South Africa

I think it is safe to say that South Africa beat every expectation that we had set for it.  It absolutely blew us away with its beauty, its history, its culture and its cuisine.  Within a two hour driving distance, we experienced a major city, a huge marina and port, sandy beaches, steep cliffs, unbelievable hiking trails, botanical gardens, gorgeous vineyards and a private game reserve.

Not a bad sunset for our first night in Sea Point.

Tapas at La Boheme

Sea Point sun deck

An afternoon at the V&A Waterfront

Green market in the City Bowl.

Long Street

New Years Eve at Beluga included a 5 course meal, plenty of drinks and dancing.

New Years Day we ventured back into the city and had a drink at the One & Only Hotel

Dinner at La Perla

Spa day at the Winchester mansion...

with a glass of wine on the patio to follow.

Jazz dinner at Pigalle

The hike up Table Mountain begins...

 

The easy way up...

Our way up!

  Two hours later...
so bizarre to hike up a mountain and get to a completely flat surface on the top.

Looking south towards Cape Point

Looking over the City Bowl and V&A Waterfront

After all that hard work, we treated ourselves to a well deserved dinner and wine.

Arrival at Aquila Private Game Reserve- 2 hours outside of Cape Town

Some pool time before our first game drive

Welcome drinks included

Our chalet

As you can see, the animals are very close, and very real...baboons playing on the roof of the chalets!

First game drive - 5:30pm

Buffalo- first sighting of the Big 5

Springbok - these are all over the place, "as common as flies."

Annie posing with the zebras

A ton of pretty zebra along the way...some babies as well.

Annie's favorite of the Big 5 - elephants!

Pretty ugly animals, but kind of cool to watch and crazy to think how fast they run.

I think I like the Rhino's the most

The elephants were coming right at our jeep..if the driver didn't back up, they would have stomped right over us

Hippo on the move...the most dangerous animal that we saw.  Very aggressive and very territorial

Stop for a sparkling wine break, right in the middle of the wildlife.

The lion's playing

This was the scariest part of the safari...this lioness did not want us to get any closer and essentially escorted us away...she looked like she was going to pounce. 

This was the only giraffe we saw that evening

Sunset was beautiful against the mountains

Morning game drive - 6A was an early start!

This time we finally saw the giraffes.  Mission complete, we saw all of the Big 5 in 2 drives!

7am and overlooking the entire game reserve.  Pretty peaceful.

Last leg of the trip- Welcome to Camps Bay...more welcome drinks.

Beginning our drive out to Cape Point via Chapmans Peak

A few stops along the way...Fish Hoek

Kalk Bay

Simon's Town

South Africa's Naval Base

Boulders Beach, home to the penguin colony

Entering Cape Point Nature Reserve.  Baboons everywhere!

Cape of Good Hope

Cape Point...the end of the earth!

Traffic jam

Before jumping back in the car, we had to take a dip in the place where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet.

Woodstocks Saturday market at an old Biscuit Mill

Wading in the water at Camps Bay Beach

Happy hour on The Promenade

The cloud cover over the Twelve Apostles

Winchester Mansion Sunday Jazz Brunch

Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens summer concert

Our last day in Cape Town...our wine tour began with Paarl

stopped off in Franschhoek

and ended in Stellenbosch

To say it was a trip of a lifetime, is an understatement!

Holiday Season

Our friends jump on any reason to celebrate, and Christmas time was no different. Each week brought Christmas lunches, happy hours, parties, dinners/dances etc.  Here are a few highlights.

My cousin Cory came to Guernsey, for the second time, and helped us to celebrate Josh's birthday.  He flew in just in time to experience the M&S dinner/dance!  And what an experience it is!

WAGS night at Baan Thai while the boys were at the PWC Christmas party.

A night out with my Guernsey 'mum' at Rock Garden.

Christmas Decorations

Christmas Eve dinner at La Lanterna, followed by a midnight church service at Town Church.

 Christmas Day

Nap time after all the present opening.

 Late afternoon walk before Christmas dinner cooking starts.

Bank holiday at the driving range.

As always, it was tough to be away from friends and family back in the states.  Thankfully, we had an exciting holiday in South Africa to look forward to.

Our American Thanksgiving

Josh spent Thanksgiving in Paris for and I spent it at work followed by a kick boxing class.  But, we did celebrate appropriately that Saturday.  We hosted 24 of our closest friends, each contributing a side dish and beverages while we whipped up a 25 pound turkey, gravy, sweet potatoes and stuffing.  The prep work started at about 10am and we were a bit worried that the massive turkey would not even fit in our little oven.   But it did, and the night was a success.  It will definitely be a new tradition for the remaining time we have here.  We ate and drank far too much and had a wonderful time.  Thanks to my mom and dad for shipping over loads and loads of decorations!.



Island Vacation in the Canaries

We quickly learned that to make it through a Guernsey winter, one must escape often and to a warm climate!  So we headed to Tenerife in the Canary Islands which is not a far boat ride from Morocco, Africa.  With volcanic rock, black sand and dramatic cliffs making up the landscape, it was not the typical beach vacation.  We enjoyed massive amounts of tapas and sangria and spend an absurd amount of time on lounge chairs at the pool reading books and playing Uno.

Our resort

The cliff path right outside of our restort.

Lunch with a view, and a darn good club sandwich!

Our dolphin and whale watching cruise.  We saw plenty of both!!

 Masca is one of the most picturesque parts of the island and is located in the northwest at the foot of theTeno Mountains.

 

 Los Gigantes cliffs

 Josh's cannon ball

 and after a few rum punches I was able to handle the very cold Atlantic Ocean.

 Fresh seafood!

 Golf...loved the black sand traps

Such a beautiful course!

 This was the location of a few of our lunches.  We enjoyed watching bowling and drinking a local beer.

On our way to Los Abrigos

Uno tournament and a beer in the sleepy fishermans village.

 Last night in Golf del Sur, our favorite tapas spot.

Another fantastic vacation...and for the first time, we arrived back in Guernsey well rested!