South Africa

From the earliest times of the Discoveries to the present, Table Mountain has always stood out above the South African immensity South African and the surrounding ocean. The centuries passed and Cape Town expanded at his feet. The Capetonians and the visiting outsiders got used to contemplating, ascending and venerating this imposing and mythical plateau.

In early colonial times, Dutch explorers and settlers were terrified of the Karoo, a region of great heat, great cold, great floods and severe droughts. Until the Dutch East India Company founded Graaf-Reinet there. Since then, the fourth oldest city in the rainbow nation it thrived at a fascinating crossroads in its history.

On the eminence of the coast of Mozambique, the province of KwaZulu-Natal is home to an unexpected South Africa. Deserted beaches full of dunes, vast estuarine swamps and hills covered with fog fill this wild land also bathed by the Indian Ocean. It is shared by the subjects of the always proud Zulu nation and one of the most prolific and diverse fauna on the African continent.

We arrived where great Africa yielded to the domains of the “Mostrengo” Adamastor and the Portuguese navigators trembled like sticks. There, where Earth was, after all, far from ending, the sailors' hope of rounding the tenebrous Cape was challenged by the same storms that continue to ravage there.

Bartolomeu Dias was the first European to glimpse Robben Island, when crossing the Cape of Storms. Over the centuries, the colonists turned it into an asylum and prison. Nelson Mandela left in 1982 after eighteen years in prison. Twelve years later, he became South Africa's first black president.

The crossing of Cabo das Tormentas, led by Bartolomeu Dias, transformed this almost southern tip of Africa into an unavoidable scale. And, over time, in Cape Town, one of the meeting points of civilizations and monumental cities on the face of the Earth.

Extending over more than 200km of natural coastline, the Garden Route zigzags through forests, beaches, lakes, gorges and splendid natural parks. We travel from east to west, along the dramatic bottoms of the African continent.

We drive from the deep meanders of the Blyde River to the picturesque ex-colonial settlement of Pilgrim's Rest and the Sudwala Caves. Mile after mile, the province of Mpumalanga reveals its grandeur.

The region north of the Vaal River has been home to two major gold rushes. The second began in 1870, but it was not until the XNUMXth century that the introduction of electricity and industrial machinery generated substantial wealth. Enough to establish a mint, a bank, dozens of other businesses and the homes of the South African national monument Pilgrim's Rest.

Part of its current area was already protected before the turn of the 1926th century. Declared the first national park in the Rainbow Nation in XNUMX, the Kruger National Park has continued to expand. Today, the XNUMXth largest in Africa, it is home to the coveted Big Five and a multitude of other species.