Benin

Femke is back from Benin! I missed her. She had a both successful and interesting trip, as often is the case when she goes to West Africa. I took the liberty to select a few of her photos and post them here. Enjoy!

Beer instead of Benin

Femke is in Benin for a week of work, and I am languishing back home, trying unsuccessfully to work. As an antidote I tried out a new beer bar called Beer Temple together with our friend Sander. It has the same owner as another good beer bar (t’Arendsnest), but where the latter only serves Dutch beer (but close to 100 of them) Beer Temple is specialized in American Micro breweries.

I started with an Anchor Liberty Ale on tap, which was beautiful. We also compared two of the Danish brewing genius Mikkeller’s concoctions, the Mikkeller Single Hop Simcoe with his Single Hop Nelson. Both were nice but the one brewed with Simcoe hop was without a doubt the better one.

Dutch friends over for fika

Today Chantal and Pepijn came over for a fika at our place. They are both paragliders and that is how I got to know them. Living in Haarlem, it is not that often we meet, so it was really nice that they popped by.

Back in Amsterdam

After a month in Africa, it is nice to be back in Amsterdam and sleep in your own bed again. But I must admit I had a hard time getting going in the office, writing all those stories. You need recuperate after almost two months of constant travelling.

One way of doing that was to go to the Bokbier Festival in Amsterdam with Femke, then have a brilliant dinner at Restaurant Open. That way we also celebrated (if somewhat late) being together for five wonderful years :-)

I like Cape Town

It was wonderful to be back in Cape Town, if only for a few days. So much has happened since I visited last time, two years ago. Mostly to the better. Lots of new funny bars, restaurants and shops. And more new housing in the townships. But of course there is still a long way to go in South Africa, the poverty in the townships is a stark contrast to the cool bars downtown.

BTW, I stayed at a little design hotel called Antrim Villa, owned by a Swedish guy who moved down.

There will soon be a short story about it all in Expressen.

More photos here.

Paragliding in Wilderness

My plan was to paraglide five days in Wilderness together with Jan and Khobi at Cloudbase Paragliding, to produce a story about that, then continue to Cape Town for another story.
I followed the plan but was unlucky with the weather. So only got eight flights and around an hour in the air. Better than nothing but the potential in this area is huge. But these is pre-season and you can be unlucky.
I still had a nice time, drinking Windhoek with the local pilots and spotting whales while para-waiting.

You'll find more photos here.

Drakensberg and Durban

After Hluhluwe we drove to the Drakensberg area to enjoy the views of the majestic mountains there. But the weather had other plans and covered the peaks in thick rainy clouds. Actually, we didn’t care so much, it was nice to relax for once, eat good food and play carcassone.

After two days of rest we continued to Durban, where we stayed in a simple but funky hotel called the Bordello. Even better was there bar/restaurant Bean Bag Bohemia, where an interesting and mixed crowd knocked down good yet dirt-cheap cocktails and feasted on excellent dim sum.

We also enjoyed visiting the huge aquarium in Durban, partly built inside of what looks like a ship-wreck.

Our last evening together we had a brilliant Indian dinner at the Indian Connection Restaurant. After that Femke flew home to Amsterdam and I flew down to the Wilderness area for some paragliding.

You'll find some more photos here.

Hluhluwe National Park

We spent two nights at the Hilltop Camp in Hluhluwe National Park in North Eastern South Africa. The park is huge and you can drive around with your own car, creating your own private game drives, something that we found very exciting.

I uploaded lots of photos on my web page:
http://waterglobe.net/hluhluwe/

Wonderful Swaziland

We had a great time in the Kingdom of Swaziland. I uploaded lots of photos here:
www.waterglobe.net/swaziland

Done with the winelands, now Swaziland!

Just arrived to the little kingdom Swaziland after five fantastic days in the South African winelands.
Posted lots of photos on my web page:
http://waterglobe.net/sawines/

Here are just a few: