Kristen Magno Photography

The gals...Andrea, Zoe, Katie and Me!

Saturday morning was not one of my finer moments…anyone who knows me will laugh when they hear this…but I was not having a good hair day so of course I was in a slightly sour mood for breakfast. I give thee permission to laugh, I know, it’s ridiculous…it’s one of my “things”…my hair and I have always had a love/hate relationship…anyways…we finally packed up the van and headed for our next part of the trip. Our first stop for the day was at a Private Game Reserve…I don’t remember the name of it; they didn’t have brochures…so if one of you girls remembers post it in the comments por favor. 

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Today is our first “official” day of the Tour up the Garden Route to Oudtshoorn.  After spending the night at the I-to-I house in Fish Hoek, we packed up our gear and hopped into Dave and Kerry’s van to be carted across the country. It is an absolutely gorgeous scenic drive. With coastlines full of beach houses to rolling mountains with waterfalls, South Africa is not lacking in photo ops. Unfortunately most of my pictures were through a glass window in the van as we sped along the freeway towards Robertson where we were going to get a private wine tour and wine tasting at one of the organic vineyards.  Read the rest of this entry »

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Since the internet was expensive and not stellar in Africa I wasn’t able to write detailed blogs with pictures on my experiences. Now that I am home and everybody wants to know how the trip went I thought it would be easier to tell it all at once via blog, and with pictures. So I am going to break-up the trip into separate blogs to make it easier and not ridiculously long…so here is a recap of my first few days in South Africa, plus the journey to it. Read the rest of this entry »

Dear fellow readers,

The last two days have been non-stop chock full of adventure! For my parental units, don’t freak out I am perfectly safe and doing fantastic!

Saturday we started our day off Quad-biking through a private game reserve. We saw a bunch of different animals such as wilder beasts, giraffe, zebra, a rhino, and more…

My quad bike broke down right in front of the rhino and he looked like he was getting anxious so the ranger had me hop on her bike so we could leave pronto and not cause it to charge…totally not my fault…my bike really broke down (for the second time, the first was in the middle of a mud hole gorge)…but I got some really great shots especially of the Cheetahs which we were in a separate area, and of which we got to go inside with them and get really close.

On a separate note, South Africa looks almost exactly like Southern California except a little more green, so I don’t really feel like I am “in Africa” …it is a very first world country except for the townships (ghettos) intermixed with all the sprawling beach houses. The gas stations and rest-stops are even nicer than the ones in the U.S.  Most of the country is farmland. It is quite sad to see so many animals as property, including the “wild” ones. It really makes the vegan cause seem that much more bleak and difficult. It has made me realize that while I may not change the world at least I personally am not contributing to such suffering and slavery.

Ok back to the trip… Read the rest of this entry »

Drama with the airlines! When I got to the airport they had no record of my flight reservation whatsoever…thank goodness I am organized because I printed out my reservation and therefore had all the confirmation numbers so they were able to put me on the flights that I had reserved…bad news they didn’t have my seat reservations or food reservations…

Already PMSing I got quite emotional and had a mini cry in the bathroom airport but all was well in the end except for the food part…I of course didn’t eat any of the food the flight had to offer so KLM is going to hear about it when I get home for sure…hopefully my reservations will be properly set on the way home because I talked to the guy at the counter and he claims he fixed everything for me….

It was a really long long long day of flying…I was total zombiefied on the plane and could barely keep my eyes open from Amsterdam to Cape Town.

Arriving in Cape Town was a pleasant surprise it was a really nice, clean, and easy airport to navigate…the passport check went really fast, my bag was ready to go…the only downfall was the exchange rate for money charged 37% in commission so my $125 dollars was now $75 but luckily the dollar goes far in SA and I haven’t spent even that much so far…

The first night Zoe and I stayed in a backpackers hostel, thankfully we had the place to ourselves so there was no fuss when it came to who slept where or who took showers when and luckily there were no men staying with us as the time…and I only say this for one reason…the bathroom…I’ll show you the pictures when I come home…but it would have been quite the peep show otherwise…

The second day Zoe and I walked to the grocery store and waited around Chill and Surf (the hostel) until 3pm when we were driven over to I-to-I’s volunteer house where we had orientation and met up with the other two girls…

Today was the funnest so far, we went wine tasting at an organic vineyard and than had lunch on a boat and had a mini boat cruise down a river…it was quite nice and the food was really good, all home made…

Except for the plane I haven’t had problems finding food to eat they eat a lot of veggies here…

It has been quite chilly at night but nice during the day…

I have had horrid headaches because of PMS but they seem to be finally going away, I am sure the time difference didn’t help any either…

Tonight we are staying in a beautiful (and supposedly haunted) backpackers hostel but it’s more like a hotel very old woody charm to it…

Tomorrow we are going quad biking through a game reserve and I think to the elephant sanctuary and maybe even doing the ocean safari…

Hope all is well at home…miss you guys!

-Kristen