloud, and admiring themselves for reaching the top, Alastair and Connor descended to start the day. Our last day in Cape Town was relaxed. We just took things slow and enjoyed being in such a cool city. The weather wasn't grea...

One of the biggest reasons for wanting to visit Cape Town was to drive a little south and see the Cape of Good Hope. We didn't really know much about it, other than that it was important enough to be signposted on a distance/direction sign post in Hong Kong. We just had to visit. It turns out that the Cape of Good Hope is the most south-western point of the African continent. There were a surprising number of tourists who came out to stare at the rocks and ocean at this geographically significant location. The Cape of Good Hope must have been important for sailers back in the day. Alastair and Connor wanted to get to the most south-western point, and so left the sign post and the car park and climbed over the wet rocks to get out to the furthest part of land that they could. There isn't really much else to say apart from that it was a beautiful place, and being there felt like an accomplishment to us! Next, we drove north up to Muizenberg, a place known for its s...

Cape Town day two began with a nice drive out to Camps Bay, on the other side of Table Mountain. We had actually seen the beach the day before from the top of Table Mountain, and it was even prettier up close. We scrambled over the rocks and enjoyed looking at the crystal clear water, and Laleinia spent some time looking for shells and a little bit of sea glass. It was a great way to spend the morning. Camps Bay is a very rich part of Cape Town, and the houses and apartments along the coast were really cool to look at. Another example of Cape Town being a world away from much of what we have seen in Africa. We returned to the V&A Waterfront and boarded a boat bound for Robben Island. Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years of imprisonment at Robben Island. We were taken on a tour by a former inmate of the island, a political prisoner who was involved in the struggle with Mr. Mandela. His stories were fascinating. We spent a few hours on the island, and were able to visit Ne...

A visit to Cape Town, which Alastair has always claimed to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world, was sure to be one of the highlights of our time in Southern Africa. Even though we have been busy and have seen so much recently, we had been looking forward to this trip for quite some time. After arriving at the airport, we headed straight for Table Mountain. Table Mountain is the iconic thing in Cape Town. It is a massive mountain which is pretty much completely flat on the top. Alastair and his family visited Cape Town for New Years 2004/5, but were unable to take the cable car to the top because of high winds. We decided to take no chances, and planned to head to the cable car as soon as the weather would allow us to! Luckily for us, the weather was fantastic as soon as we landed, and so we made a bee-line for Table Mountain. Within a few hours of landing, we were standing on the top of the mountain, overlooking the beautiful city of Cape Town. We could see Li...

We only have a few more weekends left, so we decided to fill this weekend up with the last few things we want to do in Johannesburg. On Friday, we went to the Apartheid museum. When we purchased our tickets, we discovered that we were randomly assigned a race: white or non-white. We had to enter into the museum through different gates. We spent a couple hours walking through the museum and learning about the South African history and as well as Nelson Mandela. The thing that struck us the most was watching live footage. It's crazy to think that this happened in our lifetime... On Saturday, we went to the crocodile park. We have been hearing about since we got here, and so we finally made it to the park. There were three different enclosures for different age ranges. The younger Nile crocodiles were about 3 years old and the oldest one was around 65. Apparently, they can live up to a century. We toured the park with a very enthusiastic trainer, whom Alastair persuade...

The Kingdom of Swaziland is a small, land locked country that is only about a four hour drive from Johannesburg. We took advantage of one of our last Saturdays on the continent by taking the short drive out to one of the world's last remaining absolute monarchies. Our itinerary consisted of just two things: Go to Swaziland, and play football with kids. Anything else would have been a bonus. We accomplished our tasks for the day! As we drove through the mountainous countryside, Connor spotted a couple of children playing football a ways down the mountain that we were driving on. We trekked down to find the kids playing on one of the most interesting pitches that we have seen yet. It was small, covered in cow poo and rocks, and was on the top part of a smaller hill. This meant that the pitch was not flat whatsoever. Small wooden goals stood proudly at each side, right before the hills became too steep. Cattle were just hanging out, as if they were watching the kids play. ...

We had been looking forward to March 5, 2014 for quite some time, as this was to be our first time watching a full international match live. South Africa, known for some reason as Bafana Bafana, were playing Brazil, one of the best teams in the world, at the 94,000 capacity FNB Stadium (Soccer City) in Soweto. The only people who prepared more than us for the game were the players! Laleinia spent a day making amazing multicolored shirts. They were made of strips of T-shirts, each of the six colors of the South African flag, and each shirt had a South Africa flag and our traveling bird logo proudly displayed on the front. We also got hard hats, each different colors, and decorated them with stickers however we chose! We don’t know much about South African football, but one thing that we had seen on TV was that the fans go all out when it comes to what they wear. We would learn how true this was later. Getting to the stadium was very stressful affair. Traffic in and aroun...